7 August 2013
Lima Center, Wisconsin, man charged with hate crime for burning Chinese flag - PoliticoDadio - Week of 7 August 2013
This entry was posted on 8/7/2013 1:29 AM and is filed under PoliticoDadio.
I was in my favorite neighborhood watering hole the other day; it is a more than adequate gin mill tavern for the Dadio's needs. I was already well into happy hour and then some. An enhanced conversation down the bar had drawn a couple pals of mine. The diversion woke me out of my day dream. I had lost count of beers downed, which is usually a sign of some pending debauchery. I blew the foam off my latest glass of Wisconsin brew and moved down a few stools to hear the story.
A scruffy-faced blue-collar guy I had seen now and then in said watering hole, but never caught his name was telling the story. He was repeating a tale he claimed he had heard another feller tell. This other feller had told the story in one of our other hangouts and was supposedly wearing a well-worn suit coat and had claimed this story could be found in a local newspaper. But this so-called suit coat clad fella could not recall which paper. And, the scruffy-faced blue-collar guy could not recount what the well-worn suit coat fellow's name was. There was a pregnant pause and so one of my pals quickly bought a round of beers for the now burgeoning group, and the story was thus consummated.
"This is what this here well-worn suit coat fellow was saying," the scruffy-faced blue-collar guy said. Then he added the caveat, "Don't kill the messenger fellahs; this is just what I heard."
This scruffy-faced blue-collar guy looked 65 but was probably 40. I deduced he most likely had spent one too many days under the hot sun pulling cement and/or asphalt. His work boots and pants had a couple of permanent concrete stains on board. His work shirt was pressed but un-tucked, and he had a pocket full of pens and a roll of twenty dollar bills bulged from his shirt pocket. I took him for some kind of foreman.
As the scruffy-faced blue-collar guy launched into the story, we were all amazed at his memory of the details. It flowed as if we were hearing it right out of the paper:
Sid MacFarlane of Lima Center, Wisconsin, told the newspaper, "Hell, I didn't know it was some kind of crime to burn a Chinaman's flag. I was just so disgusted when I went into the store and couldn't find anything made in America. The last time I was in a big store, their motto was 'American Made.' But I was preoccupied up in jail for a few years and just recently was released. Guess I'm a'hind the times."
MacFarlane admitted to the paper he was unfamiliar with the current trend that little if anything is made in America any more.
"Hell," MacFarlane was quoted as saying, "All I was looking for was some slippers for my step ma. Her husband, my dad, had served in World War II - he died years ago - but I wanted to help her out when her feet swolled up, 'cause she always looked after my dad after my real ma died."
According to Rock County authorities, MacFarlane went into a rage when he got the slippers to his step mother's house in Janesville and realized they were made in China.
"It was then, I realize what my cousin Marty was trying to tell me all those years," the 62 year old MacFarlane said. "The whole time I was in jail, Cousin Marty kept saying, 'All our jobs went to China.' Marty is 66 and still lives with his ma, my aunt, that be'in ma's sister, 'cause according to him, he can't find a job 'cause the Chinamens took them all."
According to neighbors, after giving the slippers to his step mother, MacFarlane went to a novelty shop in Janesville the next day and bought a Chinese flag, measuring five feet by three and a half feet. He doused the flag with gasoline and hoisted it up on his stepmother's flag pole, above an up-side-down American flag.
"My dad put that flag pole up when they moved to town after he retired from farming out in Lima," MacFarlane said.
MacFarlane told police that after sitting on a lawn chair in his step mother's back yard and drinking beer for a bit, he doused Lawn Jarts with gasoline and then set them on fire one by one. He tossed them one by one at the Chinese flag until one finally ignited the state symbol of Communist China.
"We always had two sets of Lawn Jarts in the basement storage room," MacFarlane said. "So I had plenty of ammunition."
A neighbor, Phyllis Schmitt, saw the strange flame above the trees and called 911. "Hell, I didn't mean to get Sid in trouble," Schmitt said. "If I a' knew he was going to burn a Commie flag I would have joined in. My first husband served in the Korean War. He always told me so many Chinamen's came over the ridge their machine guns got red hot just a' kill'n em. I called the police because I thought a plane or something had crashed in the trees. It was a hell of a blaze."
Mutual aid officers covering Rock County at the time responded to the scene because Janesville Police and Rock County Deputies were preoccupied at another complaint involving toilet paper being thrown in several trees on the other side of town. The responding officers decided to cite MacFarlane for disturbing the peace and disorderly conduct; but, not for burning the Chinese flag, but rather for putting the American flag up-side-down.
But later that day, prosecutors took a dimmer view of MacFarlane's shenanigans and decided to add a hate related crime enhancer to the charge. MacFarlane faces a 75 Dollar fine for the disorderly conduct charge. But, with the hate crime addition, MacFarlane could face up to a 10,000 dollar fine and one year in jail, or both.
"My wife just bought a dandy set of lawn furniture made in China," assistant prosecutor Elmer Kline said. "I don't see what all the furor is over Chinese products. How can you hate a country for something as innocuous as lawn furniture and slippers. This is clearly a hate crime if I have ever seen one."
Kline went on to say, "If it's the communist thing Mr. MacFarlane is in a tizzy about, that seems overblown as well. American law enforcement, government, and media, has learned some valuable tips from Communist Chinese techniques regarding the control of citizenry. Their skills at curbing information flow for instance, are invaluable."
Police said MacFarlane was release on his own recognizance until his court hearing. MacFarlane asked officers to drop him off at Judy's Tavern which is not far from the scene of the incident.
At the end of the story the scruffy-faced blue-collar guy downed one last beer in two gulps and wiped his mouth on his work shirt sleeve.
There was another pregnant pause. I quickly summoned the bartender lady and ordered beer all around.
As the beers were plunked on the bar top one by one, there was another awkward silence except for the plunking of the full pint glasses. Finally, one of my wry-witted drinking pals said...,
"Ain't been to Judy's in a while. 'Taint too bad a place to get drunk in now and then."
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