06.30.04
Threatened
I feel threatened by yesterday’s supreme court ruling about the flag pledge. Rather, while the ruling itself was ambiguous, I feel threatened by the flag pledge. The supreme court simply reminded me of the threat.
“You’re either for us, or you’re against us,” seems to be the Bush administration’s primary state policy. They’ve created unprecedented tools for the monitoring and suppression of those that they deem potential threats.
What is more threatening than a person who refuses to swear loyalty? Will I, or my child, be picked up by the state for spreading terrorist ideas, or even for having terrorist ideas?
It seems to me that the flag pledge, something intended by its author and by congress to unite people, has become one of the basic divisive issues.
The flag pledge debate is a symptom of the illness created by the instability of living your life based on a lie. This is the big lie. This is the lie that says that you have an imposed obligation to someone else. That someone else has rights and prerogatives to rule your life for you. That big brother should make the decisions for you. That a messiah is more than a literary convention.
It seems appropriate that the oath should have been written by a socialist. It’s a good thing that Francis Bellamy died before McCarthy’s pogrom of reforms. Well, we have a new pogrom. Let’s see who gets swept up in this one.
More on the history of the pledge at: http://history.vineyard.net/pledge.htm.
SCOTUS opinion. 416k pdf