BY NEILL GOLTZ
Los Alamos

I am a recent immigrant to the Los Alamos community, but here long enough to have participated 3 times with the local “Indivisible” chapter at the “NO KINGS” rallies at Ashley Pond and along Trinity Drive and Central Avenue.

At a recent chapter meeting, I learned that a number of people in the community were upset with the upside-down display of two or three American flags.

I represent that this expression of my feelings is entirely my own, and in no way is the policy or advocacy of the “Indivisible” organization, or any of its other participants.

“NO KINGS” rally participants make and display their own signs without pre-approval or monitoring by Indivisible. They are exercising their individual Constitutional right of free expression. Such also is the case with me. 

According to the U.S. Flag Code (4 U.S.C. § 8(a)), the United States flag should only be flown upside down as a signal of “dire distress in instances of extreme danger to life or property”.

But this language is advisory only and not legally enforceable with criminal penalties as the Supreme Court has ruled in Spence v. Washington (1974) that displaying an upside-down flag as a form of protest is protected by the First Amendment.

I consider our current Democratic Republic form of political government to be in extreme danger, with both the militarization of law enforcement a threat against individual lives and the obvious financial corruption at the pinnacle of government a misappropriation of our national, collective assets – which is why I choose to utilize an upside down flag at our Indivisible/NO KINGS rallies.

So yes, I feel strongly about the current peril created by Trump and his criminal enterprise.

However, out of consideration for the sensitivities of those in our community less-worried than me about our current direction and leadership, at future rallies I will only display an upside-down version* of the flag on poster-board*, and not the flag itself.

*For further information on the appropriate display of an actual flag, please review these rules published by the American Legion: https://www.legion.org/advocacy/flag-advocacy/flag-code.