Posted on 02/06/2006 7:04:44 PM PST by beaversmom
The U.S. and Mexican flags dancing with the wind in Louis Garza's front yard have brewed up bitter resentment in his East Dallas neighborhood.
Louis Garza initially flew a much larger Mexican flag above the Stars and Stripes outside his Dallas home. A friend begged him to take it down, and he replaced it with a smaller Mexican flag that flies atop his pole in protest of the war in Iraq.
Perched atop a more than 20-foot pole and seen from blocks away, the green, white and red Mexican flag snaps in the brisk breeze. The red, white and blue American flag flies beneath and there lies the problem.
Sitting on a bar stool surrounded by a few veterans at White Rock VFW Post 6796, Cecil Caddel, a Korean War veteran and Mr. Garza's neighbor, spoke about the U.S. flag being flown below another flag.
"It irritates the hell out of me," Mr. Caddel said. "We didn't go to war to fly a Mexican flag over our flag."
The flag clash has tapped into deep-rooted passions and Mr. Garza's right as a U.S. citizen to use the Stars and Stripes to protest the war in Iraq and support his Mexican heritage.
Mr. Garza, a 71-year-old Brownsville native, recently answered the door to his eclectic home wearing an Alan Jackson T-shirt, mirrored sunglasses and a black cowboy hat.
Two pianos and more than a dozen guitars fill the small house he has lived in for 40 years.
A bust of Abraham Lincoln sits prominently on a bookcase.
His parents came from Jimenez, Mexico, across the border from Brownsville. Mr. Garza said his mother swam the river at Matamoros so she could give birth to him on American soil.
"She wanted the best for me and all this country had to...
(Excerpt) Read more at dallasnews.com ...
Let's try some word associations:
bow
arrow
rag
kerosene
match
fire
TWANG
adios
Allowed to do what you want on your own property...as long as no rights or laws are being broken. Flying another nation's flag on top of Old Glory should be considered treason. Well not treason, but along those lines.
The guy's made a choice there by placing the Mexican flag ABOVE AND OVER the American flag. It's a nasty point and I disrespect it completely.
He's in the United States and should show some respect for the flag of the country and the country itself.
I agree that anchor babies should be deported. But they aren't going to be. But we do need to interpret and apply the Fourteenth Amendment properly and that will remove the "anchor baby" misapplication as it now exists.
This guy, well, he's just showing himself to be a disrespectful lodger. Just entirely a disrespectful person.
Flying the flag of another nation, especially under protest of this one, is an agressive act.
Sorry guy, but he's 75 years old, he was born in America, and he's lived in America all of his life. There is no way you can spin him into being anything other than an American. Just because you don't like his politics doesn't change the facts.
Just because something is "not illegal" does not make it ethical, moral and/or right.
That's the point that a lot of people make as to this grandiose guy's disrespectful act.
I don't think he deserves to have that American flag, myself.
I'm still trying to figure out how flying the Mexican flag is a protest of the war in Iraq. |
On the other hand, maybe I shouldn't try to figure it out.
I have always been under the impression that it was a violation of the flag code (or something of that nature) to fly the flag of another country ABOVE our flag. Personally, I would deport this disrespectful dirtbag.
Born to illegal aliens, his mom swam across the river to give birth to him. He illustrates the fifth column we import with anchor babies.
Well, no, not according to the Fourteenth Amendment as it is written, no, he isn't an American citizen. It's been misapplied in contemporary times such that this guy and others like him can claim citizenship by their illegal-sneaking process, but it does not mean that the Amendment ever meant that.
Most people get that the process of illegals sneaking in for purposes of birthing at taxpayer expense is usery of the worst kind.
Whether it's "legal" or not -- the point is that it's not ethical behavior and it certainly is objectionable.
Let this offensive guy enjoy his old age in a country he subjects to Mexico but eventually the Fourteenth Amendment will again be accurately and appropriately applied and people such as this can go back where they belong. It isn't in the U.S.
He doesn't deserve that American flag. Let him paint his house with a Mexican flag but he doesn't deserve that American flag.
Here in 'euro-centric' Communist Vermont, I see flags on many nations flown on the property of the people here. To their credit, the foreign flag is ALWAYS on a separate pole, or displayed BELOW the American flag. Guess those of Mexican descent didn't get the memo.
Louis Garza has sandwiched an American flag between two Mexican flags at his home.
UNITED STATES CODE
TITLE 36
CHAPTER 10
§175. Position and manner of display
(c) No other flag or pennant should be placed above or, if on the same level, to the right of the flag of the United States of America, except during church services conducted by naval chaplains at sea, when the church pennant may be flown above the flag during church services for the personnel of the Navy. No person shall display the flag of the United Nations or any other national or international flag equal, above, or in a position of superior prominence or honor to, or in place of, the flag of the United States at any place within the United States or any Territory or possession thereof: Provided, That nothing in this section shall make unlawful the continuance of the practice heretofore followed of displaying the flag of the United Nations in a position of superior prominence or honor, and other national flags in positions of equal prominence or honor, with that of the flag of the United States at the headquarters of the United Nations.
(g) When flags of two or more nations are displayed, they are to be flown from separate staffs of the same height. The flags should be of approximately equal size. International usage forbids the display of the flag of one nation above that of another nation in time of peace.
I cry for my father still who served active duty behind enemy lines in Korea for two frickin years after breaking both his legs on parachute impact into Korea.
My dad and a lot of men and women like them fought to the bitter end with all they had to protect and defend our flag and our nation.
This crusty old man whatever his problems and sadness may be, does not deserve that American flag.
I don't understand how flying the Mexican flag above our flag somehow protests the Iraq war. It's a clear sign of disrespect for our flag, but not anything else. Maybe senility.
And Garza's been a disloyal traitor SOB ever since.
"Flying another nation's flag on top of Old Glory should be considered treason. Well not treason, but along those lines."
Not in a free society. I prefer as few restrictions on an individuals rights as possible. I see the right to be a jerk as central to a free society. Leave treason charges for things that have no impact on the life of any other citizen and present no danger to the state to the Islamofacists and two bit dictators.
So, technically, following your logic, we could deport almost anyone we find that has an ancestor we can't document? After all, if this guy isn't an American citizen in your book, then no doubt his children aren't citizens either, and neither are their children and so forth.
rope
down
squirt
flick
bic
voom
rope
up
good.
Hold on for a second. Who says you get to decided when something is misapplied or not? I don't agree that it's misapplied, and I doubt the Supreme Court would agree either. Sorry, but I'm not conceding citizenship as a birthright is a misapplication at all.
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