Finally, A Real Plan To Rid Nebraska Schools Of Commie Infiltrators

Mandatory Patriotism Is The Best Kind


Finally, A Real Plan To Rid Nebraska Schools Of Commie Infiltrators


Hooray! The spirit of McCarthyism is alive and well in Hastings, Nebraska, where for the first time in ages, the local school district has asked all its teachers to comply with a 1951 state law requiring all teachers to sign a loyalty oath. After teachers complained, the ACLU warned the district that it’s begging for a lawsuit, but the school’s attorney advised the superintendent that the law is still valid and probably should be followed. Besides, isn’t Real Americanism all about making people pledge to support democracy and freedom, whether they want to or not, and also judging whether they’re patriotic enough?

The ACLU of Nebraska’s legal director, Amy Miller, wrote to Hastings School Superintendent Craig Kautz to advise that the Supreme Court actually outlawed loyalty oaths way back in 1964, in the mellifluously named case of Baggett v. Bullitt, which only sounds like it should be a movie with hobbits and a kickass car chase, but actually held that states can’t require employees to take vague oaths that might deter free speech.

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Oh, hey, why did Kautz decide that he had to start enforcing a McCarthyist loyalty pledge law that he’d never heard of, anyway? Because of a one-man campaign for Patriotism and Americanism pursued by Lincoln businessman Richard Zierke, who “asked the Nebraska Board of Education to enforce the law,” according to the Lincoln Journal Star. Mr. Zierke isn’t only a businessman — he’s a get-in-everyone-else’s-business man who loves to make sure that American Patriotism gets its due. In addition to pushing the resumption of the loyalty oaths in Hastings, Zierke also persuaded Millard school board member Paul Meyer of the wisdom of insisting that teachers sign the oaths: “I think teachers should be signing this pledge,” Meyer said. “I think the administrators should be signing this pledge, because they are paid with public school funds.I would sign it,” he said.

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And now Zierke’s pushing the loyalty oath, a wonder of 1951 paranoid American jingoism, which is the best jingoism there is:
I, ………., do believe in the United States of America as a government of the people, by the people, for the people; whose just powers are derived from the consent of the governed; a democracy in a republic; an indissoluble nation of many sovereign states; a perfect union, one and inseparable; established upon those principles of freedom, equality, justice and humanity for which American patriots sacrificed their lives and fortunes.
I acknowledge it to be my duty to inculcate in the hearts and minds of all pupils in my care, so far as it is in my power to do, (1) an understanding of the United States Constitution and of the Constitution of Nebraska, (2) a knowledge of the history of the nation and of the sacrifices that have been made in order that it might achieve its present greatness, (3) a love and devotion to the policies and institutions that have made America the finest country in the world in which to live, and (4) opposition to all organizations and activities that would destroy our present form of government.
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