MAY DAY?
Loyalty Day graced us on May 1 this year. I made it a point to wish the folks in my life a “Happy Loyalty Day,” and the results proved educational. Most people, it seems, do not know that Loyalty Day exists. I explained that it was originally created circa 1921 to fight communism, and suggested that the reason why we don’t hear much about the holiday is that communists run our schools and major news media. After all, why would the controllers of these organs of socialization promote something antithetical to their agenda? The red pill (not a pun) was successfully administered–I did my part to celebrate the spirit of Loyalty Day.
PAPERS, PLEASE!
The clueless liberals among us tend to be suspicious of Loyalty Day. They worry that men in black leather uniforms straight from yesterday’s Hugo Boss catalog will suddenly step out of the corner and force them to produce identity documents while simultaneously signing loyalty oaths. If that were the worst thing that could happen, why would that be so bad? I’m proud to declare my loyalty. Only those who want the ability to “opt out” would fear efforts to secure a loyal citizenry. The question turns to why anyone would want this escape hatch–what are they fleeing from?
GRATITUDE
I suspect that these loyal-phobic folks desire to flee from any sense of responsibility to stand with the “little platoons” Edmund Burke identified–the things that made us who we are, or rather the people who set up the conditions for our existence hundreds of years ago (or thousands, far enough back). Liberals like Elizabeth Warren are quick to declare to the wealthy that “you didn’t build that,” but this same argument applies to the Left that dodges the loyalty question. Each of us is only alive today because our ancestors struggled to carve a place for us. In the case of the United States, these forbears fought wild savages and foreign powers. We can either receive this heritage gratefully and preserve and defend it, or we can retreat into the atomized and anomic state of disloyalty–liberals tend to choose the latter.
DON’T BREAK THE CHAIN
Burke, the ur-conservative, believed that we are bound by a Great Chain of Being that binds the living, the dead, and the yet unborn. Loyalty Day should run for 365 days, and all of us should strive to ensure that we aren’t the weakest links in the Burkean Chain.
SOURCES:
The Long History of Loyalty Oaths
Burke – Reflections on the French Revolution
Hugo Boss Awarded Uniform Contract
Loyalty Day
President Trump’s Loyalty Day Proclamation
