RE'S A NUT :

'Under God' Iconoclast Looks to Next Targets (EVELYN NIEVES, July 1, 2002, NY Times)

There is so much about society that Mike Newdow would like to change.

He does not understand, for example, why the English language allows itself anything so cumbersome and awkward as masculine and feminine pronouns. The Mike Newdow dictionary would replace "he" and "she" with "re," "his" and "hers" with "rees" and "him" and "her" with "erm." [...]

Despite the outpouring of outrage from politicians and pundits over the pledge ruling--not to mention the death threats on his answering machine--Mr. Newdow still plans to challenge the use of "In God We Trust" on currency. He would like to see an end to prayers at presidential inaugurations. "At President Bush's it just went on and on," he says, clearly annoyed. "I said, `Holy smokes, they can't do that!' " As an atheist, he plans to ferret out all insidious uses of religion in daily life. "Why should I be made to feel like an outsider?"

Eric Hoffer may as well have been describing Mr. Newdow when he wrote :

A man is likely to mind his own business when it is worth minding. When it is not, he takes his mind off his own meaningless affairs by
minding other people's business.

If you've ever been to an AA meeting or some other Twelve Step Program you may be familiar with the idea that one of the ways in which a family becomes dysfunctional is that rather than requiring the person with the problem to meet social norms everyone else starts warping their own behavior to try to minimize conflict with him. Soon you have a solar system where the previously normal planets revolve around the diseased star, which exerts an unhealthy gravitational pull on the whole family. Daniel Patrick Moynihan has referred to how this is happening on a national level with the felicitous phrase : "defining deviancy downward". (Thanks to Ed Driscoll who found an on-line text of the essay)

I've got no problem with Mr. Newdow not saying the pledge or not letting vis daughter say it. Re and rhe are free to do as they please. The problem arises when a healthy society starts changing its standards to meet those of such deviants. You can't help feeling that folks like Mr. Newdow want to play out this scenario.

Posted by Orrin Judd at July 1, 2002 8:50 AM