I like the pledge of Allegiance. When I say
it it makes me feel patriotic as does singing the national anthem. I get
annoyed when folk talk during either, even new buddy Michael Moore in his youth refusing to say it or stand when he was
fed up with things going on in the country.
And yet there is always controversy about
everything. Though the “under God” piece is relatively new, added in 1954 (that’s
new in my reference frames), atheists seem to get all hot and bothered about it
along with those who often confuse religion and patriotism.
The original Pledge of Allegiance was written
by Francis Bellamy in 1892; it read then, "I pledge allegiance to
my flag and the republic for which it stands: one nation indivisible with
liberty and justice for all."
Early critics thought it was not clear enough so the
added the word “to” to it, I pledge allegiance to my flag and to the
republic for which it stands: one nation indivisible with liberty and justice
for all."
That worked from 1892 to 1923, then they worried that it
could apply to Lower Slabovia as well as the U.S.A. so the added "I
pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the
republic for which it stands; one nation indivisible with liberty and justice
for all."
The pledge became official
when approved by the congress in the year of my birth, 1942.
Then, as said, before came the 1954
addition of the deity being acknowledged.
There are the Jehovah Witnesses who
complain we shouldn’t make any such vows except to God. But they have little political
clout.
But now I’m wondering if there might be new
critics coming on the scene. I’m thinking that Tea Party, the FOX news
commentators (Limbaugh, Beck, Coulter and others) might leap to the fore on
historical grounds. I doubt that they will condemn its creator, Francis
Bellamy, for being a Baptist Preacher, but here is what may get their dander
up, Bellamy was a Christian Socialist;
and cousin of the social utopian writer Edward Bellamy.
So, the Pledge of Allegiance might prove
too scandalous for such folk.
As Emily Latila on Saturday Night Live used
to say, “There’s always somethin’.” I identify with her deafness and the
ability to say, “Never mind.” But really isn’t there too much violins on TV,
and flea or presidential erections, and busting school children? And could it just drum up business for the folk who make pledge cleaner? Life is so complicated.
While socialism was harmless at the end of the 19th century, a lot has happened since then. Socialism has been tried, on a grand scale, and the result has been unprecedented atrocity. It's the ideology of Hitler, Stalon, Mao, Pol Pot, Minh, Milosevic, Saddam Hussein, Castro... and Khadaffi and Assad. It's got a horrible track record, and given what happens again and again, it makes no sense any more at all to embrace socialism (an ideology that is basically a psuedoscientific justification for what used to be the divine right of kings and the reversal of all progress on human rights).
ReplyDeleteThe Ballamy's can be excused... back then socialism was just another utopian pipe dream that hadn't been implemented yet... with its directly resulting slaughter of scores of tens millions of innocent victims.
Hitler & socialism; we often see the comparison. Yet, the
ReplyDeletevery first people rounded up by the Nazis were socialists and trade union leaders; yet large private companies flourished-Krupp, Farben, Seimans, Daimler, Hoesch, Allianz, Porsch, Bayer etc- companies that received huge
assets in the form of slave laborers. Hardly socialism;
we need consider socialism is an economic system- nazism
(or the listing of totalitarian regimes) as political systems. The track record of democratic socialism in European countries is not horrible; the citizens prefer
a fair shake, as exemplified by their superior standard of living, health and well-being.