Theocracy Writ Small

Forgive me for not posting about something large and epic for the Blog Against Theocracy weekend. This is a tale of small-scale, hometown theocracy. It isn't about Sharia law or the Bush administration or even Christian fundamentalists, but it's been running around in my head for a while and now's the perfect time to let it out for some air.

To put it mildly, September 11, 2001 was not a good day for most people.

I don't like to speak about it in the overly emotional terms of the news media and the politicians. Generally, I make off-color jokes about it and keep living as I did (as much as I can) before it happened. I reject outright the notion that 9/11 "changed everything" and think that, while it was certainly a Bad Thing, it's different from other Bad Things only by degree. The idea that certain things "change the world" leads to poor, reactionary, and irrational decision-making. Honestly, most any mention of 9/11 tends to piss me off immensely. Nevertheless, there's no denying that it was a hell of a day.

I was a senior in high school at the time. I and the rest of my astronomy class were in the school's planetarium and so were spared immediate knowledge of the attack. Upon leaving, someone asked me if I knew. I stared incredulously and insisted that they were joking. Of course, they were not, and I walked to my next period somewhat stunned. The teacher that period had it right: he put on the news so we could keep up on the momentous events of the day, but he made us take our scheduled essay test (coincidentally enough, about William Jennings Bryan, the prosecutor of the Scopes Monkey Trial) anyway. 9/11 changed nothing. To quote Penn Gilette, "Business as usual."

Two periods later, both towers had fallen and I found myself in AP Chemistry II. The teacher was a person I feel priviliged to know. He's immensely intelligent (moreso than he'll ever admit), charismatic, fair-minded, even-tempered, and funny as hell. He's simultaneously one of the most mature and least mature people I've ever known; he's responsible, upright, and caring, but he's got the heart of a 12-year-old pyro. He taught a mean Chem class and he really did care about each and every student. Though he is a devout Christian, I can think of few people I respect more.

This guy is Atticus Finch with a bunsen burner.

Case in point: it just might be a bit obvious from my blog that I'm not the kind of person who generally cares who he offends. This stems from my general attitude of not giving half a damn what other people think of me. One time, however, I unthinkingly did something stupid and immature that honestly offended him. Rather than make a big issue of it or attempt to get me in trouble, he quietly asked me to stay after class. There he explained to me, calmly and reasonably, why he felt my actions were wrong and how he didn't expect something like that from me of all people. He said, in utter sincerity, that he was disappointed in me, and he asked me not to do it again.

I was dumbstruck. I didn't (and still don't) really care what my own parents had to say about most of my actions, but here was a teacher voicing his disappointment and I found myself unable to do anything but feel terrible and promise to never do it again. It helped, of course, that he was dead right about what I had done, but had my parents said the same thing, I would have blown it off and gone and done the opposite of what they said.

There is a point here: I want to get across how very much I respect and value this person.

It was that deep, abiding respect that caused me, on September 11, 2001, to quietly acquiesce to his wish to lead a short prayer before we commenced our daily stoichiometry.

Like I said, it was a hell of a day. On that day, it was nearly impossible to have the perspective that time grants one today. The event was too close; it was right on top of you, demanding your attention, draining reason and emotion alike.

He began the class with a few somber words about the events of the day. I don't remember them, but they were spoken from the perspective of a man who honestly and seriously grieved for those that had died that day. He then asked the class to quietly bow their heads and have a moment of silence while he led a short prayer for guidance.

In his favor (sort of), it was a more-or-less nondenominational prayer. He asked a general god to help a troubled population through what was, for many people, the worst day of their lives, and he prayed for the souls of the victims of the attacks.

Out of my deep respect for him, a respect that at the time had a hellacious synergistic relationship with the anger, awe, and strange hollowness that by turns inhabited my psyche, I quietly bowed my head while he quietly, and with the best of intentions, broke the first amendment. I remember not liking it, but thinking to myself "Now is not the time."

I don't know what sparked it, but about a month ago, the whole sequence of events popped into my head for the first time in years. It just wouldn't go away, and over days and weeks I somewhat uneasily mused over events that were long gone, things that most people involved probably don't even remember. At first I wasn't sure if he had even prayed; maybe he had just asked for a moment of silence out of respect for the dead, maybe he had merely mentioned god. As questionable as human memory is, however, I remember most of that day very vividly: leaving the planetarium to a school in chaos. Watching on CNN as the first tower fell while trying desperately to take a test. Spending my free period seated next to my psych teacher, both of us in silent consideration of Peter Jennings. Fighting loudly and almost violently with my father about the proper retaliatory actions in the wake of such an attack.

A chemistry teacher praying, without malice or bad intention, before commencing class, while I sat quietly by and let it happen.

I respected the man. I worried what he might think if I spoke out against him, however quietly or reasonably. I, like so many others that day and in the many days since, thought that, on such a day, in the wake of such an event, it was better to forget the Constitution, even for just a moment.

I was wrong. I was so very wrong. At the moment, I thought it was the worst possible time to speak out against his actions, to point out that, as a public school teacher, as a government employee, he could not lead the class in prayer. I was overwhelmed with emotion; we all were, and I put that emotion, my emotion, his emotion, everybody's emotion, before what I knew to be right. And besides all that, I should have trusted him to respect my own view. He's a good man, and a smart one. I made the wrong decision that day. But, of course, time has given me perspective and hindsight, as they say, is 20/20.

Far from being the worst time to defend the Bill of Rights and all that it entails, such a moment is a good time. The best time. Perhaps the only time when it is absolutely imperative that one speaks up and respectfully voices Constitutional dissent. If you cannot do it on September 11, you might as well not do it any other time. Other times it's easy to speak against violation of the separation clause. When it's being actively and maliciously violated on a large scale by ignorant and belligerent power brokers, it's the easiest thing in the world to shout and rally against them, and you'll have many on your side. When it's being quietly and benevolently violated in a moment of emotional turmoil, when you know you'll be the lone voice of dissent with two dozen eyes shooting daggers at you as you violate the sancitity of their understandable rage and anguish, when you risk the greatest offense by placing the sanctity of the individual over the sanctity of collective mourning, that is when you must stand up and say something. That moment, right then.

It is moments like that that make or break a country like America. It is moments like that, spread out over space and time, when those who would take your liberty find their footholds, moving in fits and starts, slowly worrying away your rights and your freedoms. Perhaps more importantly, however, it is moments like that that define a person, that test his or her convictions, that show how much one truly values what one says he values.

Last time I failed. Next time I'll be ready to do what's necessary.

In a republic, who is "the country?"

Is it the government which is for the moment in the saddle? Why, the government is merely a temporary servant: it cannot be its prerogative to determine what is right and what is wrong, and decide who is a patriot and who isn't. Its function is to obey orders, not originate them.

Who, then, is the country? Is it the newspaper? Is it the pulpit? Why, these are mere parts of the country, not the whole of it, they have not command, they have only their little share in the command.

In a monarchy, the king and his family are the country: In a republic it is the common voice of the people. Each of you, for himself, by himself and on his own responsibility, must speak.

It is a solemn and weighty responsibility, and not lightly to be flung aside at the bullying of pulpit, press, government, or the empty catchphrases of politicians.

Each must for himself alone decide what is right and what is wrong, and which course is patriotic and which isn't. You cannot shirk this and be a man.

To decide it against your convictions is to be an unqualified and inexcusable traitor, both to yourself and to your country. Let men label you as they may.

If you alone of all the nation shall decide one way, and that way be the right way according to your convictions of the right, you have your duty by yourself and by your country. Hold up your head. You have nothing to be ashamed of.

--Mark Twain

When the mob and the press and the whole world tell you to move, your job is to plant yourself like a tree besides the river of truth, and tell the whole world "No. You move."

--Captain America