Our Hands on Our Hearts and Our Heads in the Sand

Maybe it was the arrival of summer, but a malaise seemed to have settled over the republic, and I feared we had lost our sense of national purpose. That, however, was before the Pledge of Allegiance ruling in San Francisco.

Nutball California has rallied the country against the godless forces of evil. On talk shows and on street corners, the blood-boiling topic of the day is the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling--affecting nine Western states--that the pledge is unconstitutional because the words “under God” are an endorsement of religion.

In Washington, where the issue was of course seen as a test of patriotism and faith, elected officials elbowed past each other in a race to the nearest TV camera.

“Ridiculous,” said President Bush, a Republican.

“Just nuts,” said Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, a Democrat. The Senate voted unanimously to condemn the ruling.

They happen to be right. The 9th Circuit, ruling on a case brought by an Elk Grove atheist, took separation of church and state to a silly and unnecessary extreme.

But at the risk of being branded a traitor, I’d like to say that Americans are never more shallow or hypocritical than when they break out in hives over issues like the burning of the flag or the wording of the Pledge of Allegiance.

For my money, there are a dozen better reasons to scream and yell and march in the streets. I could begin with schools that constitute one of the greatest failures in the industrialized world, or perhaps a health-care system that leaves out roughly 40 million people and exasperates everyone else.

But the more logical target of collective rage is the current state of affairs in corporate America. As an institution, big business never reached for the sky when it came to virtue and goodwill, but it is setting the bar a little lower every day.

We’ve got lies, cover-ups and chief executives stealing away with obscene stacks of cash while employees and shareholders get stiffed. Any idea how they got away with it for so long?

Simple. They bought everyone off.

That includes both sides of the aisle in Congress, as well as presidents past and present. They also managed without much interference to get their own people appointed to the regulatory agencies. WorldCom, the latest star to fall from the sky, kicked $4 million into political campaigns in three years.

Although the words “under God” can create a human wave that undulates from sea to shining sea, the words “campaign finance reform” can’t seem to pry anyone off the couch.

In Sacramento, Gov. Gray Davis climbed atop a soapbox to tell us the Pledge of Allegiance was “one of our most profound human expressions of American patriotism.” A day earlier, he’d gotten his name in the paper for blocking a $22-million tax on the timber industry after pocketing $105,000 in donations to his reelection campaign.

Across the fruited plain, members of the House of Representatives gathered on the steps of the Capitol to recite the Pledge of Allegiance. As I recall, it contains the words “with liberty and justice for all,” a claim disputed by people locked up without charges after Sept. 11.

But congressional representatives are not easily shamed by hypocrisy or obvious self-interest. These are the folks who, after Sept. 11, snuffed a plea for gas mileage standards that would have reduced our dependence on foreign oil. Some of them, bought and paid for by auto makers, even said they simply could not interfere with Americans’ constitutional right to drive vehicles the size of dinosaurs.

Crown thy good with brotherhood. And watch out Saddam, because by all accounts, we may soon attempt to bomb the snot out of Iraq.

Unlike the clamor over the pledge, this developing story has scarcely gotten a rise out of the American public. I can actually see us starting World War III in the fall without anyone noticing. We’ll be too busy debating the appropriateness of singing “God Bless America” at high school football games.

I am no defender of Saddam. I was in Iraq and watched as Kurdish refugees, who had been gassed, machine-gunned, and carpet-bombed by Saddam, dug holes in the mud each morning to bury their children and elders.

But I haven’t been persuaded that a war on Iraq would accomplish anything other than to make certain that millions more Muslims will sign up to maim, kill and terrorize Westerners into the next millennium.

And besides, if we’re dying to drop bombs, wasn’t it Saudi Arabia that harbored most of the 9/11 terrorists? Does the constitutional right to drive a Ford Expedition demand that we feign ignorance as long as the oil is flowing our way?

I think I know the reason we’re not marching in the streets. We’re in on the deal. We’ve been bought off, too, and we were an easy mark, like kids giving in to the street corner creep who offers free candy. We used to be satisfied sticking a few bucks into the Christmas club each month, and then all of a sudden we wanted portfolios.

We stopped asking questions and lost sight of any cause beyond our own self-interest. The pledge is perfect for the time. It speaks to our best sense of ourselves without requiring any sacrifice.

So fight the good fight, defenders of freedom. And fear not. If there is a God--and frankly, the evidence is circumstantial--something tells me He’ll survive both the 9th Circuit ruling and the appeal.

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Steve Lopez writes Sunday, Wednesday and Friday. Reach him at steve.lopez@latimes.com.