I’ve always been a bit wary of extremely overt flag-waving patriots. Maybe it’s just a reaction I have after watching the hoards of people forced to wave Soviet flags while at gunpoint, or the coerced crowds joining in the celebrations of Mao’s Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution by furiously whipping little Chinese flags to and fro.
Some of those people were, I’m sure, genuinely proud of their country and were just expressing that pride enthusiastically. For many, however, it was just an empty action forced upon them by ruthless people in positions of authority under threat of being sent to jail for their lack of patriotic support.
Fortunately we don’t have such dictators in the United States of America. Or so I thought.
In Tupelo Mississippi Judge Talmadge Littlejohn threw an attorney in jail for refusing the recite the Pledge of Allegiance. As attorney Danny Lampley put it:
“He said, ‘please stand for the pledge.’ Of course, we were all standing anyway because the judge had just come in – it’s a matter of courtesy. I remained standing with my hands by my side,” Lampley said.The attorney told WTVA News he waited for everyone to finish the pledge. Lampley said when it was over the judge asked him to say it. He refused, and that is when the judge held him in contempt.
Forcing people to pledge allegiance, or to energetically wave tiny flags, does not create a nation of patriots. I wonder if Judge Littlejohn requires everyone in his courtroom to use the Bellamy salute as well. If he doesn’t, I think he should start the practice. It would somehow seem more fitting.
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