I know this may be a dead issue here on ATS, and I may be beating a dead horse... but understand that this is an important issue to those who do
understand and enjoy their freedom of speech.
A quick summary so far:
1) A man from Crivitz Wisconsin, to protest having his liquor license refused, started flying the American flag upside down; the local village cops
came onto his property and removed the flag without warrant, or for that matter, any legal rights or reason other than to prevent the owner from
catching a bunch of * from the locals. That information can be found on
this ATS
thread. The flag was eventually returned.
2) A protest was held outside the man's home recently, as seen on this TV station's broadcast
here, with further information
here.
Now, we have yet
another issue regarding the flag and the village police.
As reported by the
Eagle Herald, a newspaper serving this area, the flag is no longer being flown upside down, as "the pole has been cut down
and the flag taken from property owned by Vito Congine Jr as of Friday morning" (quoted from the Eagle Herald, Monday July 27 2009.
Furthermore, it seems that a neighbor reported the flag missing at roughly 10pm Thursday night... by 5:30 Friday morning, it was noted that the pole
was also missing; a SECOND call was made to the Marinette Sheriff's office (remember, they gave the initial order to have the village police
illegally seize the flag), with a unit arriving at about 8:00am Friday morn.
...
Not only do we have the area cops stealing without warrant, we have them ignoring an issue that they wanted to prevent in the first place (the
protest), AND we have them ignoring the fact that property was stolen AGAIN.
Now, before anyone jumps on the "cops are busy", think again. Crivitz has a staggering population of 990, spread over miles and miles of wooded
cabins and farmland. There are, at any given time, three cops within the village limits, with county cops and state troopers going through all the
time. In the evenings, you can expect to see three squad cars at the Citgo station, another one over at the Piggly Wiggly, and one more at the Town
Hall, which, incidently, is just a block or two away from Congine's house! What took so long in their responding to a theft?
Again, to quote from the
Eagle Herald...
The Marinette County Sheriff's Department declined to comment Sunday, while a call to the Crivitz Police Department went
unanswered.
...
So, why is this important for us? Just think of what will happen when we begin to hold our own protests against important issues, when our numbers
grow and swell. What will happen when we begin to fly our Don't Tread flags or our American flag inverted? The village of Crivitz is a small
community, sitting nicely within a square mile; imagine what will happen in larger areas.