Go ahead, you wise and patriotic members of the Iowa General Assembly: Pass a law that requires the daily singing of the national anthem in schools.

House Study Bill 587 is in committee now. Fast track that thing to Gov. Kim Reynolds’ desk.

We must start converting our students into patriots before they get into the dangerous habit of critical thinking.

Lawmakers already started putting a little red, white, and blue in Iowa schoolchildren’s daily lessons with the mandatory recitation of the pledge of allegiance.

Let’s not stop just with the pledge and the anthem.

Most of the school day should be dedicated to patriotic mantras and music.

Maybe we should sing “God Bless America” before we eat lunch and “Yankee Doodle Dandy” before recess.

Students, teachers, and staff shouldn’t be allowed to leave for the day without a rousing chorus of “America the Beautiful.”

All high school bands must play “Stars and Stripes Forever” at least once during football halftime performances or timeouts at basketball games.

I suggest we fire all the teachers and staff and put in an artificial intelligence hologram that selects patriotic quotes, music, and art to memorize and recite upon being questioned by any government official.

Everybody knows all teachers are part of a vast deep-state conspiracy to indoctrinate children into subversive arts of reading, writing, science, and math.

Any teacher who refuses to stand and sing the national anthem with gusto should be jailed.

Maybe you great and honorable lawmakers should include an amendment to the bill that adds enough state troopers to station one in every Iowa school to ensure the law is being enforced.

Nothing brings patriotic conformity quite like an armed agent of the state nearby.

The point is we need to get everybody to understand the United States of America is the greatest country in the world.

We can’t have people, especially our youth, reading books or discussing ideas that might expose them to facts that sometimes the United States does things that make people not love it so much.

You know, the old saws that those commie liberals keep bringing up like slavery, the systematic oppression and exclusion of Blacks from the nation’s wealth, the genocide against Native Americans, and Asian-American internment during World War II.

That stuff is ancient history.

The only history our kids need to know is the Pilgrims ate a turkey dinner with the Indians, George Washington had wooden teeth, Abraham Lincoln never told a lie, and Thomas Jefferson was a good and faithful husband.

So, let’s keep filling their heads up with patriotic thoughts. Cram so much American loyalty into their brains that they don’t have time to think about anything else.

We’ve got the pledge.

We’re on our way to the anthem.

But we need more.

In fact, my dear lawmakers, I read a story from Reuters late last year about a place that was working to strengthen its patriotic education for children and families.

They wanted to counter ideas such as “historical nihilism” and “safeguard national unity.”

They defined “historical nihilism” as skepticism about their government’s description of past events.

They were concerned that some people were “at a loss about what is patriotism.”

Their legislature passed a law that included patriotic lessons for not only schools, but also government officials, businesses, workers, and all manner of citizens.

The law went into effect Jan. 1.

So far, everybody seems perfectly happy.

What’s the name of this magical place where the government mandates we put patriotism first?

China.

Good job, Iowa lawmakers.

You’ve got Iowa well on the way to becoming a totalitarian regime.

Keep up the good work.

God bless Iowa and God bless the United States of America.

I hope somebody remembers what it was supposed to stand for when you’re done with it.

Daniel P. Finney wrote for newspapers for 27 years before being laid off in 2020. He teaches middle school English now.

---

---