Loyalty Oath
Loyalty Oath
A Fringe Bitchfest about taking the Pledge
At the start of every Board of Supervisors meeting the five gents turn to the flag in the corner, cover their hearts, and recite insulting and decidedly un-patriotic drivel:I pledge allegiance to the FLAG of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under GOD, INDIVISIBLE with liberty and justice for all.
It’s the pledge I said as a little child in school, back when it made no sense, and was just some little poem we said every morning.
A poem for
children: Google image page for “pledge of allegiance”.
But, I know what it means, now, and I don’t like it. It’s contrary to what is important about America.
First of
all, it is unreasonable to request people to pledge allegiance to a flag. A flag is cloth, anyone can make one, there
is nothing about it which requires allegiance.
Secondly, our historical documents mention God only twice. The first is
in reference to the laws of nature and nature's God. The second refers
not to a nation, but to the rights of the people, which are endowed by the
Creator and not the government. The reference to religion is the 1st Amendment to the Constitution, and it says: “Congress
shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the
free exercise thereof.” The "under God" line in the loyalty oath wasn’t
even in the pledge as originally penned by the socialist minister, Francis Bellamy, and didn’t appear until the 1950s when some
bureaucrat decided communists wouldn’t be able to say the pledge because, being
evil demons, they couldn’t utter the word “God”. The founding fathers were men of the
enlightenment, and looked to reason, not God, for explanation. Very clearly we are not a nation “under God”.
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When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. Declaration of Independence. |
US Corporate flag from Adbusters.org (link)
In the next stanza, “indivisible” is a slap at the states, and nothing less. After the Civil War the States were no longer united, they were captives of the federal government. Given the misery the feds are visiting on us now this line chafes like a crotch full of cockleburs.
The last
line, “liberty and justice for all” is a mockery from a nation which has
neither. We are among the most regulated
and restricted people on earth, spied on by our government, imprisoned more
than any other people in the developed world.
Free people don't have to swear a loyalty oath before beginning the people's work, and real patriots don't confuse patriotism with nationalism.
I’ll propose a better pledge, a loyalty oath a patriot can make:
I pledge allegiance to you, my brothers and sisters, and to your
liberties, endowed by God, protected by our principles, and preserved through
the justice we demand from the administration in power. I pledge as a patriot to insist that the
government fulfill one purpose which is not war, not empire, not domination,
not the creation of billionaires, but
only to guarantee every person that which we value most: life, liberty, and the
pursuit of happiness, the sovereignty of our own lives.
