Critical thinking exercise on "The Pledge"

I wrote this letter in response to an email from my young nephew.

Subject: What next.

They say we can't say the pledge in school. They say we can't pray in school. Now they want the words "In God We Trust” removed for most of the public eye. What will they want next, to tear down the statue of liberty?
I mean that is the symbol of freedom and from what I can see they are taking away our freedom of religion and belief. Lets take a stand now before it is to late. If we keep this up then what is going to happen. Is God going to quit trying for us since we are quitting on him?

If you agree with this please write your name below and pass it on.

Names withheld for privacy

Have you truly thought these statements to their bitter end? I would like to engage in an exercise in critical thinking with you.

Here is a little history about the pledge:

On September 8, 1892 a Boston-based youth magazine "The Youth's Companion" published a 22-word recitation for school children to use during planned activities the following month to commemorate the 400th anniversary of Columbus' discovery of America. Under the title "The Pledge to the Flag", the composition was the earliest version of what we now know as the PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE.

...A month later more than 12 million school children recited the words for the first time in schools across the nation. Our Pledge of Allegiance was born, but like anything new, it took many years to "reach maturity", and underwent several changes along the way. That first Pledge of Allegiance read:

I pledge allegiance to my Flag,
and to the Republic for which it stands:
one Nation indivisible,
With Liberty and Justice for all.
October 11, 1892

After the Columbus Day celebration the Pledge to the Flag became a popular daily routine in America's public schools, but gained little attention elsewhere for almost 25 years. Finally, on Flag Day - June 14, 1923, the Pledge received major attention from adults who had gathered for the first National Flag Conference in Washington, D.C.

Here their Conference agenda took note of the wording in the Pledge. There was concern that, with the number of immigrants now living in the United States, there might be some confusion when the words "My Flag" were recited. To correct this the pledge was altered to read:

I pledge allegiance to my the
Flag of the United States,
and to the Republic for which it stands:
one Nation indivisible,
With Liberty and Justice for all.
June 14, 1923

The following year the wording was changed again to read:

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.
June 14, 1924

The Pledge of Allegiance continued to be recited daily by children in schools across America, and gained heightened popularity among adults during the patriotic fervor created by World War II. It still was an "unofficial" pledge until June 22, 1942 when the United States Congress included the Pledge to the Flag in the United States Flag Code (Title 36). This was the first Official sanction given to the words that had been recited each day by children for almost fifty years.

One year after receiving this official sanction, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that school children could not be forced to recite the Pledge as part of their daily routine. In 1945 the Pledge to the Flag received its official title as:

The Pledge of Allegiance

The last change in the Pledge of Allegiance occurred on June 14 (Flag Day), 1954 when President Dwight D. Eisenhower approved adding the words "under God".

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.
June 14, 1954

It is widely understood that "under God" was added in 1954, because of the Cold War, as way to set apart the United States as the opposite of then communist Russia, where all religious practices were banned.

What is the purpose of saying this poem in the first place?

Is it to “prove” that we are loyal to the nation-state? Other nation-states have forced or required their citizens to prove loyalty to the state; for example the Roman Empire, required citizens and everyone living within its borders to offer a sacrifice to the emperor, to show respect for, and loyalty to, the state. However, there was one dissident from Judea that refused to do this, and told all his followers not to do this. The state’s response was 400 years of lions eating Christians, as punishment for their Anti-Roman behavior.

Then we can fast-forward through 1,300 years of western history were one was only allowed to worship one way, where following any religion other than that of the King was “treason” to the state. Thereby, justifying such memorable high points in history as The Spanish Inquisition, Witch Burnings, 200 years of religious wars in England and Europe, and finally Cromwell’s Loyalty Oaths, which were equal to a death sentence if one were Catholic, Quaker, Baptist or Presbyterian.

Take another 200-year jump, and you find loyalty oaths and pledges in Nazi Germany, with extremely good result if one wants to weed out anyone that is not totally loyal to the state. Which also shows what the state can accomplish with paranoid leaders, well-placed propaganda and a total loyal population.

Followed closely by Communist Russia and Communist Eastern Europe. Which I was taught were not good governments because they forced their people to swear allegiance to one political party and the nation-state.

So I ask again, what is the purpose of saying this poem in the first place?

It seems to me, to be a practice that goes against the vary principals that we inherited from the founders by means of the Constitution and Declaration of Independence.

Why do we say these word, “With Liberty and Justice for all”, if we don’t exercise their full meaning into reality?

Liberty is understood to mean: the freedom to live as you wish or go where you want. Justice has two meanings the first is: fairness in the way people are dealt with, and the second meaning is: the system of laws in a country which judges and punishes people. Then there is the tricky little “for all” part, which has no qualifier at the end, and which is very often said with the most emphasis.

These six little words, illustrate a huge concept, to be able to live as you wish and to go where you want, a country that operates by a system of laws that deal with all people everywhere, with fairness and equality.

Americans would like to believe that grand and noble idea is what they stand for, above all other places in the world, but we are very far from this in reality. Just six years after these words were first published, Teddy Roosevelt was charging up San Juan Hill in Cuba, not to help liberate that country from Spanish Imperial rule, but to prevent the creation of an independent Cuba, govern by a black majority, and so began 63 years of American Imperial rule over that small island.

No matter how much we want to be what this idea implies, it isn’t going to be as long as we keep tacking on qualifiers to the end of this poem: “Liberty and Justice for all” except for; Cubans, Blacks, Native Americans, Arabs, Columbians, Mexicans, East Timorese, Haitians, Palestinians, Vietnamese, Cambodians, Women, Koreans, Venezuelans, Rwandans, Gays, Japanese, Chinese, and Poor, just to name a few.

America is the trainer (School of Americas), supplier (Weapons Exports) and subsidizer (Foreign Aide) of some of the worst dictators in the world; we even subsidize and facilitate (CIA & NSA) genocide. Yet we think of ourselves as good, decent, and in some cases god-fearing people; that are endowed with the RIGHT to tell others how to live and govern themselves.

So I ask again, why say it if we don’t mean it? Because, words without action, makes us blowhards and saying it and adding qualifiers makes us hypocrites and lairs.

They say we can't pray in school.

It has been against the law to make students pray or learn religious topics in school since 1963 (the year I was born). Yet when I was in second grade (1969) I was made to sit through catechism instruction and take communion in my classroom by my teacher. This wasn’t an after-school event it was at 1:30 in the afternoon. It didn’t matter that I was from a Methodist family; my teacher was going to see to it that my classmates and I were instructed in the “one true catholic faith”.

Fast forward to 1995, Burlington, Colorado where all three of my children were basically stalked and harassed by their Chapter One reading teacher. Being told in class such comforting and supportive ideas as “You WILL go to hell, if you don’t go to church EVERY Sunday” and “Your Mom and Dad don’t care about you, because if they did they would take you to church”. Then I had this same teacher showing up on our doorstep every Sunday for two months, trying to get me to let her take MY kids to HER church.

2000, Bethune, Colorado, my daughter is threatened with suspension for wearing a Celtic Tri-Knot to school, reason: “It is Satanic”. Funny, I bet that in Catholic Ireland they would be surprised to hear that one of their trinity (father, son, holy ghost) symbols is Satanic.

2004, Payette, Idaho, I witnessed mocking of a foreign exchange student from Thailand for being a Buddhist and not Christian.

Freedom of religion is a double-edged sword, just as we were never to have one Christian domination over another Catholic v. Protestant, neither are we to have one faith over another Christian v. Muslim or Religious v. atheist.

So, if you want prayer in school, you need to be ready to open the schools to EVERY belief system, not just Christian. Are you ready to argue just as hard to let Muslims be excused from class three times a day to pray as their religion dictates? Or let Wicca children have Halloween off so they can practice their religious rites? So where is the line you would draw and what qualifiers would you add?

Now they want the words "In God We Trust” removed for most of the public eye.

What God are we trusting, and what trust are we endowing God with? From my observation Jews, Christians and Muslims all believe in the God of Abraham as the Alpha and Omega, the one and only. But then there is the king of gods, Zeus (Greek) and Jupiter (Roman), and then of coarse there is always Lord Brahma, the creator God of India.

What is this “trust”? We trust – what? That we will do well by him or are we trusting he will do well by us? Or does it mean, “We thrust in God” = “We believe in God”?

If it is fact the Christian form of supreme deity that we ALL (trust=believe) in than I would think that we should take a lesson from “The Word”. From all the bible reading that I have done, God is more concerned with personal commitment than forcing others to his cause. Let’s look at:

Proverbs 6:16-19,
there are Seven abominations unto the Lord:
a proud look
a lying tongue
hands that shed innocent blood
an heart that deviseth wicked imaginations
feet that be swift in running to mischief
a false witness that speaketh lies, and
he that soweth discord among brethren.

Seems pretty cut and dry to me, why do something like speak for everyone when you don’t know their mind? Is that not, in fact an abomination to God in itself, according to the scripture cited above? I actually see two that would be; it is either a lie or a false witness that speaketh lies.

What will they want next, to tear down the statue of liberty? I mean that is the symbol of freedom and from what I can see they are taking away our freedom of religion and belief.

Poem from Statue of Liberty:
Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset hates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lighting, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore,
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

Huh? How do we make the jump from the pledge and prayer to tearing down the Statue of Liberty?

Since God isn’t mentioned even once in the poem at the base of this great work of art, given to us by our friends, The People of France, as a symbol of hope and friendship. I find it hard to believe there are any religious freedom grounds for such an act. I am more worried about Neo-Conservative xenophobes doing something as insane as this comment seems to suggest.

Then again, there are the words, which do not include qualifiers -- again, and which we seem hell-bent to inject were ever possible -- again, just ask anyone that wants to escape the situation in Haiti.

Out of this entire email I could only whole heartily agree with one though “Taking our freedom away” but it is not the same argument that you are making with the rest of the email. When you are ready for a really long email, ask me about “The Patriot Act”, which is neither patriotic nor constitutional and the sole purpose for which is to TAKE OUR FREEDOMS AWAY.

My final question is who is this “they” that is mentioned five times in your email? When I was young I was prone to the deception of the propagandists use of “they”, however I learned, that this term “they” is used to divide, when we should be using “WE” and “OUR” when speaking about issues that involve our country. Because even if we don’t agree on everything, all of us still love the ideals that our country and are trying to live up to them.

Please keep sending me emails, however, if you do, I would suggest coming up with a better presentation of your argument, in your own words. Instead of just passing on some else’s propaganda.