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I went to a Catholic grade school growing up and, oddly, a conversation with a friend yesterday about the anniversary of the JFK assassination enlightened me on how early the indoctrination sinks in.
I was in second grade on Nov. 22, 1963, and remember someone calling our teacher — a nun — to the door and whispering to her. The teacher then told us Kennedy had been shot. After saying prayers as would be automatic in a Catholic school, my mind said, “Don’t ask or he’ll die.” Still, I raised my hand and asked the teacher who would run the country if the president died. She told me the vice-president, an office I didn’t even know existed, would become president
Within two minutes of my asking, the principal came to the door and told us the president had died. My immediate thought was, “It’s my fault. I killed him.” I carried that thought home with me when we were discharged from school and for several days thereafter.
As I told my friend that, he responded, “Whoa, now there’s some Catholic guilt!” Of course, that’s probably part of the reason I’ve been a “recovering Catholic” for several decades.
I thank God I was raised Catholic, so sex will always be dirty.
John Waters
Evidently it doesn’t take much any more to start throwing around death threats. Locally, the mischaracterization of a recent decision by the Sioux Falls School District has led to school board members receiving a variety of menacing calls and emails, some threatening death. And it’s all because of “patriotism.”
See, the School Board recently amended a policy so as to include middle schools in reciting the Pledge of Allegiance or performing some other “patriotic activity” daily. High schools are required to say the Pledge, present colors or perform a patriotic activity at any assembly of the entire student body. By the time the story reached Fox News, however, it was that the School Board voted unanimously to no longer require high school students to say the Pledge. Suddenly, cries of anti-Americanism and lack of patriotism exploded — despite the fact the District actually expanded the reach of the policy. In my mind, all the hubbub reflects phony patriotism and how many crackpots we have (although it’s reported the threats come largely from out of state).
Granted, it was 40 yeas ago but I don’t recall whether we had to recite the Pledge in high school. Either way, I know it played no role in my patriotism or generating respect for the country or its symbols. What might be more telling is that, if we did recite it daily, it left no impression. You don’t create patriotism by forcing someone to repeat certain words. As U.S. Supreme Court Justices Hugo Black and William O. Douglas said in a concurring opinion in a case looking at whether students could be required to recite the Pledge, “Love of country must spring from willing hearts and free minds.” And that case (West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette) was decided in 1943 — that’s right, in the midst of War II, when the country basked in patriotism.
Do you think a terrorist would have any problem joining in reciting the Pledge or singing the national anthem at some public function just to fit in? And I’m guessing the heads of those condemning the school board might explode if they knew the Pledge was written by a socialist. Seems the red, white and blue in it might actually be a little pink.
Now we have state legislators wanting to pass a law requiring all South Dakota school children to recite the Pledge each day they are in class. Perhaps someone should point out the Barnette case. It held that the First Amendment meant students couldn’t be forced to salute the flag and say the Pledge in school. (I suspect the School District policy isn’t invalidated because it doesn’t require students to say the Pledge, only that it or some other patriotic activity “be performed each day in elementary and middle school classrooms.”)
Now which is more patriotic — threatening to kill fellow Americans because you disagree with them or recognizing and applying the U.S. Constitution?
Compulsory unification of opinion achieves only the unanimity of the graveyard.
West Virginia State Bd. of Education v. Barnette, 319 U.S. 624 (1943)
Interesting Reading in the Interweb Tubes
- Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, Defender of the Constitution (“You may have nothing in common with the Boston bombing suspect. But if the feds can bar him from communicating privately and effectively with his attorneys before he is even convicted they one day may be able to prevent you from doing so as well.”)
Innovative Legal Theory of the Week
Bookish Linkage
Nonbookish Linkage
- Newspaper retracts 150-year-old editorial calling The Gettysburg Address “silly“
- An open letter to list articles
There was another life that I might have had, but I am having this one.
Kazuo Ishiguro, Never Let Me Go
Interesting Reading in the Interweb Tubes
- Up in Arms (“There’s never been an America, but rather several Americas—each a distinct nation. There are eleven nations today.”)
- Should Literature Be Useful? (“Fiction’s lack of practical usefulness is what gives it its special freedom.”)
Blog Headline of the Week
Lawsuit of the Week
- A woman and her nephew are suing the NYPD, claiming officers came into her apartment without permission and wouldn’t leave until the nephew performed a rap song
Bookish Linkage
Nonbookish Linkage
Tonight this fool’s halfway to heaven and just a mile outta hell
Bruce Springsteen, “Better Days,” Lucky Town
Interesting Reading in the Interweb Tubes
- Brown University’s Campus Liberals vs. Free Speech (“On the surface, campuses like Brown’s seem hegemonically liberal. But in my experience, that apparent consensus conceals a crucial gulf between students and faculty who hold left of center opinions but accept basic norms of fair play and students who consider freedom of speech a scam employed by the powers that be to perpetuate their racism/sexism/classism/imperialism/homophobia.”)
- Almost Without Hope (“Currently, prisoners receive significantly higher per capita health-care funding than Native Americans.”)
- 10 Novels to a Better You (“Christ, if all this reading has made me a better or wiser person, I’d hate to think what kind of monster I’d be without it.
Blog Headline of the Week
Blog Line of the Week
Lawsuit of the Week
Instilling Confidence in Law Enforcement Story of the Week
Instilling Confidence in Traditional Media Moment of the Week
Bookish Linkage
Nonbookish Linkage
It might be a good idea if the various countries of the world would occasionally swap history books, just to see what other people are doing with the same set of facts
Bill Vaughan, Sunbeams
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