A question for conservatives.

For some of us, last year's appeals court ruling concerning the content of the Pledge of Allegiance was a welcome infusion of common sense into a national climate of patriotic zeal and flag-waving conformity. However, most of what support there is for the ruling misses the most important point about the Pledge; namely, that democratic governments have no business imposing upon their citizens the requirement that they recite loyalty oaths of any kind, whether or not they are worded to include religious references.

I base this assertion on my belief that the right of free speech includes the right not to speak, that no democratic government should be empowered to compel us to state our beliefs or our lack thereof.

My opinion arises from my own traditional liberal politics and in turn gives rise to some questions for those whose reaction to the ruling differed from mine. No contemporary conservative political rhetoric is complete without a deep-seated suspicion and mistrust of big government.

So to my conservative friends who approve of the Pledge as a requirement of law I would direct the following questions: What could be more of an unwarranted intrusion by Big Government than for you to be answerable to a public agency for your personal beliefs, religious or secular? Compared to this frightening prospect, the power to do such things as raise your taxes seems to me quite trivial.

Telling the government to mind its own business in matters of personal beliefs is, it seems to me, a profoundly healthy manifestation of real conservative values and it would be unfortunate to fail to see the common ground you're standing on with the rest of us.

Geoffrey Braden Seattle, Wash.