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Sun 6 Jul, 2008 08:13 am
Is it time to retire the Pledge of Allegiance?
By Paul M. Howey, a syndicated columnist.
July 6, 2008
Independence Day?-a perfect time for some independent thinking. On this all-American day of apple pie, parades, and fireworks, what better time to question why we pledge "allegiance" to a flag.
We say the Pledge of Allegiance a lot, mechanically mouthing the words without truly understanding them or their history. Are we deluding ourselves into believing this somehow renders us more patriotic?
At the risk of sounding like Cliff from "Cheers," here are some little-known facts, Normie.
Conservatives are up in arms about presidential candidates wearing flag pins. I'll bet precious few of them, however, are aware the Pledge of Allegiance was written by a left-winger, a socialist even, and that corporate profits were the sole motivating factor behind it.
Francis Bellamy penned the pledge in 1892. Bellamy was a Baptist minister, a Christian socialist, and an extreme nationalist whose sermons ("Jesus the Socialist," for one) eventually got him booted from the church.
He then landed a job with Youth's Companion, a magazine that also happened to be in the business of selling American flags. The magazine's owners decided they needed to boost flag sales. They came up with a marketing gimmick.
They engineered a deal with the National Education Association to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus landing in the New World. By agreement, all the schools in the country were to have flag ceremonies and, naturally, they would all need to have flags. To cement the deal, they had Bellamy write the following pledge that youngsters all over the country would be required to say:
"I pledge allegiance to my flag and to the Republic for which it stands: one nation indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."
"One nation indivisible" was a phrase Bellamy used to drive home the fact that states had no inherent right of secession. The Civil War was still fresh on the minds of Americans, and the Northerners wanted to be sure the Southerners understood the new rules.
Socialist that he was, Bellamy had wanted to include "equality for all" in his pledge, but he knew the states' superintendents of education?-who generally did not support equality for women or for African-Americans?-would object. That could hurt flag sales (the pledge was, after all, just an advertising ploy meant to peddle more flags), and so he dropped the idea.
The last change to the pledge came in 1954. In response to the "Red Scare" of the McCarthy era, the words "under God" were added, supposedly to show that we rejected the godless precepts of Communism. Patriotic atheists and agnostics were not consulted.
Sadly, the Pledge of Allegiance was but an ad campaign created to bolster a corporation's bottom line. Perhaps worse, it was worded to be politically expedient rather than politically correct.
We're about the only nation to pledge allegiance to a flag, and we do it without even understanding why we do so. Perhaps it's time to consider retiring this anachronistic practice, or at least finding a meaningful replacement.
A government/school orchestrated pledge is coercive in nature and, therefore, something that ought to go.
I always just pretended to say the pledge, in grade school.
edgarblythe wrote:I always just pretended to say the pledge, in grade school.
How clever a little lad you were.
edgarblythe wrote:Finn dAbuzz wrote:edgarblythe wrote:I always just pretended to say the pledge, in grade school.
How clever a little lad you were.
Damn straight.
And a butch one too, it appears.
When they changed the words, I became uncomfortable with it. Calling a man "butch" is a bit effiminate, what?
The pledge is another way of cramming religion down a person's throat, among other things.
How 'bout we replace it with a more concise version of the Oath of Citizenship...
Quote:I pledge to support, honor, and be loyal to the United States, its Constitution, and its laws. Where and if lawfully required, I further commit myself to defend the Constitution and laws of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic, either by military, noncombatant, or civilian service.
I think it lacks the zing of a commercial slogan, and no one will want to say it.
edgarblythe wrote:I think it lacks the zing of a commercial slogan, and no one will want to say it.
I agree it lacks zing. But it's interesting that new citizens are required to say it (or something similar to it). For existing citizens, it seems rather implicit.
That's what I said, and why I quit saying it.
I could say the pledge with a straight face, if it was not expected of me that I would say, "one nation, under God." This is asking an atheist to surrender a fundamental right, merely to assuage the fundamentalist bent of a segment of the population. It is the equivelent of me telling them to say the pledge, promising, "one nation, with no God."
I did like saying the Pledge of Allegiance every day at public school, as a child. We all faced the American flag, and for those few minutes, it almost seemed like the class was a united group of children, rather than the little cliques that existed in the school yard and class room. The pledge was a uniter, not a divider, in my opinion.
I did know, even then, that everyone did not believe in a God. But, that made me feel that this country was a good country, since it did not persecute atheists, or people whose religion was not that of a State religion. The pledge only explained to me the concept of a democracy, in that the majority of the country believes in the existence of a God, and therefore the pledge states, "one nation under God." What a wonderful thing democracy is, I thought, not to persecute the minority that are atheists.
Notice it says "God," not any religion's preferred term for that God.
Also, the thought that the origin of the pledge makes it less purposeful is a specious thought, in my opinion, since one does not look a gift horse in the mouth, so to speak.
In fact, the Baptist minister who originally wrote the pledge did not include the words "under God" in his text. That was added during the 1950s commie witch hunts of HUAC and Tailgunner Joe.
Requiring a child who is raised by atheists to pledge allegiance to a nation which is alleged to be under god certainly does constitute the implementation of a state religion.
I refused to say it for a few days in second grade. I really hate repeating other's words...and indoctrination-type mantras.
...and with your hand over your heart and all...Hitlerian to me.
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