In the spirit of "patriots" who want to criminalize flag-burning (thus missing the whole point of what the flag represents), I give you the small town of Pahrump, Nev.
The elected town board in the remote Mojave Desert community voted 3-2 on Tuesday to enact an ordinance making it illegal to fly a foreign nation's flag by itself.
Flying another country's flag, whether it is a British Union Jack or the flag of Mexico, is punishable by a $50 fine and 30 hours' community service, unless it is flown below an American flag.
Let me tell you, all the folks up here in Minnesota that fly Swedish and Norwegian flags are going to be a tad upset.
The flag measure wasn't the only piece of silly legislation to pass. Pahrump also made English the city's official language, and outlawed town benefits to illegal immigrants -- which cuts such immigrants off from.... nothing.
"We don't have any" benefits, town manager David Richards says. "If we ever have any, they'll be denied to illegal immigrants."
So what sparked this muscular show of contempt for constitutional rights?
The ordinance's sponsor, Michael Miraglia, a retired Illinois state worker, said the flag restriction was a reaction to nationwide demonstrations in May against a crackdown on illegal immigration. He said he didn't like seeing protesters waving Mexican flags and demanding immigrants not go to work that day.
"In Pahrump, we had Mexican restaurants closed that day," he complained. "Only one restaurant stayed open."
I see his point. Perhaps the board's next move should be to establish city-mandated hours of operation for all Mexican restaurants, to prevent such a thing from ever happening again.
free speech, Pahrump, First Amendment, politics, midtopia
3 comments:
Well hello from Pahrump, NV LOL.
What can I say, we have been one of the fastest-growing counties in the US for several years.
Unfortunately most of that growth has come from Yeehaws migrating from the midwest.
The situation here is frankly much worse than this new bit would even indicate ie: quite a sizeable minority openly advocating for outright assaults on people of Hispanic descent. I'm looking for us to make national news again in the not-too-distant future and not in a good way.
LOL. What are the odds?
I understand that such can be one result of tensions in areas under lots of pressure from illegal immigration. But hopefully cooler heads will prevail.
Good luck!
What's ironic is we are NOT under tremendous pressure from illegal immigratiion in this community. My husband has been here over 30 years and there USED to be a sizeable Hispanic population possibly because....there was a lot of agriculture.
Farms are all gone now and most of the Hispanic community with it.
The ones who are still here are US citizens for the most part and have been here since long, long before these newcomer morons ever heard of this place.
It's outright and blatant racism, no doubt about it.
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