Winter Garden, FL – Mayor John Rees ordered a man to stand first for a prayer, then for the Pledge of Allegiance at the beginning of a City Commission meeting last Thursday. When the man refused, the Mayor ordered the Chief of Police to use force and “escort” him from the room. Chief of Police George A. Brennan just followed orders and violated the man’s civil rights.
The whole incident was captured on the victim’s cellular phone. Joseph Richardson is reported to have repeatedly asked the city to change its invocation and documents the prayer.
Mayor John Rees does not seem to fully grasp the severity of his actions. After the incident he said
“Life will go on.”
Constitutional watchdog group, the American Civil Liberties Union, has a page dedicated to the question of the Pledge of Allegiance. It states:
“Can I be made to recite the Pledge of Allegiance?
No. The Supreme Court has ruled that just as the First Amendment protects an individual’s right to say what he or she wants, it also protects his or her right not to say something. Almost 60 years ago the court determined that compulsory flag salutes are a violation of an individual’s right to free speech. So, students in public schools may refuse to participate in the Pledge of Allegiance and choose to remain quietly seated instead. Note, however, that if you decline to say the pledge that you do not have the right to disrupt the proceedings.”
The Department of Justice clarifies what constitutes a criminal violation of someone’s civil rights on their website:
“In general, it is the use of force, threats, or intimidation that characterize a federal criminal violation of an individual’s civil rights.”
The threat of using force to remove the man certainly appears to fall under this definition, but it should come as no surprise to anyone who has ever read the Winter Garden Police Department’s statement on their “values,” which reads in part
“A commitment to the organization, to our co-workers, to the City, and to the State, over and above the commitment to any particular individual or personal agenda.”
That’s right. The Winter Garden Police Department comes first, then fellow cops, then the City (capitalized because it is obviously of Divine origin), and finally the state. At no point does it mention the citizens. In fact, it goes out of its way to say that the individual means nothing. Nowhere in the entire creedo is any mention of the citizens made, with the exception of the above. At least the department is open and honest about serving simply as hired thugs to be used by the local government to oppress people.
Whether or not Mr. Richardson’s actions were in good taste can be debated. What cannot be debated is his legal right to attend open government meetings and his Constitutional right to be free from the coercive tactics of a police state demanding obedience. This was not a small infraction. This is no different than the Soviet Union’s demand that people worship the Communist Party. If a citizen didn’t, they were not allowed to participate in government.
Please save the emails and comments stating that our Founding Fathers wrote this for a reason. They didn’t. The Pledge, as we know it today, was adopted just 60 years ago. That was when the phrase “under God” was added to combat the Godless communists. The first time it was adopted by the government was in 1923. The people that framed the nation would have never approved of a pledge of allegiance to the government. After all, they knew all too well that sometimes it is necessary to disobey a government, or even overthrow one.
Thomas Jefferson once wrote something very fitting for this article:
“Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add ‘within the limits of the law’ because law is often but the tyrant’s will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual.”
Certainly, Mr. Richardson’s remaining seated while silent did not interfere with the equal rights of others. Before a reader invokes the power of the Founding Fathers’ will, understand that they would have stayed seat alongside Mr. Richardson. Jefferson would not have even approved of Mr. Richardson’s tax dollars being used to further such a ritual.
“To compel a man to furnish funds for the propagation of ideas he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.”
If Jefferson believed that the mere use of tax dollars is tyrannical, what would he think of forcing a man to stand for something he does not believe in?