David Cameron has said it was right for Eric Pickles to write a letter
to Muslim leaders in which he asked them to “explain and demonstrate how
faith in Islam can be part of British identity”...
....“Everyone needs to help with dealing with this problem of radicalisation and anyone frankly reading this letter and who has a problem with it, I think really has a problem. I think it is the most reasonable, sensible, moderate letter that Eric could possibly have written."
Quite so.
Freedom of speech was so the week-before-last. This week, no reasonable person could possibly object to true patriots being required to prove their loyalty by signing all the loyalty oaths they're damn well told to sign. Get with the program:
They're taking over everything,' he declared rebelliously. 'Well, you fellows can stand around and let them if you want to, but I'm not going to. I'm going to do
something about it. From now on I'm going to make every son of a bitch who comes to
my intelligence tent sign a loyalty oath...'
...Almost overnight the Glorious Loyalty Oath Crusade was in full flower, and Captain
Black was enraptured to discover himself spearheading it. He had really hit on
something. All the enlisted men and officers on combat duty had to sign a loyalty
oath to get their map cases from the intelligence tent, a second loyalty oath to
receive their flak suits and parachutes from the parachute tent, a third loyalty oath
for Lieutenant Balkington, the motor vehicle officer, to be allowed to ride from the
squadron to the airfield in one of the trucks... To Captain Black, every officer who supported his Glorious Loyalty
Oath Crusade was a competitor, and he planned and plotted twenty-four hours a day
to keep one step ahead. He would stand second to none in his devotion to country.
When other officers had followed his urging and introduced loyalty oaths of their
own, he went them one better by making every son of a bitch who came to his
intelligence tent sign two loyalty oaths, then three, then four; then he introduced
the pledge of allegiance, and after that 'The Star-Spangled Banner,' one chorus, two
choruses, three choruses, four choruses.
Each time Captain Black forged ahead of his competitors, he swung upon them
scornfully for their failure to follow his example. Each time they followed his
example, he retreated with concern and racked his brain for some new stratagem
that would enable him to turn upon them scornfully again.
...When they voiced objection, Captain Black replied that people who were loyal would
not mind signing all the loyalty oaths they had to. To anyone who questioned the
effectiveness of the loyalty oaths, he replied that people who really did owe
allegiance to their country would be proud to pledge it as often as he forced them to.
And to anyone who questioned the morality, he replied that 'The Star-Spangled
Banner' was the greatest piece of music ever composed. The more loyalty oaths a
person signed, the more loyal he was; to Captain Black it was as simple as that, and he
had Corporal Kolodny sign hundreds with his name each day so that he could always
prove he was more loyal than anyone else.
'The important thing is to keep them pledging,' he explained to his cohorts. 'It
doesn't matter whether they mean it or not. That's why they make little kids pledge
allegiance even before they know what "pledge" and "allegiance" mean.'
Catch-22, chapter 11
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