Distress Signals

Vito Congine, Jr. served with the United States Marine Corps in Iraq in 2004. Now that he’s home, he attempted to start a new business in the village of Crivitz, Wisconsin. He purchased a building, spent $200,000 fixing it up, and wanted to turn it into an Italian restaurant. He applied for a liquor license, but that’s when he hit a snag.

The village board voted against it.

In protest, he began flying his American flag upside down, which is often used as a distress signal. Unfortunately for Congine and others who support the First Amendment, the county’s district attorney, Allen Brey, and the county sheriff, Jim Kanikula, had four officers forcibly remove the upside-down flag in time for the village’s Fourth of July parade because village residents didn’t like it.

Brey refuses to talk about, but Kanikula said that while Congine didn’t actually do anything illegal by flying it upside-down, it might upset people and that would ultimately cause a disruption. Kanikula said, “It is illegal to cause a disruption.”

To add insult to injury, the village’s president, John Deschane, remarked: “If he wants to protest, let him protest but find a different way to do it.” And that way would be what, Mr. Deschane? A way that is designed to make you feel warm and fuzzy inside? A way that you don’t have to actually hear it or see it? A way that you can ignore it and pretend that it doesn’t exist? Would that make you feel better? No doubt it would.

The thing is, life doesn’t work that way, and it shouldn’t work that way in the United States. There’s sick irony here: Congine’s not only a veteran, but he’s having his First Amendment rights pissed on for the very day that is supposed to honor him and for what he supposedly fought.

I don’t know Vito, but I do know that Vito has more balls than I ever will. He served in the military on foreign soil and was willing to die for his country. Then he comes home and he’s greeted with the same fascist tactics that the United States was supposedly fighting against.

The only things different are the names.

Folks like Allen Brey, Jim Kanikula, and John Deschane probably smiled on the Fourth of July and felt like good little Americans because they had the power to quiet someone with whom they disagreed. Now Vito Congine has a chance to remind them of something that he was fighting for while in the Marines: free speech.

If these guys thought that flying a flag upside-down was going to cause a disruption, how about a nice settlement for violating Congine’s First Amendment rights at the expense of the taxpayers?

God bless America and Vito Congine, Jr.

ReferenceImrie, Robert. “Dispute Over Flag Protest Erupts in Wisc. Village.” AP/Yahoo! News. 10 July 2009.

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