Loyalty Oaths Fail the Test of Democracy
Last week, the state of California avoided a possible constitutional confrontation over its requirement that all public employees sign an oath affirming that they will “support and defend” the United States and California constitutions “against all enemies, foreign and domestic.”
A mathematics teacher named Marianne Kearney-Brown, who is a Quaker and a pacifist, declined to sign the oath because she felt that it might later be construed as committing her to take up arms to defend the nation, which would violate her religious beliefs. The state finessed the situation by agreeing that the oath would not be interpreted in that manner.
But the real question is why California requires public employees to sign an anachronistic and relatively meaningless loyalty oath at all.
Certainly, a truly disloyal employee could pose risks to the government. She might (if she were doing something other than teaching remedial math) disclose secret information to an enemy, destroy important government files, make decisions intended to harm the public interest and recruit other employees to engage in subversive activities.
But just how does a loyalty oath guard against such dangers? After all, anyone who is truly disloyal will simply take the oath falsely. No dangerous subversive will be deterred by the requirement of an oath.
The origins of the California loyalty oath, which all state, city, county, public school, community college and public university employees are required to sign, can be found in the McCarthy era. It was added to the state Constitution in 1952 and was designed, like so many other legal measures of that sorrowful era, not to protect the nation against real subversion but to frighten, intimidate and punish individual citizens for exercising their constitutional right to question and criticize the government.
Worse yet, it was designed to punish them for having exercised those rights decades earlier. In the 1930s, during the Depression, many Americans on urban bread lines and devastated farms had asked hard questions about the need for economic and political reform. Among the many organizations to which they turned was the Communist Party, which was then a legal political party that regularly ran candidates for public office.
By the end of World War II, with the beginning of the Cold War, most Americans who still had ties to the Communist Party or to organizations with connections to it quickly severed them. But by then it was too late. The most infamous question of the next two decades — “Are you now or have you ever been … ?” — had entered the American lexicon.
Political leaders such as Sens. Richard Nixon and Joseph McCarthy quickly seized on the opportunity to leverage fear to their political advantage. As Americans worried about the prospect of nuclear war with the Soviet Union, and accusations of Soviet espionage spread throughout the nation, right-wing ideologues launched a campaign charging that thousands of communists had secretly infiltrated the government, the military, the unions, the schools and the media.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce demanded concerted action to drive subversives out of these and other positions of influence. Francis Cardinal Spellman warned that communists were “digging deep inroads into our nation” and “trying to grind into dust the blessed freedoms for which our sons have fought, sacrificed and died.”
President Harry Truman charged that such “scaremongers” had “created such a wave of fear and uncertainty that … people are growing frightened — and frightened people don’t protest.”
But McCarthy persisted. “I say one communist in a defense plant is one communist too many,” he said in 1952. “One communist on the faculty of one university is one communist too many.”
Within a few years, a plague of loyalty oaths had spread across the nation. By 1956, 42 states, including California, and more than 2,000 county or city governments had enacted loyalty oaths for public employees.
As Truman had warned, a cancer of fear had swept the nation.
The very concept of “loyalty” is painfully elusive. It is defined entirely by a state of mind. Does it mean “my country, right or wrong”? Can a citizen oppose government policies — including a war — and still be “loyal”? Can a citizen be a pacifist and still be “loyal”?
Loyalty oaths reverse the essential relationship between the citizen and the state in a democratic society. As the framers of our Constitution understood, the citizens of a self-governing society must be free to think and talk openly and critically about issues of governance.
In a regime of loyalty oaths, it is the government that defines which thoughts and which ideas are permitted. Dissenting views and nonconforming views are deemed “disloyal.” The very existence of such oaths reflects an utter lack of confidence in the American people. Nothing so dangerously corrupts the integrity of a democracy as a lack of faith in its own citizens.
Loyalty oaths serve no legitimate function. The government can and should investigate and punish unlawful conduct. But it should not attempt to intimidate U.S. citizens who express “disloyal” beliefs.
It is time for California to recognize that its requirement that public employees swear an oath of fealty to their government is a relic of shameful past and, quite simply, un-American.
Geoffrey R. Stone is a professor of law at the University of Chicago.
Copyright 2008 Los Angeles Times
The stupidity of loyalty oaths boggles the mind. If a terrorist for example would be willing to kill people, wouldn’t s/he be willing to lie in taking an oath????
I had to take one once in a group, raise my hand and swear. I recited Twinkle twinkle little star…
These oaths have the same purpose and the same effect as the officially sanctioned torture of of a few random, hapless individuals. They make us all afraid—afraid to speak, afraid to act, just afraid all the time.
We are supposed to take the lesson that nothing will protect us from our government if they really want to get us. The law is whatever the Supreme Court says it is. Nazi Germany had jurists who were equal to if not superior to this gang of nine we have.
The human impulse just to go along is one of the most wretched things about our species.
Last week, the state of California avoided a possible constitutional confrontation over its requirement that all public employees sign an oath affirming that they will “support and defend” the United States and California constitutions “against all enemies, foreign and domestic.”
Who needs loyalty oaths when you can monitor the population 24/7? The US government and corporations are reading their emails. Monitoring their phone calls, tracking their air travel etc. It alleviates the need for the government to rely on the good word of citizens.
If you were a terrorist wouldn’t you be the biggest flag waver and the most patriotic person in the room?
Fool me once, shame on you.
Fool me twice, shame on me.
The US electorate is way past twice when it comes to campaigns based on fear and greed that have kept the Republican party in power for more than 27 of the past 40 years.
Why wouldn’t the Republicans succeed again in the 2008 election?
Exactly correct. It seems about half the US population fails to grasp the concept, much to the detriment of the rest of us.
“Oaths” no longer exist in this country. All Senators take an “oath of office,” for example, but when it’s time to tell some truths, Arlen Spector doesn’t make them take a second oath to tell the truth, which apparently gives them permission to violate their primary oath.
Anyone who has taken an “oath” to defend and protect the Constitution of America needs to head over to D.C. and start arresting motherf**kers by the busload… or stick your oath up your butt with your support the troops stickers.
Paul Revere, you are correct. Mr. Bush is exactly as you described him.
The people in power have the hapless animals (the rest of us) by the tail.
Spitzer should be given the same treatment everyone else gets for the crime he committed.
The witch hunts for people who do not suscribe to the everything that the haves believe in have to be prosecuted.
Why is a belief illegal? And if it is, how do they prove it?
Can you be a socialist and a businessman at the same time?
These folks who are dissenting, are more often than not, intelligent and able folks, the type this country needs.
A stupid Nation enables the Power Hungry.
That is why things will never change.
> “support and defend” the United States and California Constitutions
> “against all enemies, foreign and domestic.”
If more Americans took it seriously, Bush and Cheney would’ve been impeached some time ago.
Geoff Stone’s analysis was excellent, until I ran into this…
“Among the many organizations to which they turned was the Communist Party, which was then a legal political party that regularly ran candidates…”
Er, Mr. Stone…I regret to inform you that the Communist Party, USA, is STILL a legal political party, and they still run candidates.
Oddly enough, the CPUSA often runs a bit to the right of other left parties like the Socialist Party, USA or even some Greens. They often even endorse Democrats. http://www.cpusa.org/
They have a fairly good Magazine “Political Affairs” - although I found occasional articles supporting the current brand of Chinese Capitalism to be rather odd. http://www.politicalaffairs.net/
Wasn’t Bush making people swear loyalty oaths to HIM personally?
“support and defend” the United States and California constitutions “against all enemies, foreign and DOMESTIC.”
Aye, there’s the rub. Defending against DOMESTIC enemies. So if government is the enemy of our state and federal constitution . . .
Just out of curiosity, what are “domestic” enemies supposed to be, anyway? Does the government identify them for us, or can we exercise our own judgment on the matter?
These oaths are a vestige of the McCarthy era. They flourished then as a product of the anti-communism that destroyed American Labor and instituted the National Security State. You can’t be loyal to the working class and to democracy if you are loyal to the corporate pig-state as they have the opposite interests.
Get the Pledge of Allegiance out with it.
As a kid we all just did it and had little idea what we were saying.
Looking back now, this seems very creepy.
Imagine Germans pledging an oath of allegiance to zah fahzerland.
Realistically, maybe you’ll want to move to another, or better country later, (which there are more and more better ones daily) it’s a very odd thing.
Do kids still stand up and do this in elementary school every day?
Britain - foolishly - is trying to introduce a loyalty oath to the queen as we speak.
The aim? To engender a feeling of unity and belonging, and to create active aprticipants in a democratic society.
But the real messages are:
- Children, you live in a democracy where you are forced to swear allegiance to a queen or king no one voted for
- whatever your religion or whether you are an atheist or not you are forced to swear allegiance to the head (queen Elizabitch II) of one of the world’s largest religions
- you can hold any political persuasion you choose but if you are a republican tough shit becasue we are forcing you to swear allegiance to a monarch
- you are forced to swear allegiance to someone who only became queen because she did not have any brothers - if she had had a younger brother he would have become king in her place because he owns a penis and is thus better suited to leadership. Forget whatever your teachers tell you in school about geneder equality
- your opinions in any of these matters do not count. Try refusing to swaer and see how far you get.
- you are forced to swear allegiance to the people who are the richest in the land, whose families stole, enslaved and murdered their way to power
- you are forced to swear allegiance to the descnedants of immigrants - but unlike your families these are the only immigrants in yur society who are worshipped in this way - the rest of you are unwashed scum
Welcome to democracy, kids!
With all due respect, y’all are on the wrong track. C’mon, folks, have you all lost your power of critical thinking?!?!?!
I suggest a different tactic. Make friends with the Constitution you have affirmed to defend. Really, if you read the document, there is nothing to fear, as long as you are willing to use your power of critical thinking to understand it, and do not accept someone else’s interpretation of it.
Sign the oath, and read, understand, and integrate the Constitution. Then, consider this your protection the next time someone suggests that the workplace is a Constitution-free zone. I carry a pocket copy around all the time. If anyone tries to abridge my 1st Amendment or other rights, I have the oath I signed as the reason for my social activism.
www.raycarlson.com
We submit to the equivalent of “loyalty oaths” almost daily by removing our shoes at the airport; submitting to dogs sniffing our person on public transportation; and body searches at ports of entry. Most of us are afraid to say “no” out of fear. Fear of being accused of being disloyal to our government. Fear of being arrested. Fear of going to jail. Fear of missing our flight. Fear of being embarrassed. Fear of loss of time, money, or social standing. Fear of being marked a domestic enemy. Fear of terrorists. And, now fear of being tortured.
Once again, as with the McCarthy era, our government has us lined up obediently because they’ve beat us down with fear. Red alert! Red alert! That fear has been followed up with rules and regulations that give the power to the state, making us even more fearful. Citizen guilt, in these situations, seems to be a given. We are guilty if we resist. Yet, resistance might simply be our desire to defend our pride or principles. It might simply be our repugnance at what we’re being asked to do. It might be, and in all probability is, our loyalty to the freedoms once guaranteed under our Constitution.
This nation has a long way to travel to get back to “innocent until proven guilty” or even basic human rights. Standing up to our government, because we love our country, might be the hardest thing we’ll have to do in our lives. I hold out hope in the upcoming election, but not too much. I have more hope in the people finally saying, “enough! I want my country back.” You know, that country we studied in civics class all those years ago.
I saw the fundamental contradiction between being *required* to recite the Pledge of Allegiance while claiming to be a “free country” way back in grade school. Too bad most American adults don’t have the brain power I had at age 8.
Regarding our illustrious president and his own oath to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States (yeah right)…I refer to the Bible…
(Matthew 7:15-23) are from the Sermon on the Mount:
“Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves. By their fruit you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thorn bushes, or figs from thistles? Likewise every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus, by their fruit you will recognize them.”
The mother of an Army Captain who has served 3 tours in the Middle East…a mother who is a memeber of Military Families Speak Out.
Wake up America…before it is too late.
Peace to All
Nietzsche, jlocke123
They need for people to take this oath, not to insure loyalty, but to give reason to arrest people for not following the oath (by their standards). They are able to turn something patriotic into a fear tactic. Just as they suggest legislation for “thoughts being a crime”, dissent against “their” laws will become a crime. The allegiance really isn’t to the Constitution anymore…it is allegiance to the authority of a few. It becomes a fear tactic and tool of control.
Think of it…some think sending men off to fight an illegal war is patriotic….while others think that bringing the troops home from an illegal is patriotic…
Who wins this argument…the administration and Congress who pass laws saying we can’t dissent or disagree with their judgements.
We are losing our Bill of Rights…and the only oath that won’t get us arrested is the oath decided for us…Hail to the Dictator.
I agree, if someone really wanted to harm the country, they would just lie when taking the Loyalty Oath.
Just like Junior Bush did when he took the Oath of the Presidency, to “defend and uphold the Constitution,” while smirking and snickering under his breath.