To serve and protect # 5 — testing for orthodoxy?
Is there an ideological acid test to be a good American?
Can we determine which Americans are worthy of being trusted with a law license by their belief systems?
In the previous installment the ACLU complained of oaths of loyalty.
Stay tuned to read of such a thing, Hoosier style …
Here are some selections from the United States Supreme Court that are quite appropriate to the question of testing for political orthodoxy:
The idea that a Constitution should protect individual nonconformity is essentially American and is the last thing in the world that Communists will tolerate. Nothing exceeds the bitterness of their demands for freedom for themselves in this country except the bitterness of their intolerance of freedom for others where they are in power. [] An exaction of some profession of belief or nonbelief is precisely what the Communists would enact-each individual must adopt the ideas that are common to the ruling group. Their whole philosophy is to minimize man as an individual and to increase the power of man acting in the mass. If any single characteristic distinguishes our democracy from Communism it is our recognition of the individual as a personality rather than as a soulless part in the jigsaw puzzle that is the collectivist state.
A catalogue of rights was placed in our Constitution, in my view, to protect the individual in his individuality, and neither statutes which put those rights at the mercy of officials nor judicial decisions which put them at the mercy of the mob are consistent with its text or its spirit.
I think that under our system, it is time enough for the law to lay hold of the citizen when he acts illegally, or in some rare circumstances when his thoughts are given illegal utterance. I think we must let his mind alone.
American Communications Ass’n, C.I.O., v. Douds, 339 U.S. 382, 70 S.Ct. 674, 382 (1950) (Mr. Justice JACKSON, concurring and dissenting, each in part)(Emphasis added)
AND
If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion, or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein.
