As far as I can tell, the following proclamation is legit:

The Congress, by Public Law 85-529, as amended, has designated May 1 of each year as “Loyalty Day.” This Loyalty Day, and throughout the year, I ask all Americans to join me in reaffirming our allegiance to our Nation.

 

NOW, THEREFORE, I, GEORGE W. BUSH, President of the United States of America, do hereby proclaim May 1, 2007, as Loyalty Day. I call upon the people of the United States to participate in this national observance and to display the flag of the United States on Loyalty Day as a symbol of pride in our Nation.

Is it just me, or is there something seriously creepy about this? Doesn’t a holiday to “reaffirm our allegiance to our Nation” actually conflict with the spirit of the most American of all American holidays, the Fourth of July (a.k.a. Independence Day, when we celebrate a bunch of guys who were willing to reject allegiance to their Nation — the British Empire — when it became necessary)?

I don’t know… I suppose it’s harmless enough to ask people to express their patriotism by flying the flag on a particular day (even though there already lots and lots of officially sanctioned, patriotic flag-flying days), but the name of this new holiday gives me the willies. “Loyalty Day” sounds so… totalitarian… to my ear. Of course, a lot of the terminology that’s come into vogue in the past six years sounds that way. “Department of Homeland Security” is the prime example, although there are others. I don’t recall this country ever being referred to as a “homeland” before 9/11; I find the word uncomfortably similar to the Soviet “motherland” and, yes, the Nazi “fatherland,” and those are associations I think we’d be better off not encouraging.

I’m not saying that America has turned into a totalitarian state, only that we’re flirting with the language of totalitarianism, and I just can’t see how that’s a positive thing. As cliche’d as it is to invoke the ghost of 1984, I think it’s important to remember that one of Orwell’s points in that book was that language has the power to affect the way people think. What do you suppose we’re thinking about as we “reaffirm our allegiance” to the “homeland”?