The Republic for Richard Stans
A ten-year-old in northwest Arkansas has decided to boycott the Pledge of Allegiance:
“Liberty and justice for all?”
Will Phillips doesn’t believe that describes America for its gay and lesbian citizens. He’s a 10-year-old at West Fork Elementary School in Arkansas, about three hours east of Oklahoma City. Given his beliefs, he refused to recite the Pledge of Allegiance, specifically because that one phrase, “liberty and justice for all,” he says, does not truly apply to all.
This precipitated the usual classroom scandal.
Me, I tend to side with Will, and then some: current trends in government indicate that before long there will be liberty and justice for none, except for a favored few who have managed to exempt themselves from the laws they’re inflicting on the rest of us.
Of course, he’s catching hell:
It can be rough at times, he and his family admit. He has his share of supporters, however, his critics are louder and nastier — especially because he took his stand to defend gay rights.
“In the lunchroom and in the hallway, they’ve been making comments and doing pranks, calling me gay,” he told the [Arkansas] Times. “It’s always the same people, walking up and calling me a gaywad.”
Admittedly, middle-schoolers will call just about anyone out of favor a “gaywad,” but I have to figure, ultimately he’ll benefit from the thickening of his skin.
In the meantime, we have the example of Mad, which once rewrote the Pledge:
I will pledge allegiance to the flag
Of the United States of America
When it is one nation, under God,
Indivisible, with Liberty and Justice for all
Including [racial epithet], [racial epithet], [racial epithet],
[racial epithet], [racial epithet], [racial epithet], etc.
A few more includes, say I.
fillyjonk »
21 November 2009 · 8:20 am
While I don’t mean to belittle a gay kid’s experience (no idea how hellish that could be), it does seem at times that we may need to amend it to “one nation of victims.”
A lot of times in school I didn’t feel totally free and totally treated with justice…little eggheads were persecuted, probably not to the extent of gay kids (I think, in the 70s, most of us didn’t know what “gay” was until high school at least), but it could be pretty miserable to go to school all the same. (I guess I just accepted it as “it is what it is” and prayed that adulthood would be better)
And I said the pledge. Except for that one year that a kid’s parents objected to the idea of making what they say as amounting to an oath (I think that was what it was), so we sang the first stanza of “My Country Tis of Thee” instead (the teacher’s compromise)
CGHill »
21 November 2009 · 9:52 am
I got no impression from the story that the kid himself leans that way, only that he takes that particular position. Then again, the darker side of human nature pretty much guarantees that he’ll be on the receiving end of accusations.
Sean Gleeson »
21 November 2009 · 10:12 am
The kid has a point, namely, that as long as there exists at least one person in the republic who lacks either liberty or justice, then it seems inescapably logical this nation is not one “with liberty and justice for all.” And if a statement is untrue, one should refuse to assent to it.
But perhaps the statement is not really saying what he is assuming. The pledge does not in fact claim that all persons enjoy liberty and justice. I rather think that the “for” in “for all” denotes that liberty and justice are for all, that is, for the benefit of all, and ideally to be dispensed to all — even when, as it happens, not all have managed to get them. So the statement is true if read in this sense, which I think is the right one. If the kid thinks of it that way, maybe he can give his assent to it.
Consider further that this side of the eschaton, it would be an absolute impossibility for all persons to have both liberty and justice. First because human institutions are imperfect, but also because the two ideals are incompatible. If we somehow managed to give everyone perfect justice (which includes punishing all crimes), some persons would perforce be deprived of their liberty (such as criminals). So “liberty and justice for all,” if it means what the kid thinks it means, is not only impossible but also undesirable.
CGHill »
21 November 2009 · 10:29 am
Similarly, endorsement of the vaunted “pursuit of happiness” doesn’t guarantee that everyone will be successful in said pursuit, or even that they’ll be able to find the target in the first place.
Sean Gleeson »
21 November 2009 · 11:10 am
Well, at least it is vaunted. That’s better than being unvaunted.
CGHill »
21 November 2009 · 11:14 am
I vaunt it every chance I get.
McGehee »
21 November 2009 · 3:47 pm
Kid should be old enough to understand the distinction between an ideal and a fact. Perhaps his parents and/or schoolteachers have failed to explain it to him.
fillyjonk »
21 November 2009 · 4:41 pm
Heh. I was coming back on here to rescind my earlier comment – upon reflection it was pretty stupid and banal – and I expected to be excoriated by further commenters. (I’ve spend too much time on college campuses, I guess, where The Law of the Schoolyard often rules).
I think I was expressing my frustration with what McGehee noted, and also the fact that, if a person waits for this country to be exactly 100% in line with every ideal of “fairness,” they’ll be waiting a long time. Or they won’t like what they get when they actually get that long-expected fairness.
There may be stuff wrong with the country, but in general, there’s more right than wrong. (And even if same-sex couples can marry, at least they’re not arrested, like they used to be in the UK.)
I knew people during the previous Presidential administration (and other people, during the one previous to that) who would sit out the National Anthem and other similar things on the grounds that they were so personally offended by the occupant of the White House that, “The anthem no longer represents ME.”
To me, that seemed monumentally silly: for one thing, the anthem and all related things (including a pledge) are not directed to whomever may currently sit in government. And second, in a lot of cases, it seemed largely the refusal was making something all about them.
If the kid really is that troubled by the fact that same-sex couples can’t marry in some states, I would think there’s something more productive he could do (even at ten) than refuse to say the Pledge of Allegiance…even writing letters too representatives and Senators.
McGehee »
21 November 2009 · 8:40 pm
I saw enough of that kind of sentiment (and remembered a fair share from the previous eight years) during those years that I felt compelled on a number of occasions (here and here, for example) to be proactive in renouncing any such on my own part.
paulsmos »
21 November 2009 · 10:15 pm
Your gay-dar must be busted…. this little poster boy for NAMBLA is as queer as a three dollar bill. “Then again, the darker side of human nature pretty much guarantees that he’ll be on the receiving end of accusations.” Darker side? Contrary to libtard belief, calling a spade a spade is a product of observation not some agenda or preconceived idea.
wamprat »
23 November 2009 · 12:15 am
Justice? WHAT justice?