A Pledge I Can Live With

 

by Joe Siano

I am an active, longtime member of a very conservative, traditional and faith-based organization.  We are dedicated to community service, charity and assistance to members in need.  Each meeting begins with a recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance.  I look downward and maintain a respectful silence.

As a libertarian, I embrace “liberty and justice for all”.  As a Christian, I profess that I exist only “under God” and am governed by His Law alone.  As a An-Cap I believe that America’s wars of intervention are murder, our ubiquitous and confiscatory taxation is theft, that Central Bank money creation is fraud, and governance by the unelected, Administrative State is far from the rule of law.  Therefore. I recuse my myself from pledging allegiance to the mob who perpetrates this violence on honest Americans and to the banner behind which they hide.

And then there is the “indivisible” clause.  There a weighty amount of scholarly opinion supporting the view that the Constitution is a voluntary compact from which the states have an absolute right to withdraw.  A second Trump term may alter the Left’s view of secession – beginning with sunny California.  

The United States was born of a secessionist movement.  It supported national independence when it was to our advantage - such as is the breakup of the Soviet Union.  The U.S.  joined in partitioning nations and redrawing the maps of Europe and the Middle East after World War I.  We consented to dividing Germany after WW II.  To this day, we defend Taiwan’s independence from Beijing.  So please, don’t try telling me that nations are sacred and insoluble.

Now, little history before I discuss the Pledge that do support.

The Pledge of Allegiance was invented by a marketing guy, Francis Bellamy, as promotional gimmick to help sell magazine subscriptions.  (As a lifetime marketing and advertising careerist, I love this part.)  it proved to be hit and by October of 1892, schools from coast to coast we started their day with the Pledge.  

The pledge gained traction during World War I as President Wilson railed against the “hyphenated-Americans” - Irish, Italian, German who opposed U.S. Intervention on the British side in what was little more than a classic European territorial war.  This is exactly what  George Washington advised us to avoid.  As the U.S. grew in belligerency and global ambition, the loyalty pledge grew in importance while America engaged in continuous hostilities – hot and old since the 1940s.  

The Pledge was adopted by Congress in 1942 a part of the national flag code (WW II).  “Under God” was inserted in the early ‘50s during the Cold War to remind us that Big Guy was on our side.  

Now I can support either two pledges atop this blog.  Anarchists  reject centralized power and coercion.  However, we do accept rules to live by.  Here are mine.

1. You shall have no other gods before Me.
2. You shall make no idols.

·        One and two tell me not to get too attached to the things of this world.  These remind me to reflect that there is higher power, higher intelligence, higher wisdom and higher love that which we see here on earth.  The Buddha teaches that Earthly attachment causes misery and only by looking higher, seeking the Enlightened Path will I rise above suffering.  Marxist subscribe to dialectical materialism that denies any god.  We see what misery that they have wrought.

3. You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain.
• Sorry, I often do this when I’m upset. Nonetheless, it reminds us that some things are sacred and others profane.  It prohibits against invoking the Higher Power for the purpose of embellishing a lie or a half-truth ( let ^[a]your ‘Yes’ be ‘Yes,’ and your ‘No,’ ‘No.’ For whatever is more than these is from the evil one.”)
4. Keep the Sabbath day holy.

·        “The sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath” .  Good people work hard.  They require rest and restoration.  We also need time tor quiet reflection - to count our blessings for the good things that we have, to evaluate our life goals and contemplate how we might achieve them.

5. Honor your father and your mother.

·        Family is cornerstone of civil society.  Generations learn and pass on essential knowledge and wisdom. Burke teaches that society: " is a partnership in all science, a partnership in all art, a partnership in every virtue and in all perfection.....a partnership not only between those who are living, but between those who are living, those who are dead, and those who are to be born.”   This aligns with the  Hayek’s notion of emergent order.  The ways of the past may not always right, but the solutions that they prescribe are the outcome of years of trial, error and learning.  They should not be ignored or discarded haphazardly.

6. You shall not murder.
• Life is sacred from conception to natural death.  All life.  All lives.  No life shall be taken except in defense of life and liberty.  Shooting fleeing traffic offenders and robbery suspects in the back is not permissible.
7. You shall not commit adultery.
• A peaceful world is built on trust.  If you cheat on your  spouse who won’t cheat?  If you are unfaithful to the person to whom you are vowed to “love, serve and honor”, then how trustworthy can you be to friends, colleagues and business associates?
8. You shall not steal.
• Property rights and private property are the foundation of a free, civil society.  Period.  Capice?  The abject disregard for private property has impoverished socialist nations and is tearing apart the fabric of America.
9. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.
• A society without trust is a society that descends into violence.  Demagogues who promise what government cannot deliver have engendered distrust, cynicism, disappointment, anger and resentment.  Politicians feed on these raw emotions to make even more outlandish promises and then blame scapegoats for their failure.
10. You shall not covet.
• This closes the loop with Commandments 1 & 2.  When we put material self-gratification ahead of higher aspirations, ahead of people, we lie, steal and murder.  Godless Communists lie, steal and murder.  The American government, whose flag I refuse to pledge to, lies, steals and murders.  They do so in the name of “democracy” and “equality”.

Jesus taught that all of the above can be distilled down to:

‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment.  And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

Rabbi Hillel concurs. When asked if he could explain the Torah while standing on one foot he replied:

"What is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor. That is the whole Torah; the rest is the explanation of this—go and study it!"

I subscribe to the Smithian wisdom that by freely acting in his or her own honest self-interest each human being improves the well-being of  the community.

Every individual... neither intends to promote the public interest, nor knows how much he is promoting it... he intends only his own security; and by directing that industry in such a manner as its produce may be of the greatest value, he intends only his own gain, and he is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention.” 

Further, humans are self-regulated by their social desire to be accepted, admired and worthy of praise.

“Man naturally desires, not only to be loved, but to be lovely; or to be that thing which is the natural and proper object of love. He naturally dreads, not only to be hated, but to be hateful; or to be that thing which is the natural and proper object of hatred. He desires, not only praise, but praiseworthiness; or to be that thing which, though it should be praised by nobody, is, however, the natural and proper object of praise. He dreads, not only blame, but blameworthiness; or to be that thing which, though, it should be blamed by nobody, is, however, the natural and proper object of blame.”

That’s’ it, I pledge allegiance to God, His law, to liberty and justice for all.

If there is a flag that I must pledge this one is pretty good.

 This one is even better.

 Shalom.

Related Articles:

The State (Huh - Good God Y'all) What It Is Good For?

Fighting For Democracy? For Real?

 

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