When state officials defy the constitution, keep your guard up.

Rarely do callers to talk radio have a deep vested interest in the subject about which they want to pontificate. The first caller to the syndicated "Judy Jarvis Show" was clearly different. He was a member of the Alabama National Guard, and he was worried that he might be summoned to a duty with which he disagreed. He was obviously in a deep conflict of conscience.

What prompted him to pick up the phone was the conversation Judy and I were having about Alabama Gov. Forrest "Fob" James' insistence that he would bring in the National Guard to stop anyone from taking down a plaque of the Ten Commandments in a courtroom even if ordered to do so by a state court. The caller said he didn't think the religious message belonged in a public courtroom but also said he had taken an oath to obey the commands of his superiors.

Frankly. it is Alabama's controversial chief executive who should be thinking about the oath he took. For several months Gov. James has been fulminating about events in an Etowah County courthouse where Judge Roy Moore has been inviting in Protestant clergy to lead prayers and has been displaying a large hand-carved wooden plaque containing the Ten Commandments.

When attorneys at the local branch of the American Civil Liberties Union asked Judge Moore to stop these practices, he refused and dared them to go to court. They did, they won and in back-to-back decisions an Alabama court ordered the prayers and the plaque out of the court because they were "purely religious."

The judge who struck down display of the Ten Commandments did indicate that if they were incorporated as part of a larger display, it might serve some historical or educational function. Judge Moore will likely have none of it. Somehow, I don't see him adding a collage of the Code of Hammurabi, a section of the Koran and an excerpt from What is Scientology? to his courtroom wall any time soon.

Gov. James, a staunch ally of the Religious Right, has made it clear that he's on Moore's side. James told a legislative prayer breakfast that federal officials would have to "run over the state troopers and the National Guard" to take the plaque down. Maybe someone should ask the Environmental Protection Agency to check the water supply to the governor's office because James' remarks bear an uncanny resemblance to former Alabama Gov. George Wallace's insistence that he would "stand in the schoolhouse door" to defy federal integration orders. (I know that a lot of Alabama residents have good water because I met a lot of church-state separationists when I visited the state last year.)

Let's return to oaths. The governor of Alabama took an oath of office to uphold the laws of Alabama and the U.S. Constitution. He didn't add any footnotes about only upholding judicial interpretations he would have made himself. I don't mind him disagreeing with court decisions, but it is only the most extremist mind-set that would treat the whole judicial system -- and remember, this matter is in the state's own system, since the federal courts haven't even gotten involved -- with this level of contempt.

Far-right conservatives like James are constantly bemoaning the absence of values in America. Most of us like to instill in our children some decent respect for the law and government authority. It is pretty difficult to do that,. however, when state officials run around pronouncing that judicial decisions don't matter and insisting they can be ignored if you don't like them.

Actually, it isn't fair to call a guy like James a "conservative." I know plenty of real conservatives who are embarrassed by his antics. Real conservatives respect law and order; James and his "judicial tyranny" crowd are something else entirely: reactionaries.

My old radio debate partner Pat Buchanan is now back as a syndicated columnist. One of his first pieces was in support of Gov. James, noting that "if the governor holds his ground, he can make Etowah County Courthouse the Concord Bridge of a Middle American revolution against our reigning judicial dictatorship." (That's Pat -- always striving to avoid hyperbole!) The reason there is nothing tyrannical about asking Judge Moore to remove the plaque is that the courthouse is not his personal fiefdom. Nobody is telling the judge to take down a portrait of Jesus in his house or denying him the right to pray privately in his chambers.

Frankly, it is bad enough that Gov. James doesn't realize that Christian prayers and Bible passages aren't the basis of civil law and that non-christian litigants might feel like second-class citizens in that courtroom. It is worse that he thinks he is above the law. Worst of all, it is starting to sound like much of this is a stunt to embarrass President Bill Clinton.

James, a Republican, has boasted that the only way to stop the National Guard from doing what he says is for the president to federalize it. The "culture war" boosters must be salivating at the thought of a grand scenario where the beleaguered governor of a small southern state challenges the big, mean president who used to be the governor of a small southern state.

This is a pretty sad state of affairs. Bad history, ignorance of the Constitution and partisan politicking could all come crashing down on that anonymous National Guardsman who called me -- a man who, after all, just signed up to help his country and his community.