Editor’s Note: Welcome a new writer (but long-time friend of MOTW), Alfred Walker.
Did you know that the Pledge of Allegiance isn’t in the Constitution? It’s not even in the Declaration of Independence.
Did you know that ‘Under God’ wasn’t even in the Pledge until 1954? Did you know it used to be recited in tandem with a salute which was quite similar to the Nazi salute?
I didn’t;I didn’t really think about it. I just assumed it was always there as a paragon of American patriotism.
Except that it isn’t.
The Pledge of Allegiance was written by a socialist (you know, one of those people who likes to play the Kamala Harris to the State’s Willie Brown) named Francis Bellamy; more specifically, he was part of the alleged ‘Christian Socialist’ movement–which is to say he was not a Christian.
So why would a socialist be interested in inspiring patriotism? The short answer is he wasn’t. The Pledge of Allegiance is a pacifier to quell patriotism. Because socialists are statists, and statists are not patriots.
Statism is the very mindset that is codified in pledging allegiance (compliance would probably be a better word than allegiance) to the flag of a government that we are supposed to be hostile to, not fellate in the California State Assembly Building.
Patriotism is loyalty to one’s countrymen, not loyalty to one’s government. In the case of Americans, what better way to show loyalty to one’s countrymen than to defend the constitution which guarantees to us, our countrymen and our posterity the rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness?
As I understand it simply, the Constitution establishes the branches thusly:
The President represents the federal, presumably to defend the people.
The Congress (allegedly) represents the people.
The Judiciary (supposedly) represents the Constitution which protects the people.
All three are required to make oaths to protect and defend the constitution from each other or foreign threats, and if that fails it becomes necessary for the people to take up arms and defend it themselves.
It’s not perfect, but it at least makes the attempt to secure our freedom to govern ourselves. It certainly can’t protect itself. As George Dubya famously probably said “It’s just a goddamned piece of paper,” so it relies on oaths of office, and in the event that those oaths are violated, it has attempted to prevent the infringement of our right to bear arms with which we are able to defend it ourselves.
So you can do that, or you can be like Lysander Spooner, who was pretty much like one of those guys that found out circumcision removed some nerves from his pecker that he never gets to use anyway and then gets mad at his parents for the rest of his life, but Spooner was a yankee and an atheist, so who cares what he thinks anyway?
For the American, the Constitution is, at its best, a foundation to build a government worthy of our consent, and is certainly worthy of our protection.
President Trump often speaks of the media as the “Enemy of the People.” Democrats speak of Republicans as the enemies of the people and vice versa.
In the Declaration of Independence, the founders spoke of the State (at that time, England) as the enemy of a free people. Finally, the Bill of Rights of the Constitution implicates the government it establishes as the eventual enemy of the people.
All of the above are correct. So patriots, It is our duty to ourselves and our countrymen to be enemies of the State, because the State is certainly the enemy of us.
The Alabama state motto is “We dare defend our rights.” In light of the points made above, my question is against whom are we defending our rights?
What we see today in politics is a bizarre conflict not unlike the millennials’ pokémon game, in which we collect oppressors that we agree with to pit against our adversary’s oppressive avatars, not realizing that we are simply forming a full spectrum to deny us our freedoms, whether by taxation or wars or over-regulation.
How beautiful were the days when politics was relegated to the nerdy poli-sci-losiphers like Gore Vidal and Buckley. Now, pop culture is so uninteresting that politics has become pop culture, inundating us with a constant stream of idiotic philosophies held by the dumbest among us.
Like Chinese water torture, people like Mark Ruffalo drone on about the same failed ideas that Francis Bellamy held as he wrote the pledge of compliance.
It’s all so boring and yet we must not get bored. We must be interested in civics and diligent in our call to defend our freedom, our countrymen, and thereby our constitution.
In the same manner that friendship with the world is enmity with God, friendship with the State is enmity with our fellow Americans.
If you think this article is on the right track, then check out this MOTW shirt:
