I am certainly not the first to point out how similar patriotic pageantry is to religious ceremony. Governments have hymns, sacred texts, priests, sin, prayers, salvation, temples, saints, and so forth in droves. Prof CJ of the Dangerous History Podcast revisited his 2016 episode on the topic with expanded discussion in 2020. The first episode certainly predates the addition of COVID panic, and the update still predates the vaccine pushers. Now it is a civil sin to be sick, and salvation is granted by the government through its corporate cronies in Big Pharma, with the left suddenly celebrating the capitalist masters they used to denounce as the devil incarnate.
Is the State our salvation? Every year, surveillance encroaches more and more on our liberties, promising us protection from terrorists and criminals if we will only submit, and insisting any reluctance must be evidence of ill intent on your part. Now it promises security even from microbes.
It seems Biden might now actually withdraw US troops from Afghanistan and Iraq, but we already have rumors if reclassification instead of real demobilization. Further, if they are actually brought home and the wars ended in reality, does it mean peace, or just redeployment to a new war zone to fight Russia, China, or some related proxy war?
All the evils of government are recognized to one degree or another by one side or the other in our two-party oligarchy, but the underlying faith in political legitimacy prevents people from treating the political class with the disdain it truly deserves. Excuses abound.
"They mean well."
"It's just the wrong party in power."
"That was just an isolated incident."
The excuses are always there. When people do disobey, it is to resist one bad law or policy, not to undermine the system that imposed and enforced that injustice.
There are also undercurrents of dissent which may (although probably won't) erupt from political battles to literal civil war. Sectarian violence is a bloody thing, and the result never resolves whatever initially sparked the conflict. Instead, mass death and destruction serve as a sort of human sacrifice at the altar of The State, and the regime which emerges consolidates more power.
Civil disobedience is a half-measure. Practice real disobedience, not as a path to political change, but as a path to personal freedom. Legality will never define morality, and only aligns with it enough to add a veneer of legitimacy. Tear down the veneer, even if only in your own mind. Practice real independence. The beginning of liberty is between your ears, not in the halls of government. Be skeptical of any claim from those who demand your obedience.