PATRIOT PERSECUTED for flying REAL American flag!

[Bobby-Joe]

Arizona this time fellow Wolverines.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_upshot/20100901/cm_yblog_upshot/dont-tread

REAL American Andy McDonel is flying the Gadsden flag, for purely historical reasons (as in remind everyone that Muslims aren't REAL Americans) but the nanny state though police in the forum of his home owners association is sending the storm troopers after him.

An Arizona man is in trouble with his homeowners' association over flying the Gadsden flag, which features a coiled rattlesnake and the words "Don't Tread on Me."

The flag has been adopted by members of the tea party movement for its association with the American Revolution, but Andy McDonel tells the New York Times that he has hung the flag from his roof simply for its historical significance.

What ever happened to property owner's rights. It's not like McDonel is flying a Mexican flag or something to divide the neighborhood.

Arizona has a state statute that allows Arizonans to fly "the Stars and Stripes, the state flag, flags representing Indian nations as well as the official flags of the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines and Coast Guard," the Times reports.

McDonel's homeowners' association is strictly interpreting that law to ban the flying of any other flags, including the Gadsden. The American Civil Liberties Union is defending McDonel, saying the homeowners' group is taking too strict a view of the statute and restricting McDonel's right to free speech

More proof that it's Nazi Germany all over again.

Sure this sounds like two groups of cranky old, pasty face white guys screaming at each other "get off my lawn!" right before they have a mass heart attack, but there are basic rights here. Just because someone signs an agreement with a homeowners associations not to put political signs over his house means he loses the RIGHT to do so. There is a greater RIGHT than some contract with your neighbors not to screw up the property values and that is the RIGHT to be a REAL American. And in Arizona today that right is threatened.

[Benedict A. Davis]

Re: PATRIOT PERSECUTED for flying REAL American flag!

The Don't tread on me snake was first mentioned in history books in 1775 as an insignia used by the Country's first Marines

We do know when it first entered the history books.
In the fall of 1775, the British were occupying Boston and the young Continental Army was holed up in Cambridge, woefully short on arms and ammunition. At the Battle of Bunker Hill, Washington's troops had been so low on gunpowder that they were ordered "not to fire until you see the whites of their eyes."
In October, a merchant ship called The Black Prince returned to Philadelphia from a voyage to England. On board were private letters to the Second Continental Congress that informed them that the British government was sending two ships to America loaded with arms and gunpowder for the British troops.
Congress decided that General Washington needed those arms more than General Howe. A plan was hatched to capture the British cargo ships. They authorized the creation of a Continental Navy, starting with four ships. The frigate that carried the information from England, the Black Prince, was one of the four. It was purchased, converted to a man-of-war, and renamed the Alfred.
To accompany the Navy on their first mission, Congress also authorized the mustering of five companies of Marines. The Alfred and its sailors and marines went on to achieve some of the most notable victories of the American Revolution. But that's not the story we're interested in here.
What's particularly interesting for us is that some of the Marines that enlisted that month in Philadelphia were carrying drums painted yellow, emblazoned with a fierce rattlesnake, coiled and ready to strike, with thirteen rattles, and sporting the motto "Don't Tread on Me."

So, in effect, the people protesting that flag are belittling the history of our soldiers and sailors not complaining of some as of late political group. This is a disgrace, I think everyone should write their congressmen and demand that all federal monies be withheld from the State until this slap in the face to our brave servicemen is rectified!

[Pastor Isaac Peters]

Re: PATRIOT PERSECUTED for flying REAL American flag!

Just because someone signs an agreement with a homeowners associations not to put political signs over his house means he loses the RIGHT to do so. There is a greater RIGHT than some contract with your neighbors not to screw up the property values and that is the RIGHT to be a REAL American. And in Arizona today that right is threatened.

Right you are, Brother. That blatantly communist, America-hating HOA is perverting the original intent of protective covenants, which were there to protect a community from outsiders who weren't suited to it, not to persecute REAL Americans.