{"id":12275,"date":"2013-12-10T09:05:06","date_gmt":"2013-12-10T09:05:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/praag.org\/?p=12275"},"modified":"2013-12-10T09:05:06","modified_gmt":"2013-12-10T09:05:06","slug":"pickens-county-sheriff-refuses-to-lower-flag-for-mandela","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/praag.org\/?p=12275","title":{"rendered":"Pickens County sheriff refuses to lower flag for Mandela"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Pickens<\/a>
Pickens County Sheriff Rick Clark says the lowering of the American flag to half-staff should be reserved for Americans. \/ KEN OSBURN\/Staff \/ Greenville News<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The American flag that flies over the Pickens County Sheriff\u2019s Office will be raised high tonight despite an order by President Barack Obama that flags across the country be lowered to half-staff to honor the death of iconic South African leader Nelson Mandela.<\/p>\n

Sheriff Rick Clark told The Greenville News that he has ordered the flag be raised at the end of today because he said the honor of lowering flags to half-staff should be reserved for Americans.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe flag at half-staff is for Americans\u2019 ultimate sacrifice for our country,\u201d Clark said. \u201cWe should never stray away from that.\u201d<\/p>\n

The flag has flown at half-staff and will continue to during daylight hours today in honor of a Lowcountry law enforcement officer who was killed and in honor of Pearl Harbor Day, Clark said.<\/p>\n

However, come tonight, the flag will be raised, he said.<\/p>\n

On Thursday, Obama ordered that flags be flown at half-staff on public grounds until sunset Monday.<\/p>\n

The federal flag code \u201cdoes not prescribe any penalties for non-compliance nor does it include enforcement provisions\u201d and \u201cfunctions simply as a guide to be voluntarily followed by civilians and civilian groups,\u201d according to a U.S. congressional report commissioned by the U.S. Senate.<\/p>\n

In a proclamation issued Thursday ordering flags at half-staff, Obama said that Mandela \u201cachieved more than could be expected of any man.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile we mourn his loss, we will forever honor Nelson Mandela\u2019s memory,\u201d the president said. \u201cHe left behind a South Africa that is free and at peace with itself \u2014 a close friend and partner of the United States. And his memory will be kept in the hearts of billions who have been lifted up by the power of his example.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mandela is regarded the world over for his leadership in bringing South Africa out of the racial discrimination known as apartheid. Mandela was imprisoned in 1964 for his revolutionary activities and wasn\u2019t released until 27 years later.<\/p>\n

In 1994, Mandela was elected president of South Africa and lived a philanthropic life until his death Thursday at the age of 95. – excerpted from greenvilleonline.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The American flag that flies over the Pickens County Sheriff\u2019s Office will be raised high tonight despite an order by President Barack Obama that flags across the country be lowered to half-staff to honor the death of iconic South African leader Nelson Mandela. Sheriff Rick Clark told The Greenville News that he has ordered the … Continue reading “Pickens County sheriff refuses to lower flag for Mandela”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":12276,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4,10],"tags":[7774,7775,327,7772,7776,7773],"class_list":["post-12275","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-south-africa","category-united-states","tag-flag","tag-half-staff","tag-mandela","tag-pickens-county","tag-refusal","tag-rick-clark"],"cc_featured_image_caption":{"caption_text":false,"source_text":false,"source_url":false},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/praag.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/bilde.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12275","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12275"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12275\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12277,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12275\/revisions\/12277"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/12276"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12275"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12275"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12275"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}