Freedom Roundtable - 2009 Liberty Forum

Upside Down Flag Has Vet in Fight for 1st Amendment Rights

Dispute Over Flag Protest Erupts in Wisc. Village

by Robert Imrie

(http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/07/11-0)

WAUSAU, Wis. - An American flag flown upside down as a protest in a northern Wisconsin village was seized by police before a Fourth of July parade and the businessman who flew it - an Iraq war veteran - claims the officers trespassed and stole his property.

This photo provided by Susan Willems taken July 5, 2009 shows an American flag being flown upside down, a day after it was removed by local police, in Crivitz, Wis. The flag being flown upside down as a protest in a small northern Wisconsin village was seized by police before a Fourth of July parade. The businessman flying the flag claims police trespassed and stole his property. (AP Photo/Susan Willems)

A day after the parade, police returned the flag and the man's protest - over a liquor license - continued.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Wisconsin is considering legal action against the village of Crivitz for violating Vito Congine Jr.'s' First Amendment rights, Executive Director Chris Ahmuty said.

"It is not often that you see something this blatant," Ahmuty said.

In mid-June, Congine, 46, began flying the flag upside down - an accepted way to signal distress - outside the restaurant he wants to open in Crivitz, a village of about 1,000 people some 65 miles north of Green Bay.

He said his distress is likely bankruptcy because the village board refused to grant him a liquor license after he spent nearly $200,000 to buy and remodel a downtown building for an Italian supper club.

Congine's upside-down-flag represents distress to him; to others in town, it represents disrespect of the flag.

Hours before a Fourth of July parade, four police officers went to Congine's property and removed the flag under the advice of Marinette County District Attorney Allen Brey.

Neighbor Steven Klein watched in disbelief.

"I said, 'What are you doing?' Klein said. "They said, 'It is none of your business.'"

The next day, police returned the flag.

Brey declined comment Friday.

Marinette County Sheriff Jim Kanikula said it was not illegal to fly the flag upside down but people were upset and it was the Fourth of July.

"It is illegal to cause a disruption," he said.

The parade went on without any problems, Kanikula said.

Village President John Deschane, 60, an Army veteran who served in Vietnam, said many people in town believe it's disrespectful to fly the flag upside down.

"If he wants to protest, let him protest but find a different way to do it," Deschane said.

Congine, a Marine veteran who served in Iraq in 2004, said he intends to keep flying the flag upside down.

"It is pretty bad when I go and fight a tyrannical government somewhere else," Congine said, "and then I come home to find it right here at my front door."

© 2009 Associated Press

Victory for Student Rights in Wisconsin: Regents to Restore Due Process Rights

FIRE Press Release

(http://www.thefire.org/index.php/article/10568.html)

MADISON, Wis., May 6, 2009—After substantial input from the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), the University of Wisconsin System Board of Regents has restored essential due process rights for students statewide. The restored rights include the option of a hearing before a committee including student peers, attorney representation in the case of serious allegations, and both e-mail and paper notification of proceedings.

"The Board of Regents should be highly commended for protecting students' rights and fundamental notions of fairness across the state," FIRE President Greg Lukianoff said. "The policy revisions are a victory for due process rights, which have been systematically reduced in higher education over the last few decades. It is very refreshing to see a university system take steps towards restoring procedural protections for students."

Since 2007, the Board of Regents has been developing a new version of Chapter UWS 17 of the State Administrative Code, which governs infractions and judicial procedures within Wisconsin's public universities. A committee of administrators and students suggested many controversial changes that met with strong opposition from FIRE and student groups. The most objectionable changes limited due process rights and afforded a dangerous degree of discretion to administrators. Had it been granted, this discretion would have opened the door to due process lawsuits as well as arbitrary and inconsistent punishments.

Adam Kissel, Director of FIRE's Individual Rights Defense Program, went on a speaking tour of Wisconsin campuses sponsored by the United Council of UW Students in early March to advocate against the controversial changes. On March 5, he spoke before several Regents directly at a public hearing. On March 13, FIRE wrote the Regents with seven specific concerns together with the Committee for Academic Freedom and Rights at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Almost all of FIRE's concerns were addressed satisfactorily by the Regents, who will vote on the final version of the policy on Friday, May 8.

One significant issue involved a single word. The revision committee had changed "shall" to "may" in the provision that "The hearing examiner or committee shall observe recognized legal privileges." The change to "may" would have taken away a huge swath of legal privileges that had been guaranteed to students, leaving students with no idea, until they actually arrived at the hearing, what the rules of their hearing would be. After FIRE intervened, the Regents restored the original word.

At least one member of the revision committee has criticized these positive changes. "It is sad that some administrators are unhappy about these improvements for students' rights," Kissel said. "Students should not have to fight administrators for their rights every step of the way."

FIRE is a nonprofit educational foundation that unites civil rights and civil liberties leaders, scholars, journalists, and public intellectuals from across the political and ideological spectrum on behalf of individual rights, due process, freedom of expression, academic freedom, and rights of conscience at our nation's colleges and universities. FIRE's efforts to preserve liberty within the University of Wisconsin System and on campuses across America are detailed at thefire.org.

Which do you value more?

Liberty or equality?

Historically, these two values play a fierce game of tug of war where one recovers the ground the other loses. This has been a stumbling block for political thinkers and institutions as it appears a society can't be completely equal and completely liberated at the same time. Here's how the problem breaks down.

If you answered equality then be sure to take a look at Marx who proposed the state should act like a gigantic Robin Hood by dismantling huge strongholds of wealth and redistributing it equitably throughout the society. Where did these ideas lead? Pol Pot slaughtered Cambodia's middle class, Mao starved his people and Stalin razed dissidents. Although everybody became economically equal their liberty dissipated, and if you want to split hairs they weren't even all that equal when compared to those in power.

But what if you answered liberty? Just as a commitment to equality breeds state socialism a devotion to liberty breeds free market capitalism. Unfortunately, because free markets are stacked like pyramids those on top can buy more liberty than those lifting at the bottom. Reagan believed so much in liberty that he spread it by force to Central America resulting in the mass murder of hundreds of thousands, and George W. Bush went into Iraq with the idea of an entirely privatized corporate Avalon. In the same way as state socialism failed to deliver either liberty or equality so does free market capitalism.

So, what is the answer? It is my belief neither business nor government provide any satisfying answers. The Anarchists of the late 19th century emerged with a solution to this problem. They felt liberty flowed directly from equality, but equality must be enacted voluntarily through mutual alliances between peers. All illegitimate authority could be eradicated. Businesses could be reorganized to fit the needs of the workers, not the bosses. After Argentina's overnight economic collapse it was the workers who returned to their assembly lines and pulled themselves up by their bootstraps. This only happened because the principles of pragmatic Anarchism was out in the open and familiar to the common laborer. There was a long tradition of Spanish and Italian Anarchy which enabled the workers to spontaneously mobilize.

The only thing Americans can agree on is they want change. Through the proper amount of education and persuasion even Americans could organize and directly grant themselves both liberty and equality without having to appeal to any higher powers. Don't know where to begin? Start by reminding (or maybe even teaching) people that a better world is possible.