Year-end thoughts

As the old year winds down, a few notions that never quite made it into a column.

Presidential politics

I listen to the candidates for the nation’s highest office and wonder what happened to restraint and courtesy. My cousin, the monsignor, once said of the writing Woster brothers that, “they never have an unpublished thought.’’ Too true, I’m afraid. With most of the current crop of candidates, I listen and think, “I wonder if they know they don’t have to verbalize every half-formed thought that crosses their minds.’’

Maybe I’m spoiled. I began paying attention to politics about the time Adlai Stevenson and Kennedy and Eisenhower and Nixon were candidates. I’m not saying they were great candidates, but they spoke well in public, and usually they spoke thoughtfully. Most people did.

The Pledge of Allegiance

I still remember feeling like a know-nothing back when I was 10 years old and we said the Pledge of Allegiance for the first time with the words “under God’’ added.

I grew up reciting the pledge at the start of each school day. For the first couple of years in grade school, we recited it as “one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.’’ But in 1954, we added the two words.

Now, I know some of the history of that time. I know much of the nation was terrified of communism and wanted a strong statement against godless communism. Even so, the first couple of times we recited the familiar pledge with the addition of “under God,’’ it felt awkward.

I’ve been spending some time these days thinking about a nation’s fears and its responses to those fears. Perhaps that’s why I recalled my awkward moment with the pledge. I also recalled the Cold War and the Space Race and the fear in our country when Russia beat us into orbit with Sputnik in 1957. Frightening times. So are today’s.

Here’s something I didn’t know. Maybe you did. The original pledge, several sources say, didn’t specify the flag of the United States of America. A man named Francis Bellamy, described as a Baptist minister and Christian socialist, wrote the original pledge in 1892. (There was another version, but not quite like what we know now). The words “the Flag of the United States of America’’ were inserted in 1923, the sites I checked said. “Under God’’ came 31 years after that.

For what it’s worth, it appears that the words “indivisible’’ and “with liberty and justice for all’’ have always been a part of the Pledge of Allegiance. Sometimes, usually when I’ve watched too much campaign news from the presidential races or have read too many social-media exchanges, I wonder if we remember those parts of the pledge.

Guns -- rights and control

During several of the legislative sessions I covered, lawmakers debated bills dealing with gun rights and gun control. Debates were emotional, and all sides often had good and thoughtful arguments. All sides could offer goofy arguments, too, of course.

One piece of testimony that has stuck with me came from the police chief in a college town. The Legislature was debating whether to let students carry firearms on campus. One argument in favor was that a good person with a weapon could counter the bad person with a weapon. The college-town cop cautioned that if he arrived at an active shooter incident and saw someone approaching with a weapon, he would be pretty quick to take that person down.

I confess that in the wake of mass shootings, I sometimes find myself wishing good guys had been armed and ready to exchange gunfire with the bad guy. But I don’t know how the cop with a gun arriving at those situations can risk delaying a response to try to determine if the person approaching with a weapon is the shooter or one of the good guys.

I don’t know the answer. One of my hopes for the New Year is that we make a world in which we needn’t fret over such questions. I wish I were optimistic.