The Pledge of Allegiance

Quote :

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.

I had to recite this every morning at school, and it always seemed, even then, like a paramilitary idol-worshipping post-WWII red scare bit of propaganda.

Turns out the pledge itself dates to 1892. The "under God" clause wasn't added until 1948, and officially adopted in 1954.

Wikipedia wrote:

A bill, H.R. 2389, was introduced in Congress in 2005 which, if enacted into law, would have stripped the Supreme Court and most federal courts of the power to consider any legal challenges to the government's requiring or promoting of the Pledge of Allegiance. H.R. 2389 was passed by the House of Representatives in July 2006, but failed after the Senate did not take up the bill. This action is viewed in general as court stripping by Congress of the constitutional power of the Judiciary.

One of the commonest reactions of somebody English first arriving in the US is to say, "wow, you guys put flags everywhere". If you go to England, everybody knows the flag is the Union Jack (except it's really the union flag: don't know where jack came from), but you don't see it on every street. And this "pledge of allegiance" thing is also very weird.

Montez was raised as a Jehovah's Witness, and told she couldn't recite the pledge, because that would be putting the country above Jehovah. She was punished and persecuted all through school because of that.

NoCoPilot wrote:

The "under God" clause wasn't added until 1948, and officially adopted in 1954.

I remember when we kids made the change; I was in the fifth grade. Took us a while to get used to those two words. Lots of verbal stumbling.

As a rebellious little boy I also objected to the paramilitary training I was forced to undergo in the Boy Scouts.

As an adult, the "with liberty and justice for all" clause seems like a sad irony.

NoCoPilot wrote:

As a rebellious little boy I also objected to the paramilitary training I was forced to undergo in the Boy Scouts.

"Forced"? So you were drafted into the Boy Scouts? That's rather unusual.

I have never heard the Boy Scouts referred to as paramilitary. Why did you see them as that?

I was forced by my dad.  I never wanted to join.  My two older sisters were girl scouts so I was given no choice.  I finally quit, unilaterally, when my dad arranged to get himself installed as the "scout master."

Paramilitary aspects:

• salutes
  
• uniforms
  
• organized into troops
  
• merit badges for accomplishments/victories
  
• competitions between troops
  
• insignias which indicate your troop
  
• extreme fussiness about how your uniform must look
  
• marching, lining up
  
• bivouacs, tents, mess kits
  
• The Boy Scout Manual, with lots of rules about behavior and devotion to god & country (I was an atheist by the time I was 5 or 6)
  

Remember, this was during the hippie years and the early years of the Viet Nam conflict and I abhorred anything militaristic.

Scouting was very similar to the military back during the Cold War. The big difference was that in the Boy Scouts we had adult leadership.

NoCo. I see where you got your definition, but I disagree that paramilitary is the right word. Organized is better, in my opinion, as there are no activities that typically define a paramilitary group. But English is a vague language at times.

Wikipedia wrote:

A paramilitary is a semi-militarized force whose organizational structure, tactics, training, subculture, and (often) function are similar to those of a professional military, but which is not included as part of a state's formal armed forces.[1]

Seems apt to me.

In my 13-year old view it was designed to transition me into being willing cannon fodder for Robert McNamara.

Speaking for cannon fodder everywhere: you weren't in his sights.

Five years down the road. I was being groomed.

You're not "being groomed" until all your hair hits the floor your first night in boot camp.
That's your first clue that something is not quite right.

kilo wrote:

 The big difference was that in the Boy Scouts we had adult leadership.

One of our leaders, Fran Perrin, had lost his right arm above the elbow as an infant.  He had tiny stubs of fingers growing out of his stump.  That fascinated me. He couldn't move them, but if you touched the tips he felt the sensation as if it were on the end of a normal arm.

Jesse is a goofy bastard but sometimes he makes perfect sense.

Been body slammed into the canvas a few too many times, more like.

Maybe so, but he still makes more sense than Fuck Nows.

Has the bar sunk that low?

Yes, pledging allegiance to a flag always seemed jingoistic and redolent of the fanatical nationalism of WWII Japan or modern-day North Korea.  I was never a "my country right or wrong" guy because I was patently aware of the immorality of the Viet Nam incursion and the Hiroshima & especially Nagasaki bombings.  America, if it stood for anything, had to stand for always making the moral choice, taking the high moral ground, striving to be more humane and far-sighted than before.  In that spirit I did not pledge allegiance to America's mistakes in the past, nor the symbols of its tarnished adolescence.

Which is why Trump is so scary.  He's amoral.  To him, winning -- getting obscenely rich -- is the only good in the world.  He's not against torture or nuclear first strike, he's not in favor of promoting human rights, he has no compunction against cozying up to brutal dictators if he makes money from it.  His brand of "conservatism" is strictly narcissistic, what's in it for me, the hell with everyone else including future generations.

NoCoPilot wrote:

His brand of "conservatism" is strictly narcissistic, what's in it for me, the hell with everyone else including future generations.

That's not just Agent Orange's brand of conservatism - that's the view of all of today's so-called conservatives. Why do we have to call them conservatives? Can't we go back to the old days when they were just called assholes?