I'm going to tell you about two seemingly unrelated events and how they are emblematic of the way in which we Americans are encouraged to think, and how, in many ways, this view we have of America is antithetical to what America is really supposed to stand for. Through these perhaps we can see how we get confused as a culture as to what the Constitution actually permits, and who we are really supposed to be.

Noted columnist Eric Zorn of the Chicago Tribune has been leading a very pointed and visible campaign against the suburban PACE bus system for slapping...

...on all their buses. Zorn has knighted this particular pile of proliferating pig puke the "GODBUS".

The public's issue, led by Zorn and the Rev. Barry Lynn, a United Church of Christ minister who also happens to be the Executive Director of Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, "is the assumption behind the phrase (GBA) that to be a good American you must be religious. Also, there are many who feel it's almost blasphemous to use God's name this way--to imply that he has a special interest in our country when in fact his interests are everywhere."

Yeah, that's what I was going to say. It's funny, this "regime" in control of our county is using God to endorse them and their war (just like the Muslims, mind you), and get free legitimacy by their one-sided allegiance with God. And they'll keep on doing it, because you don't have to pay God to get an endorsement, unlike celebrities and corporations, who, dollar for dollar, can't even step on the same floor as God when it comes to marketing ability.

And yet, the public stands on their collective corners and wave as the buses go by, and call them "a great thing." Well, sure. How can God be a bad thing?

Here's how: When he is used to exclude or discriminate against another.

This was Rev. Lynn's issue, that those who do not believe in God, or who conversely believe God has retired from the War Endorsement business, are subject to being labeled "un-American."

Jesus, this is really starting to sound like McCarthyism again, isn't it? Who the hell are you to tell anyone else their degree of "American-ness"?

And then, I read about something else this week.

A Kansas high school teacher discovered that nearly a fifth of her biology students had plagiarized their semester projects from the Internet. She had received her District's backing before when she accused students of cheating, and she expected it again when she failed the 28 sophomores. Her principal and superintendent agreed: It was plagiarism and the students should fail.

But after parents complained, the School Board ordered her to pass the students and to reduce the overall importance to the final grade that the project in question had. She resigned in protest, and the issue has become national news as some (like me!)say this reflects a shocking decline in national integrity.

This is unreal. When I was in college, I once had a professor accuse me of cheating just to keep from giving me an A (as he had never done as such before), and I almost got thrown out of the University for it, and I never cheated. These 28 kids got caught red handed and nothing.

Noted Chicago counselor Rev. Tom Goforth says these sort of things are emblematic of this new American children who grow up without any sense of criticism, and see themselves as "special" because their parents spent their whole childhoods telling them so. And part of being "special" is that they think they are not subject to the rules the rest of us are because every day they see people getting around them. These people think there are extenuating or mitigating circumstances to everything, because our very legal system reinforces that belief. Look at OJ, for chrissake! That godawful woman in the Hamptons who backed over a crowd of people and then drove off and hid, that teenage girl in Florida who ran another girl over with her car after drinking all day, and whose parents filed a motion to allow her to leave custody to spend the summer in Paris as she "always did".

My mother always accused me of being a spoiled brat. Now, kids call me "old and cranky". If that ain't indication that things have changed, I don't know what is.

By the way, where I come from, being "special" meant you rode the little yellow bus to school.

GET OUR NEWSLETTER!
	Your Name: Your Email:   Enter your email address above for 3 AM MAGAZINE'S Monthly Newsletter. Each time a new issue is posted, we'll let you know. (Your email address will be kept confidential!)