Tuesday, February 5th 2008 — Joshua Hansen
To read with the links AND YOU SHOULD go to
http://www.independentamerican.org/blog.php?blog=977
Although I’m merely months away from my ten year reunion, I still remember a lot about high school and what it meant to me. High school was the first institution where I got a real taste of how government bureaucracies operate and how petty tyrants holding bureaucratic power loved to exercise it even beyond their scope of authority. It was also a fine display of constant propaganda and socialism in action. Despite a few highlights and some (but far from all) truly dedicated teachers, I would say I couldn’t have been happier the day I graduated.
Take a look at a story in today’s Review Journal. It typifies the reason I was all too happy to be gone from high school. I also encourage you to take a look at the comments. While many defend this kid, you’ll find no shortage of macho military chest pounding (telling him he should “serve” two years, as if shooting foreigners somehow made you more entitled as an American). For instance, let me point out the genius of a certain Al Wages:
Bring back the draft. Teach this young man values ie. respect for our country, his parents have missed the opportunity. His mother is a witch? Respecting the Flag, and, the pledge of Allegiance is not required but I am grateful to have the opportunity to do so. As a member of the military, in my travels, the flag is a rallying point at various places. I knew what it meant and what it stood for. I loathe individuals like this young man because he just does not get it. His right, and disrespectful use of it, has been paid for with the blood of decent people. O yeah, I would love to have had this guy in my unit.
Mr. Wages appears to think that the best way to learn “values” like “liberty and justice for all” is to bring back the draft. That’s right, compulsory military service is the best way to teach people about freedom! Oh wait, that doesn’t make any sense. Military training has, however, taught Mr. Wages a fine lesson in application of logic and philosophy though.
The commenting goes on, and I use this next one as an example to take a cheap shot at this man’s English skills and emphasize the most painfully generic sort of remarks. SHANE HARRIS (a man who loves his caps lock) writes:
I THINK IT’S GREAT HE GOT KICKED OUT OF CLASS. I BELIEVE THAT WHAT HE DID WAS ONE OF THE MOST UNPATRIOTIC THINGS A PERSON CAN DO. THERE ARE MEN AND WOMEN RISKING THEIR LIVES EVERYDAY FOR YOUR FREEDOM AND YOU CANT EVEN BE THANKFUL ENOUGH TO STAND DURING THE PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE? MAYBE CANADA WILL TAKE YOU!
So what Mr. HARRIS is saying is that men and women are risking their lives for this kid’s freedom but that he doesn’t have the freedom not to say the pledge? Ah yes, and the old “go to Europe” or “move to Canada” routine has been exercised as well. Remember kids, you are free in America but if you disagree with the state, you need to get out of here. This sort of deluded logic, if a person could even really call it that, finds itself festering within the minds of Americans in alarming numbers these days.
During the entire span of high school, in fact from 5th grade on, I never said the Pledge of Allegiance, not once. Since then I have never recited it—not at a church function, not at a sporting event and not at a political meeting. I had an experience, a falling out if you will, with my country and with the flag when I was 10-years-old and nothing has happened since then to mend it.
Any notion I had about blind allegiance to my country or the idea that there was some kind of magical or inherent goodness in America or in being an American died in me over the course of a few weeks in 1991. I remember clearly sitting in my family room with my mom watching the bombing of Baghdad on CNN. That left in impression in me that I don’t think I’ll ever forget. After that I took to the streets with my mom and a group composed mostly of Vietnam vets that were protesting the war. During these protests people threw bottles at us and one gentleman even used his car to try and hit some of the protesters. At 10, this is not what I expected at all. I presumed protesting was a good thing—an American thing. Apparently not.
With age and with study the pledge itself has become nothing but a symbol of blind faith and blind obedience to an institution of hypocrisy. Liberty and Justice for all? Really, who? Indivisible? Ha! A republic? Where? Under God? Only if you’re a neo-con who thinks warmongering, overseas nation building and corporate war profiteering are God’s will. (Which, for those of you not in the know, are not.) The words are meaningless.
If you’re not familiar with the history of the Pledge’s creation, you might want to take a gander. It was written by a socialist, a fact that amuses me to no end when I see that it tends to be the throngs of pro-military and “conservative” types who defend it tooth and nail and make sure it’s said at every meeting and gathering as some kind of fascist ritual.
When did ritual worship of the state—and let’s be honest with ourselves, that’s what the Pledge is—become American? Its entire history and the entire concept is completely un-American. Can you really see George Washington or Thomas Jefferson endorsing this sort of behavior? Really, try and picture it. Picture James Madison and Patrick Henry standing side by side with their hands over their hearts mindlessly reciting the pledge. Unless you’ve managed to completely break your mind or you have no concept of history, you’ll find that merely trying to imagine this doesn’t work.
The most American thing you can do is say no. If anyone out there suggests that this kid doesn’t have the right to say no or that he should be forced to say the Pledge, or worse, thinks that forced military service is the solution, look no further than your own mirror for the person who lacks true patriotism and who is truly un-American. It’s the land of the free and home of the brave, not the land of the blind and home of the obedient.
Seriously guys, you’ve got your copy of Mein Kampf and the Declaration of Independence mixed up again.
Design and Original Content Copyright © 2005 - 2008 Independent American Party of Nevada
