"Why should I be made
"Why should I be made to feel like an outsider?"
Ah, the whine of the perpetually disenfranchised...the cry of the eternally uncomfortable. Did I not say that Mike Newdow's concern was not for his daughter? In addition to challenging the theocratically fascist Pledge of Allegiance, Mr. Newdow also plans to ask the courts to remove "In God We Trust" from U.S. currency and end prayers at presidential inaugurations. While he's at it, he'd also like to eliminate gendered pronouns from the English language. That's very progressive of him, but I don't think he'll be able to pull it off. And, to be fair, he is on to something with his objections to family law...it is a terrible morass of bad legalese and antiquated ethical theory that needs fixing.
Regarding those two little words in the Pledge: I could care less. They probably shouldn't have put them in there in '54, unless they wanted to have a good laugh and piss off the Socialists who created the Pledge in the first place. All of the political grandstanding that's been going on over the past week is more than a little disingenuous. If I believed that even half of the squawkers were the persons of genuine faith they claim to be, I'd be satisfied that there was some integrity on display. But it isn't so, and all of the public Pledging and Outraging won't make it so. It's one thing to make an appeal to the general cultural milieu; it's quite another to be photogenically outraged on behalf of God himself. God does quite well on his own, I think.
What I object to, amidst all of this nonsense, is the personal philosophy underlying Mr. Newdow's no doubt excellently argued legal challenge. Somehow, Mr. Newdow believes that he has a Constitutional right to be comfortable. Nothing objectionable must cross his path while he moves in the public sphere. He must always feel included, never excluded. How that need translates into the obliteration of any and all mentions of anything even remotely godlike from all areas of that public sphere is beyond me. But then, I didn't pass the bar without studying for it, so what do I know?
It is this belief--that we all have the right to be comfortable, that our feelings must be sheltered, that our tender psyches deserve the full protection of the Government of the United States--that is responsible for so much of what is lazy and objectionable in our modern culture. Suing McDonald's for selling hot coffee assuages not just injury, but also the sting of stupidity that comes from driving with an open cup of steaming coffee in your lap. Hence: the warning sticker industry gets a boost, as thousands of consumer products must now bear big bright labels that read DO NOT FOLD UP CRIB WITH CHILD INSIDE or DO NOT USE HAIR DRYER WHILE STANDING IN BATHTUB and so forth. All because, in addition to having accordioned your child and electrocuted yourself, you'll just plain feel bad, and we can't have that.
Diversity is uncomfortable. Ideas diametrically opposed to your own are uncomfortable to hear. And hey, guess what? Sometimes, you may believe something that 90% of the people you encounter on a day-to-day basis disagree with. If that belief happens to be that people shouldn't be run through with kabob-skewers for jaywalking, then chances are that Right and Justice are on your side, and that's a thing worth fighting for. But mere ideas? Vocabulary? Words, that bear with them no physical threat, no hint of coercion? That might make you (gasp!) uncomfortable? Or even--that dread oppression--make you feel like an outsider? Guess what? Sometimes, we're all outsiders.
Get over it.
Now then. I'm off to file suit against Mr. Newdow, who has disturbed the digestion of my lunch.
