I love my wife, too, but I'll be damned if I'll publicly sign a paper, or take an oath, declaring it to the world. I already did that when I engaged in the solemn ceremony of marriage. Asking me to do it periodically is insulting. Maybe some people get a warm, fuzzy feeling doing this kind of ritualistic country worship, but I find it extremely distateful and fascistic. I use the overused term fascist deliberately because fascism substitutes the public cermony of symbolic action (clicking heels, salutes, slogans, flags) to enforce what should be a private expression of genuine devotion. Save the salutes, pledges, resolutions, and all other public statements for the mass rallys and Red Square Parades, where they belong.

Many years ago, (1970), my college roommate and I were camping out at Big Bend National Park in Texas. At daybreak, we left our camp to go to the Park Visitor Center to get cleaned up. As we approached, a ranger came out and went through the morning ritual of raising the colors. As Old Glory smartly whipped up to the truck, both of us, college hippy antiwar Vietnam Vets, spontaneously stopped and snapped to attention, watching the flag rise up into the glorious sunrise sky. It was a spontaneous and unsolicited action and it was genuine. We did it because it felt right to us, not to convince anyone else or satisfy the group by demonstrating our loyalty. Any other expression of forced patriotism is an act of bullying designed to indoctrinate and intimidate and I believe it to be patriotic to resist it. We never said a word, and no one saw us. That's how these moments should express themselves. In quiet dignity.

We take a formal oath when we join the military, and when we become a citizen. This is fitting and proper, and honors the solemnity of the act. Having to do it every morning in school is a joke. There is nothing wrong with patriotic sentiments as expressed in "The American's Creed" (Even the name makes my flesh crawl). But that it would have to be passed as an official resolution by a legislative body is simply astonishing, and pathetic.