Posted on 04/21/2015 5:00:58 AM PDT by Kaslin
An Air Force veteran was hauled away in handcuffs and detained by campus security at Valdosta State University in Georgia after she stopped protesters from desecrating an American flag.
Michelle Manhart admits that she snatched Old Glory from a group of demonstrators who put the flag on the ground and were walking on it.
One member of the unnamed group told the Valdosta Daily Times they were desecrating the flag as “a symbol of our protest.”
“When a slave understands his situation and understands he doesn’t want to be in slavery, he does not respect or revere anything his slave master has put in front of him, a VSU student told the newspaper.
Manhart was issued a criminal trespass warning and was slapped with a lifetime ban from the public university campus.
“The flag is an iconic symbol for freedom,” Manhart told me in a telephone interview. “If you are going to fight for a cause and use the First Amendment - how are you going to stomp and trample the icon that gives you that right?”
Valdosta State University, which is funded by tax dollars, issued two statements defending the desecration of the American flag.
“We respect the rights of people to peacefully assemble and voice their opinions,” the statement read. “Our primary concern is the safety of our students, faculty and staff and our ability to carry out our responsibilities to all our students on campus. We are monitoring the situation.”
On Saturday, the president of Valdosta State, sent me this statement:
“The American flag represents everything that is best about our country,” Dr. William McKinney said. “As the Supreme Court has held, one of those things is the right to free speech, which includes the right to disrespect even the symbol of our country. While I firmly disagree with the actions of the protesters, I understand their right to protest.”
In other words, Valdosta State University loves flag burners more so than flag wavers.
Manhart, whose husband is a 21-year airman deployed overseas, admitted that she took the flag.
“It was tattered and torn, covered with mud and dirt,” she said. “I told the demonstrators that it needed to be properly disposed of.”
Manhart learned about the flag desecration last week. A family acquaintance told her the demonstrators had been trampling on the flag for three days. So Manhart called the university to complain. She said she was told the matter would be investigated.
On April 17th Manhart learned the demonstrators had once again desecrated the flag - so she drove to the campus and eventually took matters into her own hands. She brought along her 19-year-old daughter who filmed the entire incident.
“I walked up, picked up the flag and walked away,” she said.
The video shows Manhart being surrounded by angry screaming protesters. An unidentified demonstrator grabs the flag - but Manhart refused to let go.
Campus police ordered Manhart to drop the flag. She disobeyed their orders. It took three police officers to subdue the Air Force veteran.
As they were leading Marhart away, someone on the video can be heard asking the police, “You couldn’t stand up for the flag?”
She was detained for several hours and initially the campus police officers threatened to file federal charges. However, she was eventually set free and banished from the public university campus. Manhart told me she could just not allow those demonstrators to desecrate the nation’s flag.
“I have seen that flag on caskets returning home,” she said. “It was just the thought of those demonstrators standing on someone’s casket. I was so internally frustrated.”
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports Manhart was reprimanded by the military in 2007 after she appeared in Playboy. She posed wearing her uniform and also draped in the American flag. The newspaper reports she was demoted and quit the Air Force the following year. Manhart told me she was honorably discharged.
The intellectual elites at Valdosta State University should be ashamed of their behavior. They should be honoring brave patriots like Michelle Manhart. Instead, they hauled this brave woman away in handcuffs and banished her from their campus.
The way I see it - her only crime was behaving exactly the way we would expect a veteran of the Armed Forces to behave.
I don’t see anyone stepping on the flag though. As a matter of fact I see people stepping around it.
I did, and found she was a former Playboy model. So what? Sue her
“An Indiana legislator should attach a rider to a bill that rescinds that order.”
It’s in Georgia, not Indiana.
Thanks—for some reason Indiana stuck in my mind.
Georgia it is.
As long as the owner is okay with it, yes.
While I, and my family, would never do this, I would also take umbrage with anyone who would try to steal another's property in the name of patriotism.
Now, if that flag had been stolen and was being trampled on, it would be a completely different story.
I would imagine she was subjected to prolonged, multiple pat-downs while in custody.
I would imagine she was subjected to prolonged, multiple pat-downs while in custody.
Throw down a Mexican or Rainbow flag and see what happens.
I'd like to see a list of slaves who attend Valdosta State University.
Students show their hatred of Obama.
On April 17th Manhart learned the demonstrators had once again desecrated the flag - so she drove to the campus and eventually took matters into her own hands. She brought along her 19-year-old daughter who filmed the entire incident.
So this had been going on more than one day. Valdosta State University in Georgia you should be ashamed of yourself.
Agree and it turns out the punk that is walking all over the flag, kicking it, etc... was not even a student.
The University Police should have asked them for their student IDs. on the first day.
My bet though is the campus police was afraid to do it.
You don’t like your own country.
Get a photo of the President and walk all over it. He represents our POLICIES.
The flag represents our people. It represents our HONORED DEAD.
We bury honorable people under that flag. The flag is draped over the dead Soldier’s coffin. That flag is then reverently folded to present to the loved ones of the dead Soldier. It is as though the spirit of the dead Soldier is in that folded flag.
I have one of those flags. I presented several of those flags to grieving families.
If you don’t like our country and its policies, then get a photo of the President and stomp all over it.
Do not disrespect our honored dead.
I’m probably the only person on this board who is an alumnus of Valdosta State (I picked up a graduate degree while stationed at nearby Moody AFB). Very conservative school, with a large number of students who are military, retired military, veterans or dependents of service members. When I heard about the protest, I was stunned. Not long ago, I think the demonstrators would have been met by an angry crowd and the protest would have ended on the spot. But liberalism has thoroughly infected the academy, even places like Valdosta State.
Looking at these members of the “victim class,” I wonder how many are attending VSU on a Hope Scholarship, the taxpayer funded program that pays for 127 semester hours of tuition at a state college, university or technical school. The Hope Scholarship is now a $600 million line item in the state budget; the vast majority of recipients never earn a degree, they simply waste their time and the taxpayers’ money. Still, it’s rather remarkable that the “slaveholders” in the state of Georgia are willing to invest so much in an education program that can directly benefit students like the protestors at VSU.
As for Ms. Manhart, I believe her heart is in the right place, but there are a couple of things that bother me about this episode. First of all, she isn’t a student or staff member at VSU; her sister “alerted” her to the situation and the former SSgt rushed onto campus, daughter in tow and cellphone camera grinding away.
Why was it necessary to record the incident? Was she worried about possible legal repercussions, or was she aiming at generating some attention or publicity? Apparently, her career peaked with that infamous Playboy spread, and she strikes me as someone who likes the limelight. If that was the case, she accomplished her mission; I’ve seen her on a number of media outlets in the past few days.
IMO, Ms. Manhart could have been far more effective in challenging the protestors on their ludicrous ideas. Looking at that sad group of demonstrators, I doubt any could do more that spout Democratic party talking points, so it wouldn’t be that hard to illustrate just how bankrupt their ideology really is. And better yet, why not spend a few more minutes and organize your own counter-protest? In Valdosta, Georgia, it wouldn’t be hard to find a 50 or 60 people who would be willing to show up and peacefully confront the protestors.
Maybe I’m a little too old-fashioned (and still bleed Air Force blue), but I believe Ms. Manhart lost some of her credibility and self-respect when she decided to pose for Playboy. If she was that anxious to pose nude, all she had to do was get out of the military and show off her assets for any magazine willing to pay her. But that wouldn’t have quite the impact of an active-duty service member, so took the easy money and quick fame from Playboy, and deliberately trashed her Air Force career. It’s that kind of specious thinking that makes people question her current motives.
I’ll give her the benefit of the doubt, but when someone throws away a 14-year Air Force career to help Hugh Hefner make a few more dollars, it’s easy to question their motives when they re-enter the public eye.
Yes. I don’t worship cloth.
Wait a minute. Where do you get the idea that she desecrated the flag herself? Explain
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http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3281222/posts
Scroll down to #3.
No, thanks, I am a woman, so it won’t do anything for me.
No if she had wiped herself up with it, I'd be upset about it
Well, yes, trampling it would be worse, but I think we are just quibbling about degrees of evil here.
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