Revising the Pledge of Allegiance: From Socialist to Libertarian

[heavenlyboy34]

Well, this thread really wasn’t intended for a debate over the various forms of government or to wage a supportive debate for the cause of anarchism. It is intended for what we are as a nation, as fact, and to be proudly supportive of that.

China, USSR, etc. those are not strict republics, they are communist regimes or oligarchs, existing as police states that function purely by their military rule. Rome did well under its republic that is until it killed itself off by spreading throughout as an empire under despotism.

Unlike those nations former, America upholds core values. Its citizens possess indissoluble rights that are and remain unfixed to the conveniences or motivations of our own system of government or its appendages. American’s individually possess their natural right of self-preservation, to resist oppression and tyranny in all of its degrees, to vindicate themselves through judicial due process or by seeking to redress their grievances, and lastly to use arms in the defense of their rights.

Bolded above-incorrect.

P.S.
No matter how vehemently you deny it, you are incorrect in your assertions about what a "true" republic is/isn't.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic
A republic is a form of government in which the country is considered a "public matter" (Latin: res publica), not the private concern or property of the rulers, and where offices of state are subsequently directly or indirectly elected or appointed rather than inherited. In modern times, a common simplified definition of a republic is a government where the head of state is not a monarch.[SUP][1][/SUP][SUP][2][/SUP] Currently, 135 of the world's 206 sovereign states use the word "republic" as part of their official names.
Both modern and ancient republics vary widely in their ideology and composition. In classical and medieval times the archetype of all republics was the Roman Republic, which referred to Rome in between the period when it had kings, and the periods when it had emperors. The Italian medieval and Renaissance political tradition today referred to as "civic humanism" is sometimes considered to derive directly from Roman republicans such as Sallust and Tacitus. However, Greek-influenced Roman authors, such as Polybius and Cicero, sometimes also used the term as a translation for the Greek politeia which could mean regime generally, but could also be applied to certain specific types of regime which did not exactly correspond to that of the Roman Republic. Republics were not equated with classical democracies such asAthens, but had a democratic aspect.
In modern republics such as the United States, France, Russia, India, and Mexico the executive is legitimized both by a constitution and by popular suffrage. Montesquieu included both democracies, where all the people have a share in rule, and aristocracies or oligarchies, where only some of the people rule, as republican forms of government.[SUP][3][/SUP]
Most often a republic is a sovereign state, but there are also sub-sovereign state entities that are referred to as republics, or which have governments that are described as "republican" in nature. For instance,Article IV of the United States Constitution "guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican form of Government".[SUP][4][/SUP] The subdivisions of the Soviet Union were described as republics and two of them –Ukrainian SSR and Byelorussian SSR – had their own seats at the United Nations. While the Constitution of the Soviet Union described that union as a "unitary, federal and multinational state", it was in reality a unitary state since the Communist Party of the Soviet Union exercised a centralized form of authority over the nominally-autonomous Soviet Socialist Republics.[SUP][5][/SUP]

 

[heavenlyboy34]

And I don't pledge allegience to any earthly thing. That's slave behavior.

 

[Weston White]

And my take based on fisharmor’s suggestion:

I pledge allegiance to the unalienable principles of the United States of America and to the strict Republic upon which we veraciously stand, and to uphold the prudent sovereignty of my state of [STATE OF RESIDENCE]; one Nation under virtuous Divinity, with indissoluble liberty and justice in equality for all humankind.

 

[Weston White]

And I don't pledge allegience to any earthly thing. That's slave behavior.

Well then congratulations is due you: “For ye suffer fools gladly, seeing ye yourselves are wise.” – 2 Corinthians 11:19

 

[Antischism]

I pledge allegiance to no flag, but I'll turn it into an oily rag to top the bottle if and when armed revolts are necessary. At least it serves that purpose.

 

[PaulConventionWV]

Well not everyone is an anarchist like you.

You don't have to be an anarchist to be anti-government. Pledging fealty to the state is never a good thing, regardless of whether you believe government is necessary or not. Why do we even need a pledge? As AF would say, throw it in the woods! In his revisions, you may not be pledging to a piece of cloth, but you are still pledging allegiance to the state, which is something you should never pledge to support.

 

[idiom]

"unalienable principles of the United States of America".... Ideals or active principles?

 

[PaulConventionWV]

Finding out which words we should mindlessly recite less the current one is, to me, an extremely fickle and meaningless endeavor.

 

[doremedia]

Here is my rewrite:

I pledge allegiance to the Constitution of the United States of America which it protects, a confederacy of free and independents states, under God, with the option to secede at will, with liberty and justice for all.

 

[doremedia]

That is close to mine.

 

[PaulConventionWV]

And I don't pledge allegience to any earthly thing. That's slave behavior.

This. +rep

 

[Weston White]

Bolded above-incorrect.

No, I don't believe so. Those nations function purely on the backside of poorly conceived theories concerning socialism and the like. They are purely ‘republic’ in name only.

Federalist # 10, "The Same Subject Continued: The Union as a Safeguard Against Domestic Faction and Insurrection":

...
It is in vain to say that enlightened statesmen will be able to adjust these clashing interests, and render them all subservient to the public good. Enlightened statesmen will not always be at the helm. Nor, in many cases, can such an adjustment be made at all without taking into view indirect and remote considerations, which will rarely prevail over the immediate interest which one party may find in disregarding the rights of another or the good of the whole.

The inference to which we are brought is, that the CAUSES of faction cannot be removed, and that relief is only to be sought in the means of controlling its EFFECTS.

If a faction consists of less than a majority, relief is supplied by the republican principle, which enables the majority to defeat its sinister views by regular vote. It may clog the administration, it may convulse the society; but it will be unable to execute and mask its violence under the forms of the Constitution. When a majority is included in a faction, the form of popular government, on the other hand, enables it to sacrifice to its ruling passion or interest both the public good and the rights of other citizens. To secure the public good and private rights against the danger of such a faction, and at the same time to preserve the spirit and the form of popular government, is then the great object to which our inquiries are directed. Let me add that it is the great desideratum by which this form of government can be rescued from the opprobrium under which it has so long labored, and be recommended to the esteem and adoption of mankind.

By what means is this object attainable? Evidently by one of two only. Either the existence of the same passion or interest in a majority at the same time must be prevented, or the majority, having such coexistent passion or interest, must be rendered, by their number and local situation, unable to concert and carry into effect schemes of oppression. If the impulse and the opportunity be suffered to coincide, we well know that neither moral nor religious motives can be relied on as an adequate control. They are not found to be such on the injustice and violence of individuals, and lose their efficacy in proportion to the number combined together, that is, in proportion as their efficacy becomes needful.

From this view of the subject it may be concluded that a pure democracy, by which I mean a society consisting of a small number of citizens, who assemble and administer the government in person, can admit of no cure for the mischiefs of faction. A common passion or interest will, in almost every case, be felt by a majority of the whole; a communication and concert result from the form of government itself; and there is nothing to check the inducements to sacrifice the weaker party or an obnoxious individual. Hence it is that such democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths. Theoretic politicians, who have patronized this species of government, have erroneously supposed that by reducing mankind to a perfect equality in their political rights, they would, at the same time, be perfectly equalized and assimilated in their possessions, their opinions, and their passions.

A republic, by which I mean a government in which the scheme of representation takes place, opens a different prospect, and promises the cure for which we are seeking. Let us examine the points in which it varies from pure democracy, and we shall comprehend both the nature of the cure and the efficacy which it must derive from the Union.

The two great points of difference between a democracy and a republic are: first, the delegation of the government, in the latter, to a small number of citizens elected by the rest; secondly, the greater number of citizens, and greater sphere of country, over which the latter may be extended.
...

http://www.hdv.defendindependence.us/index.phtml?federalist=10

 

[The Rebel Poet]

No bueno. Every version has the fundamental flaw still intact: "one nation." We are 50 united states, not one.

Also, why do you add "humankind" to the end?

 

[Weston White]

You don't have to be an anarchist to be anti-government. Pledging fealty to the state is never a good thing, regardless of whether you believe government is necessary or not. Why do we even need a pledge? As AF would say, throw it in the woods! In his revisions, you may not be pledging to a piece of cloth, but you are still pledging allegiance to the state, which is something you should never pledge to support.

That is a bit of a misnomer; and being anti-government is what anarchists practice (anarchism is not only about being violent, such is merely one aspect of anarchism). Most prominently, it is about being disobedient to just authority for no good reason, but simply to practice disobedience or to be staunchly individualistic.

Regardless, this is not so much about pledging to "the state" or about being subordinate to those holding public offices or even to "authority", it is about pledging to what our nation-state is representative of, its underlying maxims, it is about realizing the core of its principal.

 

[Weston White]

No bueno. Every version has the fundamental flaw still intact: "one nation." We are 50 united states, not one.

Also, why do you add "humankind" to the end?

1. We are a singular nation composed throughout by fifty-states in a united federation (or a Union). We are one United States of America (being all fifty-states and one federal or national government and its territories and possessions) functioning in accord with one United States government (being the Federal Government of the United States).

2. Using humankind is intended to provide reflection on the decree realized by our Declaration of Independence—“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” So that Americans should instead take the higher ground and treat others as they themselves ought to like to be treated, e.g., no more: neo-colonialism; third-world genocide, pollution, or resource-stripping; slave-laboring for profit-margining, etc., etc.

 

[JK/SEA]

should it be a Federal crime to not recite the pledge in public gatherings?

 

[erowe1]

Here's another revision that works:

Just add the word "don't" after "I."

 

[erowe1]

Also, maybe this already came up. But why do all the revisions in the OP replace the word "God" with "Divinity"?

 

[Weston White]

Also, maybe this already came up. But why do all the revisions in the OP replace the word "God" with "Divinity"?

I had originally thought 'Creator' though felt that 'Divinity' (capitalized) fit better, overall. The intent was to account for America's religious diversity as opposed to just chiefly Christian.

 

[scottditzen]

Here is my rewrite:

I pledge allegiance to the Constitution of the United States of America which it protects, a confederacy of free and independents states, under God, with the option to secede at will, with liberty and justice for all.

Lawyer here. For good or bad, our Constitution is simply a tool. For one thing it can be pretty vague, even legal scholars can have the polar opposite viewpoints. If I'm pledging to allegiance to something, I want to be damn sure everyone is on the same exact page of what it means exactly. I think most of us on here would agree that while it offers protections, the source of our rights are innate, and come not from the Constitution, but from something deeper and even more meaningful.