All Heil The Flag

My brother and I were talking yesterday about tactics used during debates by those who have no interest in truth or objectivity, but who have already made up their mind to think a certain way and the facts be damned. Most often, these debates end up as mere emotional arguments where one side or both resort to name calling and smearing the character and motives of their opponent. This type of debate is commonplace in the realm of politics and has almost completely replaced the genuine, objective kind.

Take for instance the pro/anti-war debates that have been raging in the media over the past several years. Such debates were common before we invaded Iraq, but they largely died down once we were in as most people were too busy "supporting the troops" to attempt to really understand what was going on. They have been resurrected recently, largely thanks to the surge in anti-war sentiment that is the product of Cindy Sheehan's crusade for peace, which culminated recently in her vigil outside the President's Crawford, TX ranch.

Casting aside the absurdity of the pro-war position, what I found most telling about their reaction to Cindy Sheehan was that rather than defending the war position on logical grounds, rather than confronting the lies and false intelligence that brought us into the war, rather than realistically assessing our chances of success in the Middle East, they insisted on attacking her character and motives.

What is it about Americans that makes us so vulnerable to such underhanded tactics? Obviously if they were ineffective the political classes and their media lackeys would cease to use them in favor of other strategies that worked better. Their continuing use verifies their effectiveness, at least for a majority of the voting population. One possible reason is that many people have little or no training in logic or in the techniques of formal debate. They have difficulty distinguishing between valid and invalid arguments. But even if they can, these arguments can still be persuasive if they strike a strong, emotional cord with their audience. The audience must feel as if the person who is being targeted is not trying to convey a message that deserves consideration, but rather is attacking their values, their sense of moral judgment, their history, their culture etc. They must feel personally and collectively threatened.

In America, our patriotic indoctrination begins, at the latest, when we start attending school. There we are taught to sing patriotic songs, we are taught very selectively about our country and form of government (mostly about how wonderful they are), and perhaps most important of all, we learn to pledge our allegiance to the flag. Where did this tradition come from? Why do school children across the nation stand each morning with their hands over their hearts and pledge their allegiance to a piece of cloth and an "indivisible" union?

If you're curious about who wrote the pledge and how it came to be what it is today I would recommend reading this page on Wikipedia. It's the same page I pulled the picture at the top of this article off of. That picture is real; it's no hoax. And although it looks like a photo straight out of Nazi Germany, it's 100% American as you can tell by the large American flag at the front of the classroom; you know, the one all the children are Zeig Heiling at. Maybe we're not as far removed from our fascist enemies as we think we are.

To me this picture is particularly revealing in that it shows the absurdity of any sort of robotic ritual or mindless observance. The pledge was written by Francis Bellamy, an avowed socialist and worshipper of big government. How ironic it is that someone so opposed to the principles this country was founded on has come to play a larger role in how people view our government and its purpose than perhaps even the constitution itself. There is no question that the pledge was written with the intent to create and foster an unquestioning, unthinking allegiance to those in power. The goal of socialism has always been to consolidate power in the hands of a strong central authority in order to reduce the average person to a serf dependent on the state for survival.

Alan Bock, in a recent article on LewRockwell.com, wrote the following: "I object to the very idea of making students 'pledge allegiance' to a rapacious state mechanism – and that is unquestionably what the pledge was designed to do, to encourage an attitude of unquestioning obedience that is unworthy of a free people."

A free people do not allow themselves to be turned into a mindless mob. They do not stand zombie-like with their hands over their hearts and chant hollow pledges and slogans. They do not have an unquestioning allegiance to those who rule them. They do not allow themselves to be tricked, or compelled to fight wasteful, destructive wars in foreign lands. To be truly free, a people can have no blind allegiances to flags, symbols, songs, or slogans. Such things have always been the tools of tyrants and demagogues. Their allegiance may be to God, family, religion, self, neighbors, etc; but all these are voluntary relationships. Government is force and coercion and as such it should not be trusted, let alone worshipped.

I strongly believe that the fact that the state "educates" and indoctrinates our children from a very early age makes us susceptible to the types of emotional arguments that have made serious discussion of serious issues virtually impossible in this country. We have developed such a strong mental attachment to the state and its symbols that we feel personally threatened when they are threatened. We feel it our duty to defend them regardless of what it is against. The slogan "my country, right or wrong," is a product of this type of thinking. It makes it difficult for many to see past the political smokescreen and view things as they really are.

We must learn to divorce ourselves from these emotions. It may be okay to love one's country, but it's another thing entirely to blindly follow our leaders, to refuse to hold them accountable for their actions, to close our eyes to clearly presented evidence and to history itself. If this nation is to be saved, (which is a questionable goal itself,) we must regain the principles that made us once free. Rather than learning to stand and heil the flag, our children should be taught to question, to think for themselves, to be independent and to be wary of the federal leviathan that would lie to them, plunder their productive efforts and if they are really unlucky, leave them bleeding and dying in the desert.