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'Offended' flea market shopper calls 911 over Confederate merchandise
[THEAMERICANMIRROR] A shopper perusing the merchandise at the Redwood Country Flea Market was so offended by a vendor selling Confederate and Nazi historical memorabilia, the person actually called 911.
None of us know what it's like. being that sensitive.
Wallingford, Connecticut police were dispatched to the flea market to investigate.
Since they had nothinbg else to do on a summer's morn...
The police chief William Wright tells News 8 "the reason no one was incarcerated
You have the right to remain silent...
 was because the items were being sold on private property" -- not to mention no laws were broken.
You mean it's not against the law to advertently or inadvertently ruffle some snowflake's feelings?
"There was a table set up with this material," Wright says, according to Journal-Record. "It's not criminally illegal, but obviously it offended this person. It causes some people a sense of being uncomfortable. Certainly the owner could preclude this merchandise."
But he has no reason to. It's private property. It's a flea market. The seller follows the rules of the flea market, he sells his stuff. If you don't like it just walk by and 'tsk' loudly...
The town resident who hysterically called 911 said there were helmets with swastikas, images of Hitler and other historical Nazi items.
Why's the headline say "Confederate?" There are people who do collect WWII memorabilia. Both the Confederate and the Nazi-eras are interesting historically.
"I was shaking and almost vomiting," he tells the paper. "I had to run. My grandmother had numbers," referring to the digits the Nazis would tattoo on prisoners.
But you didn't. Way to man up...
The caller complained that the Confederate items were "not authentic" and were replicas of flags and weapons.
There hasn't been any "authentic" Confederate items since 1865 or so...
He says the seller told him "he was selling so much he can't keep it in stock."
At a yard sale? In Connecticut?
Jason Teal, president of the Meriden-Wallingford NAACP, was contacted to see what he thought.
"Ve haff vays off making you zell önly approveed items!"
"It's difficult because it's on private property and it's considered free speech," Teal says.
Probably because it is. It's under attack, but it's still free.
According to the paper, the busybody hairball complainant also called Mayor William W. Dickinson Jr., who promptly called Chief Wright.
"Hello? Is dis da mare?"
"Yes it is, sir or madam. May I help you?"
"Dey're sellin' Confederate stuff over on Oak Street! Dey're gonna secede from da union an' reinstitute slavery!"
"I had to check with the chief over what is actionable and what isn't," according to the mayor.
As soon as you venture into the field of being legally responsible for somebody else's feeling you're reaching for anarchy. Someone, somewhere is going to go to pieces at the sight of a William Henry Harrison for President button. If there's money in it, it might even be me.
"Unless something violates state or federal law, there's no jurisdiction for government to do anything. We had to ask, is it something controlled by law?"
You had to ask?
And the assistant regional director of the Anti-Defamation League in Connecticut sees a difference between authentic memorabilia and "cheap replicas" "used as symbols of hate."
There's no difference at all. If you can't have one then the other's in grave danger.
"It's unfortunate that under the law people have the right to sell these things; but it doesn't mean they should sell these things," Joshua Sayles says. "It's not a crime but I would call it hate. People look at the situation in Charleston and say it's down in the South. But this stuff is here in Connecticut."
Hate is everywhere. So is profit.

Posted by: Fred 2015-07-13
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=423156