Tag: American flag

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Worrying about football and the flag misses the point of actually being better Americans

Fresno Bee, September 29, 2017

We live in a country where only about half of the eligible voters bother to vote. People actively strategize ways to avoid jury duty. Fewer than 10 percent of Americans have ever served in the military. And the president admitted during his campaign that it is smart to find ways to avoid paying taxes.

And yet here we are fretting about football and the flag. Football does not increase voter turnout. It fills no jury boxes. It can cause brain damage. It includes scantily clad cheerleaders and lots of beer. It’s fun. But it is a diversion and a distraction that has nothing to do with patriotism.

The flap about the national anthem is also a distraction. Singing the anthem is a symbolic gesture. But a song is no substitute for active engagement and critical thinking. 

SINGING THE ANTHEM IS A SYMBOLIC GESTURE. BUT A SONG IS NO SUBSTITUTE FOR ACTIVE ENGAGEMENT AND CRITICAL THINKING.

Standing for the anthem is not going to get people to be more civic-minded. It certainly won’t change racism and sexism in our culture. The song is a battle hymn, not a celebration of democratic values.

There is nothing in the anthem – or in football – that encourages us to spread equality, love our neighbors, feed the hungry, shelter the homeless, or respect women. Nor does football or the national anthem teach us anything about the Constitution.

And we are desperately in need of constitutional education. A recent survey from the Annenberg Public Policy Center concludes that 37 percent of Americans cannot name any of the rights guaranteed by the First Amendment. And only 26 percent of Americans can correctly name all three branches of government.

It is the First Amendment, by the way, that guarantees our right to protest. And the courts have ruled that the First and Fourteenth Amendments give us the right not to salute the flag. In 1943, the Supreme Court held that “patriotic ceremonies” should be “voluntary and spontaneous, instead of a compulsory routine.” To think that patriotic displays should be compulsory is “to make an unflattering estimate of the appeal of our institutions to free minds.”

So here is a proposal: Instead of singing the anthem before games, let’s begin our sporting events with a lesson in the law that appeals to free minds. We could recite the First Amendment or the Preamble to the Constitution. Nothing could be more American than this. This is a nation of laws, after all. Our liberty is grounded in the Constitution.

Of course, thinking is more difficult than singing – and less fun. We want to holler at the high points of the anthem. We want beer and brain-scrambling hits. No one goes to a football game for a lecture.

IT WOULD BE BETTER TO USE OUR SUNDAY AFTERNOONS DISCUSSING JUSTICE, LIBERTY, AND EQUALITY.

So maybe we need something more sexy and aggressive. How about having players recite the fiery words of the American icons of social protest? From the Boston Tea Party to Martin Luther King, Jr., nonviolent social protest is as American as apple pie.

We could have players recite inspiring quotes from Thoreau’s famous essay on “Civil Disobedience:” “Let your life be a counter-friction to stop the machine.” Or: “There will never be a really free and enlightened State until the State comes to recognize the individual as a higher and independent power.”

Or players could quote from John Adams’ description of the Boston Tea Party. In 1773, Adams wrote, “There is a dignity, a majesty, a sublimity, in this effort of the patriots. The people should never rise, without doing something to be remembered— something notable and striking.”

In previous generations, protests were much more dramatic than taking a knee. Thoreau refused to pay his taxes. Susan B. Anthony was arrested for voting. African Americans sat-in at segregated lunch counters. And the sons of liberty destroyed British property.

Social protest is inconvenient. It forces us to think. As Martin Luther King said, “it creates tension in the mind.” Thinking is not much fun. It is much harder than singing. But it is thinking that spreads the blessings of liberty.

Some have said they will stop watching football now. That’s great. It would be better to use our Sunday afternoons discussing justice, liberty, and equality. These things are more important than football. But these values whither and die when we remain distracted by songs and games.

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The National Anthem, The Pledge of Allegiance, and Democracy

How about a civil dialogue on civic pride?

Fresno Bee, September 17, 2016

Flag protests have broken out all over. Following Colin Kaepernick’s lead, NFL players have taken a knee or raised a fist during the playing of the national anthem. High school athletes have joined in. A Missouri state senator, Jamilah Nasheed, recently sat out the Pledge of Allegiance, as did a New York City councilman, Jumaane D. Williams.

screen-shot-2015-07-10-at-2-58-28-pm_vice_970x435Responses to these protests have been interesting. The band Kiss led their audience in the Pledge of Allegiance. Singer Paul Stanley said, “Patriotism is always cool.” Singer Kid Rock was less subtle. He referred to Kaepernick with an expletive while singing in front of a massive American flag. Less subtle still was an Alabama high school football announcer who suggested that anthem protesters should be shot.

As this unfolded, I’ve been helping to organize a Constitution Day event at Fresno State. One of my colleagues, civic education expert John Minkler, proposed starting the event with the pledge. Minkler sees the pledge as an affirmation of the social contract that helps stimulate reflection on patriotism and the constitutional system.

PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE
“I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America,
and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”

Student organizers were less enthusiastic about including the pledge. Some wondered whether the pledge was constitutional. They worried that the phrase “under God” seems to violate the First Amendment. They were concerned that the pledge seems to exclude non-Christians.

But the courts have allowed expressions of “ceremonial deism” such as the pledge – as well as “In God we trust” and other phrases. In 2004, the U.S. Supreme Court decided against a Sacramento atheist, Michael Newdow, who claimed that the pledge was unconstitutional.

Justice Sandra Day O’Connor explained in her opinion in that case that ceremonial references to God serve only to “solemnize an occasion” without endorsing any particular religion. She hinted that students who object to religious words can simply not say them, while participating in the rest of the pledge.

Students also are allowed to opt out of the pledge entirely. Recently in Chicago, a teacher tried to force a student to stand for the pledge. The teacher was reprimanded and the student was vindicated.

The pledge was invented in 1892. In the early days, people saluted with an open palm raised toward the flag. This looked like the Nazi salute. So in the 1940s people began covering their hearts instead of raising their hands. The words “under God” were added to the pledge in 1954 during the anti-Communist era.

Since the beginning there have been protests. Jehovah’s Witnesses have refused to say the pledge, saying that flag salutes are a form of idolatry. In a 1940 case concerning Jehovah’s Witnesses, the Supreme Court defended compulsory pledging of allegiance saying, “National unity is the basis of national security.” But in 1943 the court reversed itself saying, “Love of country must spring from willing hearts and free minds, inspired by a fair administration of wise laws.”

At around this time, the American philosopher John Dewey suggested that the pledge had become a pale substitute for the reality of justice and liberty for all. He identified mistreatment of “Negroes,” anti-Semitism, and opposition to “alien immigrants” as significant problems.

WHETHER WE RECITE THE PLEDGE OR STAY SILENT, WHETHER WE KNEEL OR COVER OUR HEARTS, WE SHOULD ALWAYS THINK CAREFULLY ABOUT OUR WORDS, OUR DEEDS AND OUR COMMON HUMANITY.

Seventy years later, we are confronting similar issues. Those who protest the pledge and the national anthem likely believe that we need liberty and justice for all. But they believe we are failing to live up to that ideal.

If there is hope and common ground here, it lies in those underlying values. Justice, equality, liberty and respect for persons are essential values of a common human morality. Those values transcend any flag or religion.

Some criticize the pledge as a kind of nationalistic indoctrination. But the ethical ideals expressed in the pledge point beyond jingoistic patriotism and religious exclusivism toward cosmopolitan concern for liberty and justice for all.

Liberty and justice are fragile and complicated. They cannot be defended by shouted expletives or silent gestures. Rather, they require civil dialogue that seeks common ground and mutual understanding.

Liberty and justice are destroyed by violence and incivility. This is true whether you protest the flag or protest the protesters. Whether we recite the pledge or stay silent, whether we kneel or cover our hearts, we should always think carefully about our words, our deeds and our common humanity.

Read more here: http://www.fresnobee.com/living/liv-columns-blogs/andrew-fiala/article102243777.html#storylink=cpy