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Lemming
Patriots
July 25, 2002
By Terry Sawyer
 Republicans
use patriotism the way snipers use tall buildings, it’s just
a way of getting a better shot at the people they want to
take out anyway. So imagine my revulsion, as the entire Senate
leap frogged over one another for the en masse photo op of
reciting the Pledge of Allegiance. I expect Republicans to
use love of country to drape their own repugnantly divisive
aims, but I would hope that Democrats would save the bravado
for something a bit more substantive.
In this post 9-11 era, being yappily and uncritically American
has become mandatory for anyone that doesn’t was to be screeched
into a corner by journalistic hordes who conflate homogeneity
with empathy for victims of terrorism. At it’s most pathetic,
it reminds me of my high school geometry teacher who made
up for his obvious dorkiness by trying to placate the jocks
with better grades and attempts to wedge in on all their good
ole’ boy joshing. I presume that liberals have to rush breathlessly
to declare their allegiance because Republicans have been
so successful at casting the defense of liberty, equality
and tolerance as anti-American. God knows that to declare
the pledge unnecessary, to declare atheists as equally American,
or to suggest that maybe it’s not up to governmental institutions
to advocate belief in God would surely bringing a thousand
outraged Budweisers crashing down on the arm rests of their
Lazy Boys.
This is not to suggest that I particularly object to the
pledge. Truth be told, I do believe that to be a citizen of
this country, one should love and perpetuate its basic principles.
But I don’t know why the hell you should have to declare that
to anybody else or take part in some groupthink exercise designed
to make you to. Interestingly, equality was axed from original
versions of the pledge because it’s authors knew that many
people at the time objected to words loaded with the implication
that African Americans and women might be equal which makes
its encapsulization of our ideals corruptly incomplete. But
that just makes Byron York's yelpy column in the National
Review all that much more hilarious. York claims that watching
the senatorial herd gaggle together to declare themselves
sufficiently under God is really a vindication of original
intent. For those of you who might not know, original intent
is the pidgin theory whereby Republicans selectively comb
the writings of their favorite framers and then use that narrow
skein to determine what dead men would think about circumstances
they could not have possibly foreseen. It’s only slightly
more reliable than holding a multiple choice test under a
pigeon’s cloaca. Yet, York maintains that: “The Senate made
clear that it supports "under God" not because it sounds good,
or that many Americans support it, but because it is clearly
consistent with the text and intent of the Constitution.”
Then why didn’t the framers create loyalty oaths for children?
If it’s so consistent with their thinking and in line with
their intentions, why wasn’t it written until the country
was whipped into a frenzy looking for communists in their
Cheerios.
What’s more ridiculous is the implication that such oaths
operate as some sort of fealty litmus quiz. As if traitor’s
children are like water phobic witches and will simply puddle
if they are forced to recite an oath to the country they and
their parents are secretly trying to destroy. What they do
manage to do however is make themselves available for scoundrels
of the most bottomless sort. To even begin to disagree about
such things is to be cast beyond the pale as some sort of
revolutionary flunky or dirty infiltrator. Worse, the typical
conservative willingness to conflate patriotism with the policies
of other conservatives to the extent that honest disagreement
becomes tantamount to treason. Such dangerously defined loyalty
was on display like Lady Justice’s free titty when the resurrected
Ashcroft (hey, his words, not mine) declared that anybody
who questioned the Patriot Act was giving nipple to jihadists.
Not to mention that many people of good faith conscientiously
object to the pledge as an inappropriate mingling of nationalism
with religion, itself anathemic to their vision of Christianity.
For those conscientious objectors, we can expect a steamy
dollop of disdain followed up with Bill O’Reilly asking why
they don’t just pack up and move since this country is really
just fundamentalist real estate with a bunch of unruly tenants
who haven’t figured that out yet.
Yet I don’t think atheists should go about scouring our culture
for the slightest shadow of our overwhelming Faith in an Almighty.
There should be some room in the public sphere to acknowledge
that many of our fellow countrymen, myself included, are existentially
driven by a certain set of beliefs even as they are legally
bound to respect the liberties and lives of those not so inclined.
I think it is strategic as well as more intellectually sound
to try to distinguish what practices and institutional language
are coercive backdoors for frothing religionists and which
are simply harmlessly natural effects of belief.
It would have been far more pleasant if the decision of the
9th circuit had been followed with a well-reasoned public
debate rather than the intimidation on such a grand scale
that the judges were forced to issue their fawn-legged retraction.
I can’t imagine that it’s a very good precedent for judges
to back flip under reactive roar of an unreflective media.
Much to the chagrin of our brimstone singed theocrats, it
has become well-established constitutional law that our public
schools should not be places where dominant religions are
able to indoctrinate others by becoming subtly indistinguishable
from the apparatus of government. The pledge, while not necessarily
in that same vein, can certainly reasonably be viewed as such.
It’s a shame that the 9th circuit’s decision did not inaugurate
a more nuanced debate.
Patriotism should mean that you promote the ideals of the
Constitution as they have come to mean in our contemporary
culture. Your allegiance is your love of freedom, not your
lockstep echo of the Fox News Network. The most disturbing
aspect of the pledge of allegiance discussion was that there
wasn’t one. No one would have dared. With a Republican in
the White House, a media jerking ever rightward, and a resurgence
of redneck populism, patriotism is again defined as standing
in idolatrous awe of the cult of the flag. Chairman Mao with
his unyielding view of compulsory love of country, in the
narrowest sense, would have approved immensely. He might have
even had enough sense of humor to nudge his way between Hillary
Clinton and Trent Lott for the frightful display of cowed
unity.
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