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Permalink Reply by Garaidh Mac an tSaoir on June 27, 2011 at 6:51pm

Taking this discussion a little further, why do Americans recite the Pledge of Allegiance, anyway?

Few Americans know that a socialist and an officer in the Nationalist movement, Francis Bellamy, drafted the Pledge of Allegiance.  Also a preacher, his sermons on “Jesus the Socialist” and “The Socialism of the Primitive Church” prompted congregations to chase him from the ministry.  Bellamy went on to work for Youth’s Companion, a national magazine.  In 1892, the magazine launched a campaign to sell American flags in the public schools. In an effort to increase sales, a flag ceremony was encouraged during upcoming Columbus Day celebrations. Bellamy’s original pledge was to be included as part of the celebrations:

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

In the early 1920s, “my Flag” was changed to “the Flag of the United States of America.” In 1954, the Knights of Columbus persuaded Congress to add “under God” to differentiate the United States from the godless Communists.

While the desire to sell flags gave rise to the Pledge, American nativists also wanted to impress the duties of American citizenship upon immigrant children in hopes of breaking any remaining bonds to their lands of origin.  And, with the Civil War still in recent memory, Northerners wanted to remind Southerners that the union was “indivisible.”

Historically and originally, the Pledge was not much more than a marketing tool and a slap in the face to recent immigrants and Americans living below the Mason-Dixon Line.  

Thomas Jefferson once reminded his countrymen that blind confidence in government “is everywhere the parent of despotism; free government is founded on jealousy and not in confidence.” Jealousy of liberty—in the face of government claims to power—is a civic virtue, and one that our nation’s founders urged us not to forget.

Yet, American school children mindlessly pledge obedience to a flag – the most visible symbol of governmental authority; while we should be teaching them about the American Revolution, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights.

The ritual of schoolchildren and Americans saying the Pledge is unbecoming for a nation of free people.

Reference:  “Rethinking the Pledge of Allegiance”, William J. Watkins Jr., April 5, 2004

Permalink Reply by Joseph P on June 27, 2011 at 7:04pm

Well, now I have reasons for not doing what I have refused to do for a long time.  Cool.

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