Wow. I'm going to have to chop this up as I was just informed while posting:
The following error occurred:
Please enter a message with no more than 10000 characters.
Not exactly sure how the information you quoted from me has that much to do w/ my love of my gov't (not that I have much).
That line of reasoning, unfortunately, has elements of a
straw man argument.
I love my country and countrymen. What we have allowed our gov't to become not so much.
In the pledge it says unequivocally "and to the republic" which most people don't know how to define and so label it a democracy which for all intents and purposes it has become.
Now let me digress into a little history about the pledge:
You do know
the pledge was written in August 1892 by a Christian socialist who also thought it should be accompanied by the
Bellamy Salute, which it was until a 1942 congressional enactment of the flag code, correct?
The pledge was originally meant to bolster patriotism that had been waning since the civil war and I know of no better reason for a countryman to have so little faith in their gov't than that gov't asking him to kill his countrymen.
That war hadn't started with the high minded goal of ending slavery. It started because of power and the rise of federal gov't over states rights to "keep the union together".
In Lincoln's own words in a letter to Horace Greeley, August 22, 1862:
"My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union. I shall do less whenever I shall believe what I am doing hurts the cause, and I shall do more whenever I shall believe doing more will help the cause."
...and while he DID have an opinion throughout his political carrier that slavery should be abolished, he did not think that former slaves should be considered equal to their fellow man. As proven by (again in his own words during the Lincoln-Douglas debate at Charleston on September 18, 185
:
“I will say then that I am not, nor have I ever been in the favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races . . . There must be a position of superior and inferior, and I... am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race ... I do not perceive that because the white man is to have the superior position that the negroe should be deprived everything.”
and (though not in his words)
Lincoln had a number of ideas on how to tackle slavery. He suggested setting up a black colony in Central America in 1863 so that blacks could seek rights and freedoms where prejudice did not exist. He also thought colonization was the best solution.
Many people, including blacks, did not believe colonization was a viable solution and believed it would never be carried out.
Also, that the "under God" inclusion didn't happen until a 1954 amendment of that code which was bolstered by Eisenhower (who was deeply religious of Mennonite upbringing) having recently
become a Presbyterian being baptized while in office and the growing fear of the ungodly red menace.
While I have no beef with religion, the above flies in the face of the intent of the Constitution which while acknowledging God somewhat (in the term of “our creator”) makes no mention of God specifically for the reason explained by “
Thomas Jefferson and others expressing an understanding of the intent and function of the
Establishment Clause and
Free Exercise Clause of the
First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States which reads:
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof..." <separation of church and state>
----------------end historical digression------------
But I didn't learn any of the above history in public school.
What I did I learn is that the civil war was because of slavery and that I should stand and salute the flag while pledging allegiance to it every school day.
So, is the (gov't sanctioned programming for) unquestioning devotion to what started as a marketing ploy to make us forget our gov't had just pitted countryman against countryman in a horrifically bloody war make me a better human because I am therefore patriotic?
Should I assume that pledging my allegiance to a symbol of gov't that that gov't still stands for the high minded principles it was founded on and not notice the tireless efforts of entities to undermine and replace those principles?
Is patriotism better than trying to educate people about the (consensual) poisoning of their land?
Most possibly to some, but if I have to make the choice between being against something that threatens what has sustained all human kind for all time as we know it, and showing fealty to a political entity that governs the land I was born in, I'll take the former.
