I agree with Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura (“The wisdom of a wrestler,” Editorial, May 24). “Patriotism is voluntary” and we shouldn’t force children to say the Pledge of Allegiance in school.
The rush to enact legislation after Sept. 11 to require saying the pledge was understandable but misguided. Instead we should have realized that our homeland security from now on depends not on greater patriotic zeal, but on a greater national emphasis on character.
Many of the restraints put on the FBI as a result of unethical domestic intelligence-gathering in the 1960s and ’70s were put there because people in power spied on people whose politics they didn’t like.
We are going to see more lifting of those restraints, and it’s imperative that whistle-blowers be everywhere: within the FBI and also in our communities. The terrorists who are infiltrating our country will not have an easy time of it if the FBI can tap more phones and watch more bank accounts, and if the citizenry is willing to do the right thing when they see someone who acts suspiciously. But appropriate whistle-blowing requires courage and character.
We need to teach our children to speak up when they see wrongdoing, to be accountable for their choices, to be tolerant of differences and to play by the rules. In the wake of Sept. 11, mandatory character education would make more sense than mandatory pledge legislation.
