Should students (or anyone) say the Pledge?
Francis Bellamy was just as much of a socialist as his more famous cousin. In fact, the socialist content of his sermons was the main reason he was forced to become an ex-minister. Bellamy was a proponent of not only state centralization (and the “industrial army”, the militarization of the entire civilian population) but also state schools intended to promote what was, in effect, worship of the state. The Pledge was intended to further both aims. (Here’s a brief history that provides some background on the Pledge. A more critical look at the Pledge is offered by the Cato Institute.) Bellamy’s original Pledge has been modified over the years and some may feel that these changes make the Pledge more acceptable as a patriotic rite. Perhaps. For me, it remains a disguised pledge to an all-power government, state schools, and regimentation.
I’ve proposed an alternative Pledge which would run something like this:
I pledge allegiance to the founding principles of our Republic: that all people are endowed by their Creator with unalienable rights and that the only valid role of government is to secure those rights for its citizens. I pledge to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States so long as it embodies those principles.
I leave it to someone else to wordsmith the above.
Note there is no mention of “a flag” or “the flag”. If the flag is thought of as a placeholder for “We hold these truths to be self-evident…” then, of course, including it in a Pledge makes sense. However, flags have traditionally been symbols of states and their governments. I daresay that if the United States became a totalitarian, socialist state, it would keep the Stars and Stripes as its official symbol. Consider that when Rome abandoned the Republic, it retained the old Republican trappings, including SPQR (Senatus Populesque Romanus – the “Senate and People of Rome”) on its standards, even though the Senate had no power in the Imperial system.
Also problematic (for me, at least) is the idea that a physical symbol, such as a flag, has some intrinsic importance. Consider this fact: the Declaration of Independence is on display at the National Archives. The level of protection for this piece of parchment is really quite extraordinary — it figures in the plot of the recent movie National Treasure. Let’s suppose that this Declaration were destroyed by terrorists. I submit that the only consequence is the loss of an old piece of parchment. Remember that after the document was written it was copied and distributed. It was the IDEAS contained in the Declaration that were important, not the original parchment they were written on. In fact, parchment, paper, electronic media, optical media, or whatever, are merely handy ways of storing and disseminating IDEAS. If some totalitarian government were able to destroy every copy of the Declaration, the Declaration would live on as long has human minds perpetuated the ideas, either through memorization (as in Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451) or though a general understanding of republican principles. I would go so far as to say that the principles in the Declaration are universals — derivable by any intelligent entity in the universe — in which case they are fundamentally indestructible. I think that’s what the Founders were saying in the phrase “… endowed by their Creator…”. In other words, just as there are laws of motion or laws of gravitation, there are also laws of governance which come from “the Creator” whether it be a Deity (many of the Founders were Deists) or the structure of the universe itself, whatever its origin.
So, in the future, if you see me failing to recite the Pledge or even just standing with my arms to my side, please understand that no disrespect is intended. The ideas ARE imporant, not the symbols.
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