No stinkin’ commie sandbaggers allowed
A friend from flood-besieged Calhoun County writes:
When I went to Hamburg, IL to volunteer to help sandbag, a lady at the parking lot told me that I had to sign this loyalty oath before I could sandbag. I read it and I told her, “I think that this is insulting.
I have a US passport, and I am not going to sign it.” So she told me that I had to tell the state trooper at the entrance. I told the state trooper, “I’m not going to sign the loyalty oath.” He shrugged his shoulders and said “OK.”
I told the former mayor of Hamburg how insulting that was, and he explained, “Yeah, but for every signed form we got a certain amount of money from FEMA.”
So I went back to the table and asked the woman, “Why didn’t you explain this to me?” She said, “You didn’t seem very happy.” Now, I believe and accept everything in the oath but I think that’s it’s insulting to ask someone to sign it.
It turns out my friend was correct. On page 238 of the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Public Assistance Guide, it states:
Each person other than a Federal employee who is appointed to serve in a State or local
organization for emergency preparedness shall before entering
upon duties, take an oath in writing before a person authorized to
administer oaths, which oath shall be substantially as follows:
(e) “I______, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and
defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies,
foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to
the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental
reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully
discharge the duties upon which I am about to enter.
“And I do further swear (or affirm) that I do not advocate, nor am I
a member or an affiliate of any organization, group, or combination
of persons that advocates the overthrow of the Government of
the United States by force or violence; and that during such time
as I am a member of ________ (name of emergency preparedness
organization), I will not advocate nor become a member or an
affiliate of any organization, group, or combination of persons that
advocates the overthrow the Government of the United States by force or violence.”
I have a couple of questions: Why would anyone who wants to overthrow the United States by force or violence volunteer to help out in an emergency? Doesn’t the very fact that people are volunteering to help their neighbors and their communities by doing back-breaking work in the hot sun suggest that they’re worthy of trust? Is a sandbag filled by a commie pinko prevert any less effective than one filled by someone who signs a loyalty oath?
Or maybe I’m wrong. Should people have to pledge their loyalty before sandbagging?
Heck of a job, Brownie.
Kevin Horrigan is deputy editor of the editorial page. He writes editorials on local, state and national politics and public policy and also contributes a signed column to the Sunday Commentary Page. "The Old Sport" is a former sports columnist for the Post-Dispatch and for 10 years hosted radio talk shows on KMOX and KTRS in St. Louis. He lives in South St. Louis with his wife, Kate, and a dream of one day starting a professional catfish noodling tour. 
Most people no longer complain about having to remove their shoes at the airport. It’s done because of a slim but real possibility of another shoe-bomber or a hidden composite knife.
Now consider the slim but real possibility of a “commie pinko pervert” or a member of your friendly local al-Qaeda cell covertly charging a sandbag with waterproofed explosives and a remote-controlled detonator, to be set off at when the river crests. We live in difficult times. How many California wildfires do you suppose may have been set by our enemies? Yep, a slim but real possibility. Is a simple loyalty oath sufficient?
My God! I hadn’t considered that possibility. Clearly a loyalty oath isn’t enough…anyone who would consider blowing up levee wouldn’t think twice about lying on his loyalty oath.
We need to set up X-ray machines on the banks of the river. We need to have bomb-sniffing dogs checking those sandbags. Sandbaggers should have to remove their shoes, except for the swarthy, Arab-looking volunteers who should be detained at Guantanamo.
What I wonder is why any self-respecting terrorist would waste some perfectly good waterproofed explosives blowing up a levee and flooding a cornfield. Do they hate corn that much?
Kevin, did you not consider the destruction of property and human life that resulted from the 1993 Mississippi and Missouri River floods, or the similar costs that resulted from the levee failure at New Orleans during Katrina? Perhaps you are a little naive to down-play my comment.
I frankly doubt that a terrorist group or individual will try to blow out a levee, and I described that as only a slim possibility. It would be quieter and easier to use a small boat at night, slit open a bunch of sandbags, and let the river empty them. You may recall that a man did use a boat to damage a levee near Keokuk during the ‘93 flood. And surely there are other possibilities that might interest a terrorist, maybe in a railyard, tank farm, water plant, refinery or bottled gas facility.
We don’t have to get neurotic about slim possibilities, but we had better understand them and be prepared for them, or be prepared to grieve later.
Oh, My God. Are you civilians really that incapable of simple tasks such as filling sand bags without a major debate breaking out? I spent 30 years in the Army, with two tours in combat, and if you need me to come up and sort this silly stuff out, please call me. Kevin, looks to me like you’re just sitting on the sidelines being a useless pain in the butt. For God’s sake, people, start working together instead of against each other.
Besides, as we all know, these floods are Bush’s fault. Just like Hurricane Katrina, the takeover of Anheuser-Busch, the First Ice Age, and the fact that the sun will burn out in 5 billion years.
Hoo-rah, Mace.
I read in the PD this morning that France is requiring Muslim
immigrants to sign pledges to abide by the rules of their country that men and women are treated equally. Maybe this is a new trend.
The fact that you right wing neocon… Shirt weblog echochambering yobbo yappers don’t get it doesn’t surprise me.
It’s about real Americans helping out neighbors, and the silly barriers to goodness in action and community that the right has spastically vomited up in its wrong-headed, morally bankrupt and ir-redeemable fearmongering. When you have to fear your neighbor who tries to help you, the GOP rules.
http://dangerousintersection.org/2006/11/09/real-terror-is-fear/
But, that’s what you want anyway, eh?
Stop drinking the overflow from the sewage treament plants, guys!
Be a real American, help you neighbors!
Now THERE’S a truly intellectual and incisive blog if I have ever seen one!
From what I understand, anyone who drives on the new Hwy 40 once all construction is completed will also need to sign a loyalty oath.
My silliness aside:
The US Gov’s silly part of the equation, as Mr. Horrigan points out in the story, is that the loyalty oath is tied to funding. It obviously wasn’t a true requirement to participate. Thus, making Senior Citizen’s fear mongering totally irrelevant and making me question what is the point of such a loyalty oath.