The cost of patriotism.

As we get back towards school season I have been seeing the usual round of articles talking about the Pledge of Allegiance in schools, Allegiance is a hard word to spell by the way, that i before the a there throws me off, anyway the articles generally talk about how various administrators and local governments attempt to make saying the pledge mandatory in various ways that all pretty much violate the First Amendment and so on.
On a related note, I read an article today about Colin Kaepernick, a man whose name is surprisingly easy to spell for some reason, perhaps it is just me. Kaepernick, for those who don't know is a (not really that good) quarterback for the San Francisco 49ers, he refused to stand for the National Anthem during a recent pre-season game, as an aside I am totally looking forward to football season, which is hard given how kind of terrible the sport and organization is but there you go.

Anyhoo, Kaepernick sat in protest of the ongoing and repeated police violence against minorities, a cause I can certainly agree with. But the conversation has pretty much only focused on the "insult" of not standing during the Anthem, the news outlets are being surprisingly mild, and the 49er's organization is standing behind Kaepernick, but the commentary is incredibly vitriolic.

Save us from so called "Patriots".

The country was literally founded as a criticism of government, written directly into our founding documents are rights that explicitly allow us to do so and indeed the language of the Constitution encourages it

Unrelated aside, I have a co-worker who thinks that cursive is not being taught in schools anymore because "they" do not want people to be able to read the Constitution, she does not mention what "they" intend to do about all the copies of it written in plain text.

Our government can't make itself immune to criticism and still be our government, and all forms of protest should be encouraged and celebrated. I had a lot of trouble criticizing the Malheur Wildlife Refuge occupiers because I believe that protest like that should be encouraged, of course those particular people proved to be incredible assholes by wrecking up a place that had no connection to anything they were actually mad about, plus their cause was dumb as hell.

Kaepernick is bi-racial and pretty upset by the ongoing murders of black people by the police as well as the lack of interest that our government has in punishing those who did it, or preventing it from happening again. Loyalty is earned, and for a large minority of our population, our country is not earning that loyalty, indeed it is actively driving that away.
Kaepernick may not be personally in danger of being murdered by the cops, I don't know his personal situation, but he clearly feels connected to the community and as an NFL star he has a platform that not a lot of other people have to show his displeasure, using it is in the best traditions of the country and fully protected, the people who call themselves patriots who are criticizing him are the ones being un-American.

Moving back to schools, the Constitution doesn't really talk one way or another about making an informed decision before you sign on the unconditionally loving your country, making the Pledge in schools something of a grey area, or at least those who support it would have you believe that. Personally I believe it is creepy as hell that we somehow feel our country is in such a precarious state that we need to indoctrinate our youngest members before they can really start thinking for themselves, now yes, technically you can choose not to participate in the pledge, but be honest here, if the average six year old is told to stand up and repeat after the teacher, odds are they will do so, and won't be thinking about their right to protest it.

The result is blind nationalism, I don't think it is a coincidence that since the Pledge was formally adopted and the words "Under God" added in the 40s we have seen a growing nationalist sentiment in all parts of the political spectrum. It makes sense, the early part of the century was marked by national crises' and World Wars, pulling together to combat those things turned the USA into a military and economic juggernaut that has not been equaled since. Obviously nationalism wasn't new to the 40s and beyond, but it turned creepy after WWII and the language of the USA being infallible started being the standard of discourse, like the parties could disagree, but whatever the country ended up doing began to be assumed to be the good and correct course.

Basically, the idea that we are right because we are mighty, rather than the reverse, is a nationalistic sentiment and an incredibly dangerous idea, the living embodiment of that idea is Donald Trump(obviously I was gonna bring him in), a man who so accustomed to wielding power that he assumes whatever he does is right simply because he has the power to do it. Nixon had similar issues, "If the President does it, it is not illegal", now he had some context to that quote, attempting to justify it with talk about checks and balances, and national security, but we have seen what he did with the power of the presidency, and it is pretty clear his justifications are bullshit.

Nationalism is the enemy of free speech, and free speech is the enemy of oppression, the Pledge obviously is not the sole cause of America's problems, but it is a symptom and tool to prevent free speech, repetition is a powerful tool, even if someone just passively mouths the words, it begins to ingrain a mindset of acceptance to the power and infallibility of the government that is difficult to break.

I am not saying we shouldn't love our country, but when we love a person who has problems we are not being fair to ourselves, or that person if we ignore or deny their problems. We work together to solve them.

Or we sever.