I’ve been called names before, and I’m sure I’ll be called them again. No big deal. I’m a big boy, I can handle having names hurled at me. I watch my Twitter feed and will jump in occasionally with a comment. Today, I was watching, and saw a small debate about the United States as a Republic or a Democracy. Well, one Tweet from Cynthia Boaz, @cynthiaboaz, a Political Science professor, stated “Both @adamsbaldwin &@WR_Systems have said that the US is not a democratic state. Which puts them in the same category with Chomsky & Zinn.”
Well, as most of you know, I’m a smart-ass. And, according to Ms. Boaz’s Twitter bio, she is “3/4 smartypants and ¼ smartass.” So, I made an admittedly somewhat smart-assed Tweet, “@adamsbaldwin @cynthiaboaz Perhaps Ms. Boaz hasn't said the Pledge in awhile "... And to the REPUBLIC for which it stands..." #BlackAndWhite.”
The response I received was a little surprising. “@ToryLaPrath That's incredibly ignorant. But thank you for revealing yourself as opposed to democracy.”
Ignorant, fine, it’s a name, an insult designed to make the insulter feel superior to the one that they’re insulting. But, opposed to Democracy? Opposed because I quoted the Pledge of Allegiance to the United States? The Pledge, adopted by Congress in 1942, identifies us a Republic, because we are one. We elect representatives to make decisions for us. We don’t do “town hall meetings” on every decision that needs to be made on every government level.
I posted these two links as well: http://thisnation.com/question/011.html
The second one, in particular made a great example of Athens vs. Rome and how they did things, government wise. There’s a reason the Founding Fathers chose the Republic version with Rome vs. the purely Democratic way of Athens. It works.
So, I wrote back, with those two links and saying all I really did was quote the Pledge. The response? Even better than the first time. “@ToryLaPrath Implying that concepts of republic and democracy are mutually exclusive is what's ignorant. And disingenuous. And ridiculous.”
So, I asked for where I ever said or implied any of that. Basically, she couldn’t because I didn’t do that. I had the audacity to quote the Pledge and find two good examples to substantiate my point about America=Republic, including one from the Huffington Post, where Ms. Boaz has her own page as well. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/cynthia-boaz Hey, it’s not like I posted a Wikipedia, link. I actually did some research.
(Oh, by the way on that… http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_system_of_government Look at the number of Republics on that list. Go ahead, I’ll wait)
And now, back to Ms. Boaz’s Tweet. More insults aimed at me. Well, maybe not an insult. Perhaps “blatant lie” would be more apropos. Perhaps, perhaps not. However, what was disingenuous and ridiculous was twisting what I quoted, from our own Pledge, into saying my views are anti-Democracy and the two were mutually exclusive.
Now, to be fair, she did respond with this. “@ToryLaPrath If we agree that they're not mutually exclusive, what was point of invoking the line from the Pledge? I know it's a republic.”
I didn’t answer that question because: A- I was driving at that point. B- I wanted to spend time with the boys and Steph, C- the response, as you can see now, was more than 140 characters.
What was the point? Well, the original Tweet that said if [one] said America was not a Democratic state then that put that person in the same category as Chomsky and Zinn, well, that chafed me a tad. That would imply that every time I proudly say the Pledge of Allegiance, than my views align with a self-described “fellow traveler to the Anarchist movement” (but a ferocious defender of free speech and I applaud him for that) and someone who has advocated smuggling in ZEP materials in class and have teachers “go against the rules” and “depart from the curriculum.” As a father with two young sons, the Zinn reference especially was the one that was most disturbing.
There is a reason, and as a professor, I am sure that Ms. Boaz is well aware of this, that the school districts lay out a curriculum. If a teacher uses the classroom to depart from the curriculum and tries to impart their personal views on my children, I am going to have an issue with that teacher, whether their views are Right or Left. It’s not the teacher’s place, especially in the elementary/junior high age brackets, to do that. It’s my place as the father, and my wife’s place as the mother.
So, that was the point of my Pledge quote; to show that I too was saying that America was not a Democratic state, and my views are no where near Chomsky's and Zinn's. The best part is, by quoting the Pledge, I was then also lumped in as being against Democracy and disingenuous and ridiculous. Yep, that’s me, a Democracy hating, disingenuous and ridiculous proud American Citizen. (Okay, I am ridiculous sometimes, I’ll admit that)
Well, at least I’m in good company with the billions of Americans who recite the Pledge of Allegiance every day. Wait a tick… President Obama said the Pledge at the end of his televised press conference after it was announced that Osama Bin Laden had finally been killed…
