On my country, and court decisions.

[brooksmoses]

It seems that, according to the major media and practically everyone that I've heard talking about this, a California court has "declared the pledge of allegiance unconstitutional".

A few minutes of actually bothering to look up the facts will show that the court has declared the pledge of allegiance, as an activity that school students are officially requested to participate in, unconstitutional. This is very different from declaring the words unconstitutional. I have yet to see one public statement of opinion on the matter that indicated the writer was capable of comprehending the difference.

Besides which, the court is right. One cannot pledge the pledge of allegiance, as it reads today, without affirming the existence of God -- specifically, a god that is addressed by "God" rather than "Allah" or "Jehovah". For the schools to ask students to accept that existence is nothing less than religious coercion, and asking them to in the same statement proclaim their belief that the Flag of the United States of America stands for liberty is hypocrisy.

This public reaction distresses me for the same reason that the pledge itself has long distressed me. The pledge is not a pledge of allegiance to the United States. It is a pledge of allegiance to a symbol of the United States, and by that it is a considering of the symbol to be more important than the reality. And when one sees politicians claiming that the sanctity of this flag is of higher value than the sanctity of the freedoms for which it is held to stand, and that therefore speech that includes burning of said flag should not be free, I think we can see the results of this attitude.

And I see this in the public opinion about this court decision. The sanctity of a public mantra is considered to be of higher value than the freedoms of which it speaks; people seem to be taking the mantra for the reality, and neglecting the reality.

We are acheiving a cargo-cult freedom in this country. We have believed, we have let ourselves be led to believe, that a flag with stars and stripes, a mantra repeated by schoolchildren, and even the name "The United States of America", are sufficient to guarantee that we shall live in freedom. And so we have supported these symbols, and insisted upon upholding them absolutely, while sacrificing to this cause the very freedoms for which we claim they stand.

I pledge allegiance to the United States of America, and to the ideals for which I hold it to stand: one nation, indivisible, with peace, freedom, liberty, and justice for all.

I will use the flag, and other symbols of my country, to show my support for it and for these ideals. But I shall not confuse these ideals with their symbols, nor condone the sacrifice of these ideals on the altars of those symbols.

- Brooks

Comments

[kuangning]

Thank you for this. I've been almost driven to avoiding my friends page today, and pondering the wisdom of silence since no matter how I put it, I was likely to draw fire. And then you said it for me, calmly and logically. Do you mind if I echo this post on my own LJ?

[brooksmoses]

You are welcome. And thank you for your offer to spread this to more people; I would be quite glad for you to do so.

- Brooks

[kiya]

For sheer howling nitpickery's sake, I believe the correct form of address for the divine in Jewish practice is "Hashem". Jehovah is a Christianism.

[baxil.livejournal.com]

May whatever god(s) (or lack thereof) that you believe in bless you. This is absolutely spot-on 100 percent right, and shows an understanding of the issue that, as you've said, nobody else seems willing to reach. Especially our fearless leaders in Congress. (:-/

For the record, I saw this via aoibheil. Thank you both.

Spreaking the Word

[tendyl.livejournal.com]

Just to let you know, this (or bits of it) are going in my LJ. Its coherent and I agree.

[smcwhort.livejournal.com]

I think you're off by a fraction. The Pledge is first to the flag, but a little later says "and to the Republic for which it stands." So in theory we're pledging allegiance to both the flag and the republic.

Much of the coverage I've heard (at least on NPR's "All Things Considered" and the like) has been pretty good about explaining the details of the case. The whole ruling would be irrelevant except for the words "under God" and it being said in public schools. The ruling mentioned that placing a child in a position where he or she had to say the pledge or perform an act of civil disobedience by not saying it was placing the child in an untenable position.

But, of course, I agree with your major point. There are lots of people who don't even understand our basic civil liberties. The most scary thing is that exercising our rights gets others to hate us, to call us "unpatriotic" ... that perverse turn-around means that we not only have to deal with the pressures of the government on our freedoms, but we have to deal with the pressure to give in to government actions generated by our fellow citizens.

(Hm. Maybe we can get the pledging allegiance to the flag bit tossed out too, as an unjust restraint of our First Amendment right to desecrate the flag as a form of protest. We can't very well pledge allegiance to a symbol instantiated in cloth and then desecrating that symbol without violating our pledge, can we? Desecrating the flag is still a valid form of protest, isn't it?)

<sigh> ... I don't know.

[kiya]

I think you're off by a fraction. The Pledge is first to the flag, but a little later says "and to the Republic for which it stands." So in theory we're pledging allegiance to both the flag and the republic.

In theory, sure; I'm not sure that it parses out as anything other than an afterthought in practice. Separate clauses as spoken.

Ritual magic is a really tricky thing to work, and there's a lot to be done with cadences, placement of emphasis, and commas.

(Hm. Maybe we can get the pledging allegiance to the flag bit tossed out too, as an unjust restraint of our First Amendment right to desecrate the flag as a form of protest. We can't very well pledge allegiance to a symbol instantiated in cloth and then desecrating that symbol without violating our pledge, can we? Desecrating the flag is still a valid form of protest, isn't it?)
A lot of Europeans I've seen comment on the whole Pledge thing have been pretty horrified by the fascist indoctrination overtones the whole thing has, which is why I stopped participating willingly in the ritual myself. (The fact that it's not particularly referring to my gods is almost an afterthought.) My allegiances are my own, and I'll not willingly cheapen them with rote ritual.

Addendum: flag-burning is not desecration. To burn the flag is the correct way to dispose of one which has been soiled, according to the flag code. The use of burning the flag as a form of political protest derives from this; it is to imply that the actions of the governmental body being protested have sullied the Stars and Bars. More ritual magic, in other words. (Me, I'm much bigger on the flag code than on nationalism. I figure using the symbols should be done properly or something. :} )