i pledge allegiance to the flap

By Todd Stadler · Thursday, June 27, 2002 3:16am

Flap flap flap. What's all the flap about? Flap flag flap. Listen to all that flapping! There must be a lot of right-wingers around here. Pledge flag flap. Oh my - and left-wingers, too!

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals' ruled that reciting the Pledge of Allegiance in public schools is unconstitutional because it contains the phrase "under God", and now everyone is in a tizzy.

And I, for one, don't understand why. I'm glad that everything's so perfect in America that we can spend all our media resources in arguing over the semantics of the words of a symbolic ceremony. I guess that means we won the war on terrorism, then?

But no, don't I see? This is part and parcel of the war on terrorism! Of course!

The godless terrorists (who, it should be noted would have no problem with the pledge, referring as it does to a monotheistic God, assuming that all terrorists are Muslims, which I'm pretty sure they are) want us to stop reciting the pledge so that our children will grow up hating America just like they do. The terrorists play hardball, my friend.

Oh, sure, I'm being sarcastic, but all the lips flapping in our government buildings would have me believe it's all true, and that this ruling has major implications not only for Our American Way of Life, but for the war we're currently involved in.

As California governor Gray Davis put it, "With troops overseas, this is the wrong decision at the worst possible time."

What does that even mean? That we should only think about the Constitution when we're not sending troops abroad? (Perhaps clever Mr. Davis is saying he doesn't want us to ever think about the Constitution, as I can't remember a recent year we haven't had troops abroad somewhere.)

Or that our troops will now begin to lose all their battles because of this change in a largely symbolic act in our nation's schools? Is our army composed of a bunch of Tinkerbells that the children of our nation must clap for them so they won't die?

Ignoring that particular statement, the argument that this ruling will affect American patriotism (or worse, American religious belief) is nonsense. Never mind how easy it would be to alter the pledge to be constitutional.

If patriotism in America changes because of this legal decision, then our patriotism was meaningless in the first place. And if the phrase "under God" is the only time our children hear anything about faith, then we're in far bigger trouble than this whole mess indicates.

I have to wonder why the biggest deals are made over the most insignificant things in life.

I mean, who cares if people are dying for thousands of different reasons the world over, sometimes because of the decision of our government? Who cares if we're polluting our planet in potentially irreversible ways? Some court just ruled that we're no longer allowed to coerce children to say (or to become a silent protester to) two particular words in schools! I think I'll stop going to work this week so I have enough time to write letters to my congressmen.

My guess is that we fight over these symbols because we cannot read or control people's thoughts, as wonderful as that ability would be. Thus, for instance, we fight over those objects that appear to give some hint as to whether someone is a loyal patriot or not. Objects that - we hope - make people more loyal patriots than they would otherwise be.

If that is the reason behind this hubbub, then we're wasting our time. Waning patriotism cannot be cured by a strong pledge any more than a weakened pledge can hamper rampant jingoism.

If this ruling reflects our culture, then the change is already made. If it doesn't, then it has no hope of being able to change our culture.

Besides, has anyone stopped to consider that this ruling doesn't stop the Pledge of Allegiance from being said anymore than previous rulings stopped children from praying in schools?

Despite what Tom Daschle et al would have you believe, the government can't actually control your behavior, so if you want to say the pledge, go ahead. Your kid can even say it in school, although he may get in trouble if he disrupts class in doing so. The decision only affects the ability of our schools to institute the pledge.

"But," says my imaginary agitated monotheistic patriot, "saying 'under God' isn't a big deal in the first place. It's not offensive to anybody!" Well, this line of thinking is, in a way, offensive to me.

Saying "under God" means that the speaker believes our country is ultimately ruled over and provided for by a deity. Can such a statement be made lightly? Not by me, and I believe it. My faith is not a trivial matter, and just as I believe it is wrong to take God's name in vain, so I believe that it's wrong to say I believe in God without meaning it.

Either this pledge confirms belief in a particular type of faith system, which is necessarily offensive to people not of that faith system, or it is truly an inoffensive, trivial statement. If the latter, then removing it should be no big deal.

I wonder if the people opposed to this decision would mind saying a pledge in which they promised their allegiance to "one nation, under many local gods", or "one nation, under no god at all"? Or does that perhaps offend them? It certainly would offend me to say such things. That's a pretty good indication to me that saying "under God" might be offensive to other people, and that it might promote one religion over another.

Of course, as a Christian, I find the whole pledge of allegiance mildly distasteful, anyhow.

I mean, my allegiance isn't pledged to the flag or to the republic for which it stands. It's to God, or at least it ought to be. I'm thankful for the country he has given me to live in, yes. But I don't confuse it with God.

I don't remember a lot in the New Testament about Jesus teaching his disciples to say "Hail, Caesar!", or Paul writing the church in Corinth to encourage them to display the Roman flag.

I also find it hard to fight for a pledge that tells me that there is liberty and justice "for all". To be blunt, there isn't. Some get more liberty and justice (or perhaps a lack of justice on behalf of those they wronged), and they know who they are. It's simply not a perfect country. It's often a very good country, but let's not fool ourselves.

Of course, what do I know? I haven't repeated the words of the Pledge of Allegiance in probably ten years. So maybe its patriotism-inducing magic has indeed worn off in my case.

Or maybe it never worked in the first place.