Sunday, November 14, 2010

The Pledge of Allegiance Is Un-Constitutional

The current version of the pledge of allegiance to the U.S. flag is the single most un-Constitutional law currently in existence in the U.S.

Given the context, the phrase "under god" clearly means "ruled by god" or "ruled in accordance with god's wishes".

We are talking about a pledge of allegiance. Pledging allegiance is a decidedly political act--it is an oath of obedience and loyalty.  Furthermore, it is an oath of obedience to a nation, which is a decidedly political construct. 

The phrase is used to describe the nation to which the person saying the pledge is swearing his loyalty and obedience. The pledge is not a verbal map or star chart; its purpose is not to describe relative physical positions.  If it were, then the appropriate phrase would be "under Canada".  Or, maybe, "under the starry skies".

Rather, the purpose of a pledge of allegiance is to describe political positions--who is loyal to whom, who is to obey whom. 

Thus, the American pledge, as currently written, is descriptive of a theocracy and describes clearly the theocratic viewpoint:  that the U.S. is ruled by god.  It is such a stunningly obvious violation of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution that I can scarce believe anyone could defend it with a straight face--unless he were a theocrat bent on undermining the U.S Constitution.
 
The theocrats will apparently stop at nothing.  Lying in the service of god is not a sin apparently (in spite of all that talk about the importance of honoring the ten commandments). They try to mislead the public about the nature and purpose of the pledge and say that the inclusion of that phrase is just "ceremonial deism".  

In essence, the argument is that these are unimportant ceremonies, which is to say "meaningless". Well, these are not unimportant or meaningless ceremonies. Pledging allegiance is a serious political act. If you pledge allegiance to another country's flag, you could, in some circumstance, find yourself being threatened with loss of citizenship or even being charged with treason.  

The theocrats also argue that it's just an expression of national identity that just happens to mention god.  That's another way of saying it's an expression of who and what we are as a nation  As such, including a reference to god and his dominion over us means that we are expressing an identity that is synonymous with a theocracy. That is not, in any way, consistent with the Constitution.

The pledge was amended in 1954 to add the phrase "under god" right after the words "one nation".  The clear intent of that change based both on the wording of the act and the legislative history was to endorse a religious viewpoint.  That viewpoint is that god exists and he rules us.  The mere mention of god to endorse a religious viewpoint would render the amended pledge un-Constitutional.  The fact that it is a clear expression of the theocratic viewpoint renders in not only un-Constitutional but also completely and affirmatively hostile to the U.S. Constitution and the principles of democracy and freedom enshrined therein. 

Worst of all, the current version of the pledge of allegiance isn't just a statement of theocracy.  It is proof that the theocrats are intent on subverting all forms of democracy.

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