The Commissioners Court in Bowie County, Texas, recently voted to remove the Pledge of Allegiance and Invocation from their county meeting minutes. You can read more here: "My Country 'Tis Of Thee, Sweet Land of…Removing the Pledge of Allegiance?!"
Now, a moment of silence.
Man the barricades! Circle the wagons! Ready your guns! There's an unholy war brewing in Texas ... The pinkos are coming!
As county clerk, Nichols keeps the minutes of the proceedings of the Commissioners Court, which are held before an audience and begin with a prayer and the Pledge of Allegiance. While Nichols was away attending a county clerk training conference on June 13, the Commissioners Court voted to remove the invocation from the minutes of a previous meeting. Why? Nichols said that County Judge Sterling Lacy told her that he "didn't want some group like the ACLU to come in and sue."
They removed the Pledge from the minutes also. Nichols commented: "Are we now afraid to be patriotic in America? Well, I am not. I will not sit down while people drag our country into a direction that makes me not even recognize it anymore." Nichols is fighting this decision, against heavy odds. Judge Lacy remarked ominously: "What she hasn't thought through are the unintended consequences" of her stand.
Now, I'm as sick and tired as anyone regarding our pathetic, spineless society. Seriously, if you're offended™ by the words "under God," grow up, get a life, and find yourself a productive hobby or something.
These words do not violate the 1st Amendment, nor will removing them make the country more rational. Fears of theocracy, witch-hunts and crusades on the other hand, do indeed border on the irrational.
That said, the people (on the other side of the aisle) who are offended™ by Bowie County's removing of the Pledge of Allegiance from their minutes, are completely irrational too. Possibly more. Because if you think about it (I know, it hurts), the "left" should be the one's defending the pledge, not the "right," who should fight to bury it!
Say the Pledge, or Get the Blank Out?
To understand just how far left the political right in America has drifted, consider the following article.
AMERICANS WHO REFUSE to say the Pledge of Allegiance do not deserve their U.S. citizenship ...
Some people object to the "one nation, under God" stanza. But it is there for a good reason.
Francis Bellamy wrote the pledge in 1892 without the phrase "under God." In 1942, Congress voted to officially recognize the pledge. The reference to God came about in 1954 as a result of the Cold War. It was added to garner support against the godless Communists.
I am not in favor of forcing people to take the pledge, by law, as some Virginia legislators are now debating. But I urge anti-pledgers to leave the country of their own free will. If you hate America, why live here?
The sentiment expressed above by Jennifer Kabbany, was published by David Horowitz' FrontPage Magazine on July 04, 2001. What makes this interesting is that David Horowitz is an ex-Bolshevik who supposedly got "mugged by reality."
Patriotic Socialism
Francis Bellamy, an unapologetic socialist who dreamed of a regimented society where all men were drafted into the state's "industrial army" at age 21, wrote the Pledge of Allegiance for the purpose of advancing his socialist worker's paradise via the public schools.
First published in the popular children's magazine, The Youth's Companion, the pledge was meant to indoctrinate the youth in loyalty to the state and thus, destroy the American individualist nature. Bellamy declared, "the training of citizens in the common knowledge and the common duties of citizenship belongs irrevocably to the State."
Here's what indoctrinated American children looked like as they pledged their allegiance to the state prior to WWII.
Yeah, Hitler and Mussolini got their salute from us.
The Pledge of Allegiance as Fulfillment
Our country's anti-state tradition runs so deep and strong that it sparked a revolutionary war. Yet few Americans today are willing to even question the idea of pledging their loyalty to the state. Even fewer Americans still, are willing to question the role of the state in society. Both the political left and right today, see the state as protector and savior.
Francis Bellamy would be pleased.
There is little doubt in my mind over why the left wishes to remove the words "under God" from the pledge. After all, as Patrick Henry warned, it's "when a people forget God that tyrants forge their chains." It's obvious why ex-Bolshevik's like Horowitz support the pledge too - they see what Irving Kristol called the "collective self" as the primary unit of moral, social and political value. Therefore it is the state which must shape preferences, form habits, and cultivate virtue. In other words, it's the state which creates "good" society.
But why the "right" en masse supports pledging their loyalty to the secular state is simply beyond understanding. "What's conservative about the Pledge of Allegiance?" Why sanctify the state when your loyalty belongs to God, your family and friends, and common decency alone?
Down with the Pledge of Allegiance!
Society in every state is a blessing, but Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one. -- Thomas Paine
I agree with Paine. No matter how you look at it, the state is inherently evil. The state is an anti-social, secular institution, that competes with particular families, cultures and traditions for the loyalty of the individual, and thereby slowly erodes until it effectively replaces our own personal loyalties. I pledge no loyalty to this beast.
Neither should you.
Texas Bans the Pledge of Allegiance is a post from: The Classic Liberal Blog