On June 22 seventy-four years ago (1942), the United States found itself in the throes of a defensive struggle against the forces of tyranny all around the world. Japanese-Americans–and, to a lesser-known extent, German-Americans and Italian-Americans–were being interred to ensure the loyalty of all Americans. In the midst of the hysteria, Congress approved the Pledge of Allegiance to the flag of the United States of America.
From that point until recent decades, school children have recited that pledge, the only difference in wording being the addition under President Eisenhower of the words under God. Recitation of the pledge became the quintessential statement of one’s patriotism.
“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.”
But how our country has changed in recent decades! How it has changed in just the last seven years! Obama’s promise to “fundamentally transform America” is only the most recent assault on everything the pledge was designed to preserve. His unconscionable (even treasonous?)actions have been only the capstone of the long assault on what the pledge was designed to defend and assert.
Let’s examine that pledge briefly to see a few ways in which our own leaders–political, social, and religious–have undermined its principles.
Republic. The flag is symbolic of that form of government–government of, for, and by the people through their duly elected representatives who serve under the law for the best interests of the whole body politic and under a federal system of separation of powers and checks and balances.
Today, however, it’s every politician for himself and his crony donors and special interests. This attitude cuts across all party lines. It’s government by public opinion polls where news reporters twist or even make up the news in a way designed to create the opinions and end results they want. It is more akin to a pure, chaotic democracy today, something our Founders abhorred and feared. I think it all got started when “progressive” legislators passed the seventeenth amendment and introduced direct popular election of U.S. senators, effectively removing the voice of the state governments and killing true federalism.
One nation. This principle has been overtly attacked as vote-hungry politicians sought deliberately to pit one group against another as a means of increasing electoral support. Races are turned against one another. Nationalities are encouraged to oppose one another rather than to cooperate for everyone’s well-being. Efforts to assimilate immigrants into the mainstream, making Americans of us all, are ridiculed. Class hatred and envy are encouraged and inflamed as politicians seek to kill the goose that lays the golden eggs, making everyone of every class and economic condition less prosperous. The dream of “one nation” has been turned on its head by the deliberate nightmare of the Balkanization of America.
Under God. Are you kidding? We long ago lost that national distinctive. Americans today want no sovereign, all-powerful God telling them what to do and what not to do. The very politicians who cry out for God’s help publicly when some great calamity strikes are the first to vote for legislation violating Christians’ rights not only to believe as they see the light but also to live according to their beliefs. Americans have become their own gods while doing everything they can to erase true religion and godliness from public–and even private–life. One can no longer live by his convictions if those beliefs run counter to political correctness.
Indivisible. This was included to ensure that there never again would be an attempt by any state or group of states to exercise their sovereignty. What was upheld as a right of all peoples before the War for Independence–the right of self-determination–and that has been argued on behalf of other peoples across the world ever since was disallowed the seceding states in what is commonly called the Civil War. Foremost among the proponents of this forced unity were those who first suggested secession for themselves–the New England states.
To further ensure that such a secession never recurs, the politicians attach more and more strings and regulations and rules to federal funds and mandates, ensuring that the states will forever be dependents of the federal government, meaningless and powerless vassals and agents of an ever-more-powerful central government.
Liberty and justice. These principles have been turned on their heads. Liberty under law has been trampled; license has been granted for every perversion that the wicked mind of evil man can imagine. Good is called evil; evil is called good. Criminals are protected and rewarded; law-abiding citizens are disarmed and allowed to become defenseless victims of the lawless. Justice is perverted to satisfy the demands of political correctness. Abortionists promote the murder of the unborn, but society is outraged when a soul-less beast is shot to prevent its harming a young child.
Private land is legally stolen and turned over to private developers who allegedly “know better” how to use it–to the enrichment, of course, of the developers and their political accomplices. Heinous criminals are released upon society or given such light sentences that they hardly warrant being called punishments. Yet a person living honestly by his sincere religious convictions is punished harshly for refusing to violate his conscience.
All. Increasingly, the all has become only a select few, the politically correct pressure groups. The all, who once ruled, have now become the oppressed victims of the few, the proud, the elite and narcissistic rulers.
For many people, the Grand Old Flag to which we once proudly pledged allegiance is now all but meaningless, except in the memories of what once was. The pledge, too, then, is meaningless. Similarly, the pledge is certainly meaningless for all those who never believed in its principles to begin with.
As a result, we now find our nation attacked almost at will by its enemies, both foreign and domestic. The ultimate result–short of God’s merciful intervention, for which we may very well now be beyond all hope–will be His judgment and national destruction. He punished His own chosen people, Israel, for their idolatry. We can expect nothing less; we deserve far worse.
May God see fit to restore our nation to its former greatness and moral courage so that it one again may be a shining city on a hill to which we can proudly pledge our allegiance.