The Hartford Selectboard has passed its chair duties on to multi-term member Mary Erdei, who is serving her third term. Ms. Erdei recently sent a letter to the Valley News regarding patriotism, which was titled “Where patriotism belongs.”
In it, Ms. Erdei makes mention of questions presented to board candidates who were representing themselves to town members at the Bugbee Senior Center. She bristles that “they asked good questions of us mostly (emphasis added)”, which is an implicit chastisement to town members that some of their questions are dumb. This is the type of political condescension that has become commonplace among those confusing their task of service for one of authority. Rather than keep us in the dark about which fell short, she makes it plain.
“The few questions about our attendance, on flags in town, or whether we recite the Pledge of Allegiance, are not about Select Board duties and responsibilities and are meant to create divisions and unhealthy drama and are counterproductive to working together for our community”.
She then goes on to quote a Supreme Court ruling (without citing the case) that said, “To believe that patriotism will not flourish if patriotic ceremonies are voluntary and spontaneous instead of compulsory routine is to make an unflattering estimate of the appeal of our institutions to free minds. “She adds, “Compulsory allegiance to flags or pledges is not supported by the Supreme Court.
Ms. Erdei is referring to the 1943 case of West Virginia State Board of Education vs. Barnette (6-3 decision) which overruled the 1941 case Minersville School District v. Gobitis (8-1). The distinction being government compulsion of citizens to speak, in this case students who were Jehovah’s Witnesses, rather than adults who were being elected by we the people to serve in the government.
She ties a personal bow onto her argument by stating, “I would suggest that next year our excellent moderator make a question submitted like these as optional to answer…if we even include it. Last year, a question came up about which party the candidate voted for. A Selectboard’s responsibilities are non-partisan.” Funny, I recall the year I ran for Selectboard we were asked a dramatic and divisive question of whether or not we thought Biden was fairly elected over Trump. I don’t recall Mary calling foul.
There are several ironies, if not outright hypocrisies, coming from the new Hartford Town chair. The first irony is citing the nation’s highest court and its First Amendment right given by the founders to reject pledging allegiance to the very nation that provides such rights. This quintessential bite the hand that feeds you move is the stock and trade of today’s leftist revolutionaries who have imbibed the “America bad” Kool-Aid. For someone suggesting her role is non-partisan, she has a hard time hiding her partisan agenda.
Erdei is among those who used her platform as an elected member to hand out books authored by Ibram X. Kendi, where she essentially requested the fellow board members read it over the summer. Kinde, who describes himself as woke and anti-racist, is clearly a partisan favorite of the radical left. Never mind he’s shuffling off to obscurity after his anti-racist power grab has ended in embarrassment by mismanaging funds and failure to accomplish anything meaningful at his university. The irony being suggested reading is not a function of a Select Board member, however they’re free to have poor taste in revolutionaries I suppose. What was that about causing divisions Mary?
Erdei also voted in favor of Hartford paying for DEI training with the intention of adopting its use among town employees. Among the training would be compulsory speech in the form of using one’s preferred pronouns. This is the same rules for thee and not for me vibe we’ve seen time and again with progressives-leftists such as when California Governor Gavin Newsom mandated lockdowns and masking only to be seen with his fellow prog-lefties out to dinner at the swanky French Laundry the next day mask-less and clearly not locked down. Again, DEI is not in the purview of the Selectboard, however it is a partisan tool used to wrestle power over fellow citizens.
Yet the irony turns to hypocrisy when we see Erdei co-championed the town flying the pride flag for “pride month” (a.k.a. June), while being one of the several members who resisted town members wanting to put up veteran memorials and flags to honor Hartford servicemen and women. The pride flag is the ipso-facto calling card of the radical left who signal to each other by flying it on their social media pages, their businesses, classrooms, cars, apartments, and houses. The lefties clearly have an affinity for pledging allegiance to a flag, just not the American flag. Why is that, Mary?
Rather than duck the question it would seem incumbent upon someone who wishes to fill a leadership role in government, who serves at the pleasure of those who pay taxes to support the town, to explain themselves. If “patriotism or service to town and country is not evaluated by flags and pledges but by how people live their lives in community,” as you say, why the double standard for all the community to see Mary?
Patriotism is a sense of devotion, loyalty, or love for one’s country, often expressed through pride in its history, culture, achievements, or values. Countries are recognized by borders, constitutions, symbolized with flags and united by pledges to one’s fellow countrymen and women to hold the nation, its laws and fellow citizens in preferential esteem. This is for the good of the nation, its towns, communities, and states. These United States that are united by these things under the constitution Erdei uses for her partisan ends and symbolized by the flag she implicitly denounces. Despite her words, she clearly rejects our long-established unity in favor of the tools of division she claims are baked into the questions of those she appears to want to rule over rather than serve.
