Nevada town makes it illegal to fly a foreign flag

[Nym90]

Commentary: Town makes it illegal to fly a foreign flag
POSTED: 3:58 p.m. EST, November 20, 2006
By Ruben Navarrette Jr.
Special to CNN

SAN DIEGO, California (CNN) -- This is where we've arrived in this country: You have the constitutional right to burn an American flag, but you can get into trouble for simply flying a foreign one.

At least you can in the 30,000-person town of Pahrump, Nevada, which is close to Las Vegas and even closer to stepping over the line with an idiotic, intolerant and insulting ban on foreign (read: Mexican) flags. The town council voted last week, 3-2, to approve an ordinance that makes it illegal to display a foreign flag -- unless an American flag is flown above it. Scofflaws face a $50 fine and 30 hours of community service.

Pahrump resident Michael Miraglia proposed the ban because, he said, he got upset when he saw immigrant activists marching through U.S. cities last spring, waving Mexican flags. Mr. Miraglia told USA Today that he was especially miffed that "we had Mexican restaurants closed that day."

So that's what started all this -- the fact that some guy couldn't get his burrito fix. It's our cultural schizophrenia. Americans love Mexican food, even if they don't always love Mexicans. They never ask themselves: If they succeed in getting rid of all the Mexicans -- as some would, no doubt, like to do -- who's going to make the food?

For the record, I don't think people should wave flags of countries they left behind or celebrate one country while demanding rights from another. But just because you'd like to see a given outcome -- i.e., immigrants putting foreign flags in mothballs -- doesn't mean you should use the coercive power of government to bring it about. The end does not justify the means.

Besides, the spectacle with the Mexican flags was no different than what happened a few weeks later when American Jews marched in Los Angeles and New York, waiving the Israeli flag to show support for Israel in its war against Hezbollah. About that, there were few complaints.

What gives someone the right to wave a foreign flag anyway? Answer: The First Amendment. Bans like the one in Pahrump are almost certainly unlawful and unconstitutional, leaving one to wonder, about Mr. Miraglia and the Pahrump Town Council, what part of illegal don't they understand?

What I don't understand is how immigration restrictionists can still insist, with a straight face, that the immigration debate and its offshoots haven't become anti-Mexican. When people brush aside distinctions of legal versus illegal immigrants and start banning the Mexican flag, what else do you call it?

As my friends in Texas say, I may have been born at night -- but I wasn't born last night.

At moments like this, I barely recognize my own country. Americans confronted slavery, the Great Depression, the Third Reich, and racial injustice here at home. Now some of us tremble at the sight of a piece of cloth. How sad. We're a bigger people than that. Even if some of us, now and then, tend to forget it.

[© tweed]

If anyone cares enough it will be overturned in court.  But something interesting: a strict interpretation of this law would lead me to believe it'd be legal to fly a defunct foreign flag, such as the flag of the Third Reich or the Soviet Union.

[John Dibble]

It'll be overturned in court the first time the law is enforced. Yes, the three members of the city council that voted yes are stupid, yes the whole reason this happened is stupid - I've come to terms that the world is inhabited by primarily stupid people. In fact, 3 out of 5 people being idiots might be a fair ratio to reflect the rest of the world.

[Gabu]

Well, you can be certain I'm not going to live in Pahrump, in that case.

[John Dibble]

Well, you can be certain I'm not going to live in Pahrump, in that case.

I probably would have been certain of that regardless of this law.

[Gabu]

Well, you can be certain I'm not going to live in Pahrump, in that case.

I probably would have been certain of that regardless of this law.

I don't even know where Pahrump is.

Come to think of it, I didn't even know such a town existed before reading this topic.

[Bleeding heart conservative, HTMLdon]

Pahrump is where Art Bell is from!  Bell is the former co-host of Coast to Coast AM, a radio show where they had Alien-call-in shows (meaning outer space alien, not illegal alien)

[Gabu]

Pahrump is where Art Bell is from!  Bell is the former co-host of Coast to Coast AM, a radio show where they had Alien-call-in shows (meaning outer space alien, not illegal alien)

If I recall correctly who Art Bell is, that is not something that Pahrump should be proud of.

[Joe Republic]

Aside from the philosophical perspective, I really can't see how this law is even important.  But then I don't even fly the flag of my own country, so perhaps I just don't find anything like this to be important.

[Tetro Kornbluth]

It seems everything is so perfect in Pahrump that the council got bored and decided to ban flags...

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

Someone should find some Puerto Rican guy to drive around that town with the Puerto Rican flag, and answer anyone who questions him in Spanish. That would be some funny sh**t when their dumbasses try to deport him.

[Nation]

That does it. I'm not  moving to Pahrump.

[Alcon]

Pahrump resident Michael Miraglia proposed the ban because, he said, he got upset when he saw immigrant activists marching through U.S. cities last spring, waving Mexican flags. Mr. Miraglia told USA Today that he was especially miffed that "we had Mexican restaurants closed that day."

Hahaha, wow.

This isn't even a very conservative place for a desert town, especially considering there are comparatively few Hispanics - Kerry broke 40%.  I doubt this will last.

[Nation]

It really seems like more of a symbolic piece of "legislation" more than anything else. You honestly think law enforcement will waste their time with this?

[Gabu]

You honestly think law enforcement will waste their time with this?

Sometimes, I honestly wouldn't be so sure that they wouldn't.  There was a thing I saw in the news recently where some guys got charged with trespassing.  What were they doing?  They were part of a group that goes around and plants flowers in run-down areas.  They were caught doing so on private property, so the police rounded them up and brought them in.

Yeah, you read that right.

One of them sarcastically commented, "We should have been doing heroin instead, because then no one would have done anything at all."