Undoubtedly, the image of the frat dudes keeping the American flag from touching the ground as pro-Hamas protesters at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill attempted to take it down and raise the Palestinian flag again will go down in U.S. history as one of the most iconic protest moments of all time.
A lot has been said and written about that day (last Tuesday) and the patriotic symbolism behind the actions taken by counter-demonstrators, including UNC-CH interim Chancellor Lee Roberts, who personally walked to the flag pole and put the U.S flag back up himself, which is what led to the radical hacktivists trying to take it down yet again before the frat guys intervened.
But what hasn't been widely reported by the mainstream media were the circumstances surrounding the American flag before the agitators, fueled by irritation over overnight arrests at their encampment, stormed the campus to take it down in the first place.
As you'll see in the video clip below from Carolina Review, the flag was actually flying at half-staff. It was the day after four law enforcement officers were murdered - three U.S. marshals and one Charlotte-Mecklenburg police officer - after attempting to serve a warrant in Charlotte's Plaza Midwood neighborhood.
On order of NC Gov. Roy Cooper (D), flags across North Carolina at state-run facilities were flying half-staff in their memory - but the one at taxpayer-funded UNC-Chapel Hill was ripped down by the mob in a disgusting display, with the Palestinian flag raised in its place:
Here is the initial moment anti-Israel protestors breached a police barricade at approximately 1:45 this afternoon. They soon took down the American flag at Polk Place, which was flying at half-staff in memory of the 4 officers who were killed in the line of duty yesterday. pic.twitter.com/hQjve0DtcM
— Carolina Review (@CarolinaReview) April 30, 2024
One Twitter user opined "I bet over half the people out there didn’t even know why it was at half-staff. What’s happening in this country is embarrassing. Entitlement at its finest."
It definitely was embarrassing, and that's putting it mildly. But the reason why it was being flown at half-staff was and is irrelevant.
The fact of the matter is that - in my view - you shouldn't mess with a United States flag at all, especially if it doesn't belong to you, and that goes double when it's flying at half-staff. No matter who it is flying that way for, it's meant to show respect and honor toward the person or persons who died.
In fact, it wouldn't shock me a bit to find out that the protesters did know the reason the flag was flying that way and took it down for that reason considering their well-documented hatred for law enforcement.
Whatever the case may be, the backstory to the campus flag just makes what the unhinged activists did that day so much more repugnant, and what the chancellor and the frat dudes did even more important.
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