Rewriting the Pledge to Reflect Reality
Someone mailed me a modified version of the Pledge of Allegiance yesterday that ended with the phrase "with liberty and justice for oil." I quickly offered my more scathing version:
I pledge allegiance to the flag
of the welfare-warfare state of America
and to the politicians for which they stand
many interventions, many crusades
with taxation and privation for all
This doesn't really follow the rhythm of the original pledge, but I think it communicates more of what this nation is concerned with today (and, more troubling, what it now aspires to).
The controversy surrounding the inclusion/exclusion of the phrase "under God" quickly devolved into the larger conflict between the so-called "God-fearing" faction of the public and the less tangible forces of "secularism," which has become the contemporary equivalent of communism in some circles as an unqualified evil.
What was mentioned only occasionally in all of the hubbub was that Congress's revision of the pledge in the 1950's to include "under God" was an express statement against Soviet communism, which outlawed religion.
Was the pledge the best vehicle to do this? No. The larger problem with "under God" is that it set an untoward precedent of government unilaterally deciding to take what is essentially an artistic work and revising it to reflect its own viewpoint. Thankfully, the use of such power -- derived from the consent of only the elected themselves -- has not been utiltized for other works.
Perhaps the day will come when "The Star-Spangled Banner" will be re-written in order to de-emphasize the centrality of warfare, which would be a supreme irony. All states, by definition, are grounded in the ability to kill individuals and the continued expropriation of private property.
The forced recitation of the Pledge also represents the pursuit of a mass intellectual servility and dedication to established groupthink that devalues individual modes of thought and action. One could perhaps argue that such aims are the very function of public schooling, a view that I adhere to.
Justice Jackson's opinion protecting the right of Jehovah's Witnesses not to recite the pledge is a superior articulation of the importance of a steadfast commitment to the freedom which the flag represents, instead of a slavish devotion to the flag itself:
To believe that patriotism will not flourish if patriotic ceremonies are voluntary and spontaneous instead of a compulsory routine is to make an unflattering estimate of the appeal of our institutions to free minds. We can have intellectual individualism and the rich cultural diversities that we owe to exceptional minds only at the price of occasional eccentricity and abnormal attitudes. When they are so harmless to others or to the State as those we deal with here, the price is not too great. But freedom to differ is not limited to things that do not matter much. That would be a mere shadow of freedom. The test of its substance is the right to differ as to things that touch the heart of the existing order.
If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein.
West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette, 319 U.S. 624, 641-42 (1943).
I pledge allegiance to the flag
of the welfare-warfare state of America
and to the politicians for which they stand
many interventions, many crusades
with taxation and privation for all
This doesn't really follow the rhythm of the original pledge, but I think it communicates more of what this nation is concerned with today (and, more troubling, what it now aspires to).
The controversy surrounding the inclusion/exclusion of the phrase "under God" quickly devolved into the larger conflict between the so-called "God-fearing" faction of the public and the less tangible forces of "secularism," which has become the contemporary equivalent of communism in some circles as an unqualified evil.
What was mentioned only occasionally in all of the hubbub was that Congress's revision of the pledge in the 1950's to include "under God" was an express statement against Soviet communism, which outlawed religion.
Was the pledge the best vehicle to do this? No. The larger problem with "under God" is that it set an untoward precedent of government unilaterally deciding to take what is essentially an artistic work and revising it to reflect its own viewpoint. Thankfully, the use of such power -- derived from the consent of only the elected themselves -- has not been utiltized for other works.
Perhaps the day will come when "The Star-Spangled Banner" will be re-written in order to de-emphasize the centrality of warfare, which would be a supreme irony. All states, by definition, are grounded in the ability to kill individuals and the continued expropriation of private property.
The forced recitation of the Pledge also represents the pursuit of a mass intellectual servility and dedication to established groupthink that devalues individual modes of thought and action. One could perhaps argue that such aims are the very function of public schooling, a view that I adhere to.
Justice Jackson's opinion protecting the right of Jehovah's Witnesses not to recite the pledge is a superior articulation of the importance of a steadfast commitment to the freedom which the flag represents, instead of a slavish devotion to the flag itself:
To believe that patriotism will not flourish if patriotic ceremonies are voluntary and spontaneous instead of a compulsory routine is to make an unflattering estimate of the appeal of our institutions to free minds. We can have intellectual individualism and the rich cultural diversities that we owe to exceptional minds only at the price of occasional eccentricity and abnormal attitudes. When they are so harmless to others or to the State as those we deal with here, the price is not too great. But freedom to differ is not limited to things that do not matter much. That would be a mere shadow of freedom. The test of its substance is the right to differ as to things that touch the heart of the existing order.
If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein.
West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette, 319 U.S. 624, 641-42 (1943).
posted by Nikos A. Leverenz @ 11:53 AM
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