Loyalty oaths fail the test of democracy

Political leaders such as Sens. Richard Nixon and Joseph McCarthy quickly seized on the opportunity to leverage fear to their political advantage. As Americans worried about the prospect of nuclear war with the Soviet Union, and accusations of Soviet espionage spread throughout the nation, right-wing ideologues launched a campaign charging that thousands of communists had secretly infiltrated the government, the military, the unions, the schools and the media.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce demanded concerted action to drive subversives out of these and other positions of influence. Francis Cardinal Spellman warned that communists were "digging deep inroads into our nation" and "trying to grind into dust the blessed freedoms for which our sons have fought, sacrificed and died."

President Harry Truman charged that such "scaremongers" had "created such a wave of fear and uncertainty that ... people are growing frightened -- and frightened people don't protest."

But McCarthy persisted. "I say one communist in a defense plant is one communist too many," he said in 1952. "One communist on the faculty of one university is one communist too many."

Within a few years, a plague of loyalty oaths had spread across the nation. By 1956, 42 states, including California, and more than 2,000 county or city governments had enacted loyalty oaths for public employees.

As Truman had warned, a cancer of fear had swept the nation.

The very concept of "loyalty" is painfully elusive. It is defined entirely by a state of mind. Does it mean "my country, right or wrong"? Can a citizen oppose government policies -- including a war -- and still be "loyal"? Can a citizen be a pacifist and still be "loyal"?

Loyalty oaths reverse the essential relationship between the citizen and the state in a democratic society. As the framers of our Constitution understood, the citizens of a self-governing society must be free to think and talk openly and critically about issues of governance.

In a regime of loyalty oaths, it is the government that defines which thoughts and which ideas are permitted. Dissenting views and nonconforming views are deemed "disloyal." The very existence of such oaths reflects an utter lack of confidence in the American people. Nothing so dangerously corrupts the integrity of a democracy as a lack of faith in its own citizens.

Loyalty oaths serve no legitimate function. The government can and should investigate and punish unlawful conduct. But it should not attempt to intimidate U.S. citizens who express "disloyal" beliefs.

It is time for California to recognize that its requirement that public employees swear an oath of fealty to their government is a relic of shameful past and, quite simply, un-American.