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.
- You
shall have no other gods before Me.
- 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.
- 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.”)
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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?
- 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.
- 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.
- 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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"Half
the people are stoned and the other half are waiting for the next election.
Half the people are drowned and the other half are swimming in the wrong
direction."
- Paul Simon
