It quickly spun out of control. The nitwit who started the whole movement kept introducing new loyalty oaths to prove how much loyaler he was than everyone else, which meant that everyone else had to take even more oaths. Soon, the pilots and aircrews couldn't get anything done without taking loyalty oaths, signing loyalty pledges, and even singing loyalty songs. The crusade finally collapsed when one officer refused to participate, stopping with the nonsense with the classic pro-freedom declaration, "Gimme eat."
Some people don't know that "Catch-22" is a novel. They think it's an instruction manual. And now we know where some of them live. Arizona.
According to the Internet via a story from the Tuscon Weekly, a bill has been introduced into the Arizona state legislature that would require high school students to take an oath before they can graduate. Here's the oath.
I, _________, do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic, that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge these duties; so help me God.
Three problems here. First, in the official online version of the bill, the text of the oath is in all caps, and that's obnoxious.
Second, the bill specifically requires every Arizona high school student to acknowledge You Know Who if they want to get their diploma. That's establishing a state religion, and the Constitution says no. Period. Because we have freedom of religion, that means that you can't force your religion on other people. And no, you can't use sophistry and distortion to try to get around the First Amendment. That's exactly the same thing the anti-gun lobby does with the Second Amendment.
I'm an old-fashioned conservative. I don't accept sea lawyering as valid reasoning. I reject the anti-gun lobby's attempted dismissal of the Second Amendment for that reason, and I reject the fundamentalists' attempted dismissal of the First Amendment for exactly the same reason. Conservatism is supposed to be morally and intellectually consistent that way.
Third, the bill reflects some fundamental problems in the thinking of everybody who sponsored this bill. It forces students to take an oath and to also swear that they were not forced to do so. The bill insists on a worldview that is neither fact-based nor honest. In fact, it sounds a lot like the kind of regulation you might have seen in the old Soviet Union.
Loyalty oath crusades, like the one that seems to still be gripping the Republican party, are more appropriate for secretive, authoritarian regimes. They're the only kind of people who need to enforce agreement through surreal regulation. In the civilized world, and in the conservative worldview, loyalty is enforced by utility. Conservatives are loyal to ideas that work. America is a working model of an idea that works.
The tragically damaged Republican politicians who introduced this bill are living in an imaginary world where things would be better if people said the right magic words. Folks, it's the 21st century, and we know that magic words don't work. We also know what instills national pride and loyalty, and that is having a vibrant, happy democracy. It's having worthy common goals. As long as the nation is running smoothly and there's some good stuff on TV, loyalty is not an issue.
Forcing people to take a Christian loyalty oath is anti-American. Pretending that you can force someone to do something and describe that as "freely" is anti-reality to a nearly insane degree. This is why the GOP cannot fix its problem just by rebranding. The party's problem is much more fundamental.
Second, the bill specifically requires every Arizona high school student to acknowledge You Know Who if they want to get their diploma. That's establishing a state religion, and the Constitution says no. Period. Because we have freedom of religion, that means that you can't force your religion on other people. And no, you can't use sophistry and distortion to try to get around the First Amendment. That's exactly the same thing the anti-gun lobby does with the Second Amendment.
I'm an old-fashioned conservative. I don't accept sea lawyering as valid reasoning. I reject the anti-gun lobby's attempted dismissal of the Second Amendment for that reason, and I reject the fundamentalists' attempted dismissal of the First Amendment for exactly the same reason. Conservatism is supposed to be morally and intellectually consistent that way.
Third, the bill reflects some fundamental problems in the thinking of everybody who sponsored this bill. It forces students to take an oath and to also swear that they were not forced to do so. The bill insists on a worldview that is neither fact-based nor honest. In fact, it sounds a lot like the kind of regulation you might have seen in the old Soviet Union.
Loyalty oath crusades, like the one that seems to still be gripping the Republican party, are more appropriate for secretive, authoritarian regimes. They're the only kind of people who need to enforce agreement through surreal regulation. In the civilized world, and in the conservative worldview, loyalty is enforced by utility. Conservatives are loyal to ideas that work. America is a working model of an idea that works.
The tragically damaged Republican politicians who introduced this bill are living in an imaginary world where things would be better if people said the right magic words. Folks, it's the 21st century, and we know that magic words don't work. We also know what instills national pride and loyalty, and that is having a vibrant, happy democracy. It's having worthy common goals. As long as the nation is running smoothly and there's some good stuff on TV, loyalty is not an issue.
Forcing people to take a Christian loyalty oath is anti-American. Pretending that you can force someone to do something and describe that as "freely" is anti-reality to a nearly insane degree. This is why the GOP cannot fix its problem just by rebranding. The party's problem is much more fundamental.
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