the House's Next Folly
Tomorrow, the House of Representatives takes up a bill to "protect the Pledge of Allegiance." I don't even want to think how many of our hard-earned dollars are being pissed away in this sort of thing by the Republicans who complain that government is wasteful and then approve deficit increases.
I am not a huge fan of the Pledge of Allegiance for one simple reason: It makes a symbol of the United States more important that the historically and philosophically bases on which the nation rests--the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. I remember, as a teenager, hearing that those of my generation who opposed the Vietnam War were "letting the flag down." We thought we were supporting the Constitutional right of free discourse. The flag, though, is a powerful icon, as we see in times of military action: Display of the flag is equated with patriotism, and failure to display the flag is equated with lack of support for the troops. (Note: I have a flag sticker on my car. The sticker also says "Proud Democrat." I bet that gives some Republicans fits--especially the ones at work who know that I detest the administration and hate the war.)
This leads me to my first news flash of the day. The flag has not always been so iconic. During the early years of the republic, the design of the flag wasn't even codified. The stars could be arranged any way the person making it saw fit. The stars, for that matter, could be any color, and gold seems to have been fairly popular. It simply wasn't that important to the founders. To them, a flag was a guide or rallying point for troops in combat--a tool. Periodically, the colors were "trooped." That is, a military unit stood in open ranks and its colors were paraded in front of the troops so that they would recognize their own flag in combat. It probably would not have occurred to the founders that a flag was much more than a tool. While they understood the value of a well maintained tool, they didn't think of tools as sacred. In a ranking, they would almost surely have put the fundamental documents of the United States far ahead of the flag in importance.
There hasn't always been a pledge of allegiance. In fact, we might not have one at all had Youth's Companion magazine not launched a campaign to sell flags to schools. A Baptist mininister (and, by the way, a Socialist) named Francis Bellamy was commissioned to write it as an advertising piece. You could think of it, then, as something like those nauseating jingles that accompany some ads these days. What Bellamy wrote, ironically enough, did not contain the words "under God" that the stupid Republicans are gearing up to protect. Those words weren't added until 1954. One story holds that they were added to distinguish the United States from those "godless comminists" who were regarded as enemies in those days. Thus are born artificial traditions.
Bellamy, it is said, wanted the pledge to be said in schools to teach obedience to the state as a virtue, and for years and years, school systems played along. Most still do. Let's set aside the question of whether unquestioning obedience to the state can ever be a virtue in a democracy. Let's look instead at a couple of issues related to school kids saying the pledge. First, there are students in United States schools who really should not pledge allegiance to the flag or anything else of the United States. They are foreign nationals who presumably will never become American citizens. And no, I'm not referring to the undocumented aliens; I'm talking about the children who are here because their parents are here temporarily for study or for work. When I was in England, nobody asked me to pledge allegiance to their flag or sing "God Save the Queen." (Today, I'd gladly do both, asking only that I be granted asylum in England." The reason may be that people in many other countries travel across national boundaries more often than Americans. They aren't going to force a foreigner to do anything in their country that they're not willing to do while travelling in another country.
And there's the reality. The pledge is recited every day in most schools, even by kindergarteners. I have never met a five-year-old who had a clue what "allegiance" or "indivisible" meant or especially cared what the pledge meant. All they know is that they're supposed to stand up, put their hands over where they are told (incorrectly) their hearts are, and say the words. I'm not opposed to ritual gestures; I'm an Episcopalian. Standing, kneeling, sitting, genuflecting, and making the sign of the cross are all part of my worship. In order to do the right thing at the right time, I have to be paying attention to the worship service: If my mind is not focused on the liturgy, it's a pretty safe bet that my body won't do what it's supposed to be doing. But telling kids that they have to perform ritualistic acts that don't focus them on the meaning of the words they are saying makes the words a joke pretty quickly. Even with explanations of what the words mean, kids lose interest and simply repeat the words without any consideration of what they mean.
This is what the Republicans in Congress want to defend. Once again, it's not likely to pass. They only want to bring it to a vote so that they can lose, convince their dumber supporters that there is a culture war being waged against them, and get those dumb supporters off their fat butts to vote for those "good Republicans who are fighting for our values."
By the way, I yearn for the day when George W. Bush learns that he or someone he cares about is dying or incapacitated by a disease that might have been cured had he not been determined to preserved the dignity of unimplanted embryos--so they could be destroyed with medical waste.
I am not a huge fan of the Pledge of Allegiance for one simple reason: It makes a symbol of the United States more important that the historically and philosophically bases on which the nation rests--the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. I remember, as a teenager, hearing that those of my generation who opposed the Vietnam War were "letting the flag down." We thought we were supporting the Constitutional right of free discourse. The flag, though, is a powerful icon, as we see in times of military action: Display of the flag is equated with patriotism, and failure to display the flag is equated with lack of support for the troops. (Note: I have a flag sticker on my car. The sticker also says "Proud Democrat." I bet that gives some Republicans fits--especially the ones at work who know that I detest the administration and hate the war.)
This leads me to my first news flash of the day. The flag has not always been so iconic. During the early years of the republic, the design of the flag wasn't even codified. The stars could be arranged any way the person making it saw fit. The stars, for that matter, could be any color, and gold seems to have been fairly popular. It simply wasn't that important to the founders. To them, a flag was a guide or rallying point for troops in combat--a tool. Periodically, the colors were "trooped." That is, a military unit stood in open ranks and its colors were paraded in front of the troops so that they would recognize their own flag in combat. It probably would not have occurred to the founders that a flag was much more than a tool. While they understood the value of a well maintained tool, they didn't think of tools as sacred. In a ranking, they would almost surely have put the fundamental documents of the United States far ahead of the flag in importance.
There hasn't always been a pledge of allegiance. In fact, we might not have one at all had Youth's Companion magazine not launched a campaign to sell flags to schools. A Baptist mininister (and, by the way, a Socialist) named Francis Bellamy was commissioned to write it as an advertising piece. You could think of it, then, as something like those nauseating jingles that accompany some ads these days. What Bellamy wrote, ironically enough, did not contain the words "under God" that the stupid Republicans are gearing up to protect. Those words weren't added until 1954. One story holds that they were added to distinguish the United States from those "godless comminists" who were regarded as enemies in those days. Thus are born artificial traditions.
Bellamy, it is said, wanted the pledge to be said in schools to teach obedience to the state as a virtue, and for years and years, school systems played along. Most still do. Let's set aside the question of whether unquestioning obedience to the state can ever be a virtue in a democracy. Let's look instead at a couple of issues related to school kids saying the pledge. First, there are students in United States schools who really should not pledge allegiance to the flag or anything else of the United States. They are foreign nationals who presumably will never become American citizens. And no, I'm not referring to the undocumented aliens; I'm talking about the children who are here because their parents are here temporarily for study or for work. When I was in England, nobody asked me to pledge allegiance to their flag or sing "God Save the Queen." (Today, I'd gladly do both, asking only that I be granted asylum in England." The reason may be that people in many other countries travel across national boundaries more often than Americans. They aren't going to force a foreigner to do anything in their country that they're not willing to do while travelling in another country.
And there's the reality. The pledge is recited every day in most schools, even by kindergarteners. I have never met a five-year-old who had a clue what "allegiance" or "indivisible" meant or especially cared what the pledge meant. All they know is that they're supposed to stand up, put their hands over where they are told (incorrectly) their hearts are, and say the words. I'm not opposed to ritual gestures; I'm an Episcopalian. Standing, kneeling, sitting, genuflecting, and making the sign of the cross are all part of my worship. In order to do the right thing at the right time, I have to be paying attention to the worship service: If my mind is not focused on the liturgy, it's a pretty safe bet that my body won't do what it's supposed to be doing. But telling kids that they have to perform ritualistic acts that don't focus them on the meaning of the words they are saying makes the words a joke pretty quickly. Even with explanations of what the words mean, kids lose interest and simply repeat the words without any consideration of what they mean.
This is what the Republicans in Congress want to defend. Once again, it's not likely to pass. They only want to bring it to a vote so that they can lose, convince their dumber supporters that there is a culture war being waged against them, and get those dumb supporters off their fat butts to vote for those "good Republicans who are fighting for our values."
By the way, I yearn for the day when George W. Bush learns that he or someone he cares about is dying or incapacitated by a disease that might have been cured had he not been determined to preserved the dignity of unimplanted embryos--so they could be destroyed with medical waste.
posted by amsterdr at 2:34 PM
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