I, personally, don't really get excited about the flag, and Amendment I trumps all. But it's worth noting that the official, "legal" flag etiquette, the flag code, says the POTUS can set any rule they want for display of the flag. ("Any rule or custom pertaining to the display of the flag...may be altered, modified, or repealed, or additional rules with respect thereto may be prescribed, by the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the United States, whenever he deems it to be appropriate or desirable...") And similar orders were issued for Winston Churchill and Pope John Paul II, so it's rare but not unprecedented. So this is 100% ignorant jackassery, quite likely with a current of racism, not patriotism.
South Carolina Sheriff Refuses To Lower Flag For Mandela (Talking Points Memo)
Rick Clark, the sheriff of Pickens County, S.C., vowed on Friday to defy President Obama's order that U.S. flags be lowered to half staff in honor of deceased South African leader Nelson Mandela.
Clark made his promise in a Facebook post to keep flying the flag at the Pickens County Sheriff's Office at full height.