The list of stupid things I did when I was younger is long and distinguished. I won’t go into details, but trust me – just some dumb stuff. No youthful indiscretion of mine, however, holds a candle to what happened in California this week. There, the student trustees at Orange Coast College voted to ban the Pledge of Allegiance at their meetings.

The latest wrinkle in the patriotism vs. religion debate was courtesy of three newly elected student trustees at OCC. The trustees, it’s worth noting, ran for office wearing “revolutionary-style berets,” according to Reuters.

Ah, youthful exuberance. Nothing says “revolution” like a jaunty beret, perhaps worn with a rakish tilt. One can imagine the young men are furiously trying to grow scraggly, Ché Guevara-style beards as well. To be a proper revolutionary, of course, one must look the part.

Jason Bell, the trustee who proposed the ban, explained, “I am an atheist and socialist…’under God’ was inserted during the McCarthy era and was directly designed to destroy my ideology.”

Which ideology he meant, based off of the context of his statement, isn’t clear. Senator McCarthy was certainly not looking for atheists in the government, and it defies logic to think how inserting ‘under God’ in the Pledge could be designed to destroy socialism. Come to think of it, did adding those two words “destroy” anything other than the cadence of the old Pledge?

Further justifying the ban, Bell added, “That (‘under God’) part is sort of offensive to me.” You know, like, it would be much cooler if we could say, “One nation, under Rage Against the Machine, with kind bud and keggers for all.”

I’m not sure how this brand of thinking got to be so popular - that the minority is justified in calling for the obliteration of anything it deems offensive. Freedom has never entailed the right not to be exposed to things that one finds upsetting. If anyone can play that card, then I’m calling for a ban on banana-flavored Now-and-Laters and “The Real World.” Oh, and anything starring Jimmy Fallon.

Bell makes the case for his cause even more confusing: “Loyalty ought to be something the government earns through performance, not reciting a pledge,” he said. At the risk of putting words in his mouth, I will go out on a limb and try to make Bell’s point for him (a precarious move, to say the least). Bell is unhappy with the current administration and to recite the Pledge would somehow be a statement of fealty to George W. Bush.

Which, of course, completely misses the point. The Pledge of Allegiance is not directed towards any particular government, which is a temporal thing; the word “government” isn’t even in the Pledge. People serving on Capitol Hill may very well say the Pledge during the course of their day. Does Bell think they are stating allegiance to themselves?

The Pledge is directed towards the flag, which is but a symbol of our Republic. At the risk of sounding hokey, the notion is that the spirit of the country, and the concepts upon which it was founded, transcends Bush and Dick Cheney, or Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi. How could one possibly take offense at taking ten seconds out of the day to acknowledge this? One nation? With liberty and justice for all? That’s like taking offense at puppy dogs and moonbeams.

For Bell and his revolutionary brethren, however, the Pledge is a casus belli; a call to arms for some oppressed minority. One has to admire their spirit, at least. With the Pledge out of the way, perhaps the revolution can indeed begin now. From a dorm room. In Orange County, California. On a Tuesday. Right after this rerun of “Seinfeld.”