Okay. A pledge is a pledge is a pledge. An oath. A promise to be taken seriously by the person pledging. If the person making the pledge doesn’t understand what he’s pledging the ultimate result is that he/she won’t take it seriously, won’t even know what he/she pledged to do. And by extension, won’t take any other pledge, oath, or promise he/she makes seriously, either.
And yet, that pledge is being made by rote in schools all over the country every day by kids who have no inkling what they’re pledging. They probably have no idea what some of the words mean, even.
First off, they’re pledging allegiance to a FLAG. A symbol. And that flag is being waved around constantly by people assigning a meaning to it pushing every imaginable agenda and activity from selling furniture to conducting a military adventure.
So how the hell are those kids supposed to conclude there’s something specific to what they’re promising? Ahhhh… “of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands.” Well that narrows things down a lot. Cuts out the riffraff. They’re not obliging themselves to any allegiance to the state or region they live in, nor to the hood. They’re not promising to be loyal to Australia nor Austria.
Welllllll, then comes the clincher. “One [count’em] 1 each, nation.” Skip the ‘under God’ distraction and read what it said before 1954. “One nation, INDIVISIBLE”.
And there, my friends, you have the crux of the whole matter. The US Constitution failed to say that once a geographic entity got its foot into the door it was stuck there permanently. It caused a lot of confusion back in the 1860s because it was assumed when the Constitution said everything not specifically forbidden by itself was okay. States believed they could withdraw because the Constitution didn’t say they were in for the duration.
So the obvious solution is to make kids say it’s indivisible before they know the meaning of the word. Hammer it to hell into their heads and make them promise every day they won’t try to divide this country again. And keep them doing it all their lives.
Otherwise they might grow up to be Democrats or Republicans and spend every waking moment being as divisive as they can manage about every facet of existence here, driving wedges, over every nuance they can think of. Whining constantly over breadcrumbs sifted from the US Constitution concerning countless other things it doesn’t say.
And never getting around to listening to the last words they utter after they get the one republics, under Gods, and indivisibles out of the way.
“With liberty and justice for all.” That would just really be too big a pill to swallow.
So Far From Heaven 