The Pledge of Allegiance
September 7, 2010 by Bryan P. Bjornson
Filed under Bryan P. Bjornson
The Pledge of Allegiance – Why a real conservative should not say it!
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.
Why shouldn’t a conservative say the Pledge of Allegiance? What is wrong with pledging your support to your country? I support my country, I love my country but I will not say the Pledge of Allegiance to it because of one word in it. That word is highlighted in red in the Pledge. The word is indivisible and it is why I refuse to say the Pledge of Allegiance. Here is the definition of the word indivisible;
in·di·vis·i·ble (ĭn′də-vĭzə-bəl) adj. 1. Incapable of undergoing division.
Our Founding Fathers worked hard and sacrificed much to create our country. They sought to make our country as perpetual a union as is humanly possible. But they knew that no union, no country, no political compact could or should be incapable of being divided. To pledge support for an indivisible nation is to pledge support to our central government.
While we need a central government when we pledge to support it as being indivisible we are saying that our central government is an all powerful government. It is not and was not meant to be an all powerful government! Our central government only has the power that it has been given to it by the states through our Constitution. The limitations on the power of our central government are enumerated in Article 1 Section 8 and further restricted by the Bill of Rights especially the IX & X Amendments.
In support of the country I love, not the government, I offer a new version of the Pledge of Allegiance. I will pledge to support my country but not an all powerful indivisible government. Here is what I believe is a better version of the Pledge of Allegiance.
I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands: one country under God that was created to provide Liberty and Justice for all.
This is the flag of freedom. Long may it wave over my country!
I think the problem is that we have lost the concept of concurrent sovereignty and unity. I witness this at the most basic level – marriages. It is very, very hard to find people who even believe that two people (much less two states) can partner together without losing their autonomy. Thus the decline in marriage as a norm. Politicians fear to talk about state sovereignty because they cannot imagine it without the destruction of unity – no one wants to hang the hat of unity on agreement because it seems “risky” – much safer to enforce unity through control.