The Pledge Still Ought to Be Scrapped

PAF

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PAF: I haven't said the pledge in like forever. Every time folks stand, I stay seated. Sometimes I am questioned about it, and my response is "I am not a communist". The looks I get range from comical to I'm a traitor lol.



By Laurence M. Vance
August 26, 2022


“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.”

A Fargo, North Dakota, school board has decided that the Pledge of Allegiance has to go because of inclusivism and diversity.

Said the school board’s vice president Seth Holden:

The word ‘God’ in the text of the Pledge of Allegiance is capitalized. The text is clearly referring to the Judeo-Christian god and therefore, it does not include any other faith such as Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, all of which are practiced by our staff and students.

The pledge is a “non-inclusionary act” that “doesn’t align with the district’s diversity, equity, and inclusion values.”



The state Republican Party called the decision “laughable.” North Dakota Republican senator Kevin Cramer tweeted: “Please don’t judge North Dakota on the actions of a few cultural & intellectual outliers on the Fargo School Board. Join me in our beautiful state and I will introduce you to the best of the best across the fruited plains.”

Now, I know that the progressives on the school board in North Dakota want to do away with the Pledge because they are stupid and evil, but the Pledge still ought to be scrapped.

Many Americans no doubt think that the Pledge is in the Constitution, that the Founding Fathers recited the Pledge, that it is against the law for students in school to refuse to recite the Pledge, that the wording of the Pledge has never been changed, or that reciting the Pledge is patriotic.

They know nothing about the origin of the Pledge and its author, Francis Bellamy (1855-1931), or the subsequent history of the Pledge.

How many Americans know that the author of the Pledge was a socialist minister forced to resign from his pastorate who believed in an indivisible union for which the Civil War was fought?

How many Americans know that the author of the Pledge sought to use public schools as a tool to indoctrinate children into his socialist vision of patriotism?

How many Americans know that the Pledge was not recited in a public school until 1892?

How many Americans know that Congress did not officially recognize the Pledge until 1942?

How many Americans know that the original salute to the flag was the outstretched-arm salute later adopted by the Nazis?

How many Americans know that the Supreme Court ruled in 1943 that students cannot be required to recite the Pledge?

How many Americans know that the phrase “under God” in the Pledge was not added until 1954?

How many Americans know that the Supreme Court ruled in 2004 that students cannot be required to stand for the Pledge?

How many Americans know that most other countries don’t have an equivalent of the Pledge. In fact, it has been said that countries that do either emulate the United States or are totalitarian regimes.

I was surprised to see the truth about the Pledge in a new book, Pete Hegseth & David Goodwin’s Battle for the American Mind: Uprooting a Century of Miseducation (Broadside Books, 2022, pp. 77, 78):


In 1892, Bellamy, an early Progressive, authored the precursor to the pledge of allegiance, called the Bellamy Salute, which would come to be used in schools across the United States. Curiously, Bellamy’s pledge included the Roman salute with outstretched arm—very similar to what would later be known as the Nazi salute. It was nearly identical to what would become our current pledge, except that it made no mention of God. Bellamy’s salute had a purpose: to unite and elevate the American people with reference only to America, not to Christ. The WCP [Western Christian Paideia] no longer bound America together; the new pledge was designed to supplant the creeds of Christianity. The public school classroom would become a shrine of sorts to progressive ideas.

The Bellamy Salute was intentionally part of that liturgy, as were American flags. By the early 1900s, there were portraits of John Dewey and Horace Mann in the classroom, alongside George Washington. In 1942, the original salute, with hands outstretched, was replaced for its obvious connection with the Nazi salute. In the 1950s, Bellamy’s original pledge was amended to add “under God” by Congress amid fears of another form of Marxism—atheistic communism.

The Bellamy Salute served its purpose as nationalism slowly replaced Christianity over a period of decades. This form of nationalism, married to what has been called Manifest Destiny, became a sort of civil religion in its own right in America. Nationalism has its place—no doubt—but this form of American “democracy” was intentionally disordered. It was an early placement of “nation” above “Christ”—and executed intentionally.



And yet, every conservative Christian school that I know of requires its students to recite the Pledge. And to their shame, some conservative churches recite the Pledge during the Sunday morning church service on the Sunday before Memorial Day, the Fourth of July, and Veterans Day (the three military appreciation days). “My brethren, these things ought not so to be.” ~ James 3:10.


https://www.lewrockwell.com/2022/08/laurence-m-vance/the-pledge-still-ought-to-be-scrapped/
 
From grade 7 through 9 in my government skool, we were required to stand and recite the pledge every morning.

I stood but never recited it.

Not that i was some sort of theological prodigy at the time, but it instinctively struck me wrong as being some form of idolatry.
 
From grade 7 through 9 in my government skool, we were required to stand and recite the pledge every morning.

I stood but never recited it.

Not that i was some sort of theological prodigy at the time, but it instinctively struck me wrong as being some form of idolatry.

I didn't come to that realization until after my introduction to Ron Paul in 2007, although I think I did have inklings out it for years before that.

However, in my upbringing, the places where I was expected to say the pledge were the private Christian elementary school I attended, and perhaps even more so the children's club called AWANA that I was part of at my fundamentalist church.

And I don't think it's just fundamentalism where this is a major problem. Statism is so deeply engrained in so many Christian traditions that it's an accepted reality that is taken for granted and hard to even realize it's there.
 
Why do you hate America?

Supporting the current thing is a modern "murikan tradition.

220px-Students_pledging_allegiance_to_the_American_flag_with_the_Bellamy_salute.jpg
 
I said it every day during elementary school. I appreciate it for what it is now and don't feel harmed by it. But anyone putting effort into removing the pledge from public schools is running an agenda I don't stand behind.
 
I said it every day during elementary school. I appreciate it for what it is now and don't feel harmed by it. But anyone putting effort into removing the pledge from public schools is running an agenda I don't stand behind.

List of priorities and hills to die on:

1. Destruction of the Bill of Rights.
2. Inflation, spending, Federal Reserve destroying the currency.
3. Crime.
.
.
.
3087. Eliminating or modifying archaic pledges.
 
We have more serious problems facing this country than some people refusing to stand/do the pledge of alligiance.
 
All of that crap is long lost to history. This is a complete and total waste of time and effort. The pledge is harmless.
 
I said it every day during elementary school. I appreciate it for what it is now and don't feel harmed by it. But anyone putting effort into removing the pledge from public schools is running an agenda I don't stand behind.

There is some truth to this. The pledge isn't nearly as popular in school as it was even just 25 years ago. We pretty much quit saying it by the time I got into high school and that was around 2001.

Things have still managed to get super fk'd up in this country so I guess the pledge wasn't the problem.

They also taught civics back then.
 
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Is there not something odd or strange about pledging allegiance to a flag? Is there currently a Republic for which it stands? Are words supposed to be meaningless? Should we just participate to get along? Seems like a small step to true liberty is teaching our small children not to just utter false words. Not taking a stand against this is setting precedent for indoctrination in all other just say it to get along scenarios.
 
Is there not something odd or strange about pledging allegiance to a flag? Is there currently a Republic for which it stands? Are words supposed to be meaningless? Should we just participate to get along? Seems like a small step to true liberty is teaching our small children not to just utter false words. Not taking a stand against this is setting precedent for indoctrination in all other just say it to get along scenarios.

Fair point.

Just saying you're a little late for the party if you're looking to drum up support to get rid of the pledge. Last time I'd seen it recited anywhere I attended was at a volunteer firefighter meeting . . . over 10 years ago.
 
Fair point.

Just saying you're a little late for the party if you're looking to drum up support to get rid of the pledge. Last time I'd seen it recited anywhere I attended was at a volunteer firefighter meeting . . . over 10 years ago.
I would agree. I wouldn't stage a rally on the capital steps over it but I would not participate in it and would encourage others to not participate also.
 
“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.”

A Fargo, North Dakota, school board has decided that the Pledge of Allegiance has to go because of inclusivism and diversity.

Said the school board’s vice president Seth Holden:

The word ‘God’ in the text of the Pledge of Allegiance is capitalized. The text is clearly referring to the Judeo-Christian god and therefore, it does not include any other faith such as Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, all of which are practiced by our staff and students.

The pledge is a “non-inclusionary act” that “doesn’t align with the district’s diversity, equity, and inclusion values.”

There's no need to get rid of the Pledge of Allegiance.

It only needs a few tweaks to make it palatable to the "diversity, equity, and inclusion" crowd.

Just replace "God" with "Marx", get rid of "liberty", replace "justice" with "equity" - and finally, change the flag to which obeisance is being offered to the BLM and/or LGBTWHATEVER+ flag.

Problem solved.
 
The words "indivisible" are ingrained into the hearts and minds of Americans, since the Pledge of Allegiance took hold in American schools. The Pledge effort was aunched to instill "patriotism" to school children. A look at the simple original pledge, contrasted with the final product, sheds light on how this emphasis in post-Civil War America created the notion of an "indivisible" -- instead of the Constitutional "perpetual" Union. Perpetual merely means automatically renewing, not needing more law or action. It does not mean "indivisible".

-----------
"I pledge allegiance to my Flag and the Republic for which it stands, one Nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."
-------------
"Bellamy was a socialist and originally wanted to use "equality and fraternity" instead of "liberty and justice."

(this article notes his intent to include the phrase "equality and fraternity" as "socialist", but the true lineage of this motto is not socialism, it is Freemasonry.)

Bellamy was an American Christian socialist minister and author from New York who dismissed an earlier version of the Pledge, written in 1887 by George Thatcher Balch as "too juvenile and lacking in dignity." He took Balch's original Pledge:

"We give our heads and hearts to God and our country; one country, one language, one flag!"

[notice the original Pledge was not "indivisible", and was nothing more than a simple affirmation of head and heart, not an oath. It was not referred to as a "pledge", and it stressed the natural culture of a common language, and a "country" (God's creation), not a "nation" (Man's creation).]

and turned it into:

"I pledge allegiance to my Flag and the Republic for which it stands, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."

(Here you have 1) a forced internalisation of the abstract. 2) Indivisible, and "one nation" instead of "one language". 3) he was forced to renege on the Freemasonic maxim "equality and fraternity" because it would lead to controversies, the replacement was "liberty and justice". 4) An oath of "allegiance" is taken, instead of a giving of heads and hearts. An oath taken (warned against in the Gospel), and a formation of "all-legion", a legion (the demons in the Gospels replied that their name was this... "we are legion")]

A Malden Socialist Wrote 'The Pledge of Allegiance'
https://patch.com/massachusetts/boston/malden-socialist-wrote-pledge-allegiance-only-ma

"Bellamy was a member of Little Falls Lodge No. 181, in Little Falls, New York"
https://masonrytoday.com/index.php?new_month=05&new_day=18&new_year=2021
http://njfreemason.net/masonic-articlespublications/brother-francis-bellamy/
http://www.themasonictrowel.com/masonic_talk/stb/stbs/82-03.htm
 
I pledge allegiance to myself, because I am awesome, and do not care about any of you
 
[FONT=Georgia, serif]“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.”[/FONT]

[FONT=Georgia, serif]Why pledge allegiance to a flag?[/FONT]
[FONT=Georgia, serif]Is the United States still a Republic?[/FONT]
[FONT=Georgia, serif]Does the United States believe the "Nation under God" is relevant today?
Is the United States Indivisible and does it have liberty and justice for all?

I say it is a farce and why should somebody say words or worse yet pledge to what is not true.
[/FONT]
 
Does the United States believe the "Nation under God" is relevant today?

More important than whether or not it's relevant, now or ever, is what the point of saying that ever was. It wasn't to express piety, but rather to propagandize religious people with the dogma that God approved of what this pledge said so as to tell them that to rebel against it was to rebel against him. This was done without ever asking God for his permission, and the reason for that is because the folks behind the propagandizing weren't the ones who actually believed in God.
 
The words "indivisible" are ingrained into the hearts and minds of Americans, since the Pledge of Allegiance took hold in American schools. The Pledge effort was aunched to instill "patriotism" to school children. A look at the simple original pledge, contrasted with the final product, sheds light on how this emphasis in post-Civil War America created the notion of an "indivisible" -- instead of the Constitutional "perpetual" Union. Perpetual merely means automatically renewing, not needing more law or action. It does not mean "indivisible".

I can’t recall exactly at what age, but it was very young, when the word “indivisible” in the pledge struck me. Why would that need to be said? And then it occurred to me that the pledge was a reaction to the civil war.
 
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