Once in a while something occurs that causes us to consider our own thought on the matter.
The Washington State (in which I reside) Republican party (of which I am proudly not a member) has elected (presumably by democratic means) to strike the words ‘democracy’ and ‘democratic’ from their collective vocabulary in preference for the terms ‘republic’ and ‘republican’. This manifestation of ignorance (to which I would less generously refer to as idiocy) seems to have been taken to further enforce the dis-unification of the ‘United States of America’ to which we citizens generally refer to as simply ‘America’, excluding other North and South American continental nations, but incorporating Hawaii and to a lesser extent part of Samoa, Puerto Rico, and Guam. This replacement of otherwise uniquely meaningful words to further distinguish a partizan divide between Republican and Democratic (notice that the capitalization of the first letters in these words to sufficiently distinguish them from their uncapitalized counterparts) party members. Such actions disincentivize adherence to the pledge of allegiance to which all US citizens ascribe.
Let us (who are citizens of the US) consider to what we have pledged our allegiance and why we have been asked to make, and have willingly made, such a promise. This pledge was not originally required at the inception of our nation; it was informally introduced by a socialist minister as documented below.
First of all the word “flag” in this pledge is just a symbol of the “Republic for which it stands”
So yes, we pledge to a republican form of government rather than a ‘direct Democracy’, meaning that in our form of democracy, we democratically elect representatives who are elected to enact and enforce laws to which we as a people subscribe.
The “one nation” (not two), “indivisible”, would seem to suggest that efforts to divide us should be anathema.
“Under God” was the latest insertion into the pledge, which seems at best ambiguous: 1) do we adhere to the constitutional separation of church and state or not? 2) Whose God? Are Allah, and other forms of Deity or divine nature included or excluded? 3) Does the word “under” imply that the pledge is restricted to what is not counter to the precepts of one’s chosen religion such as Sharia law or the timetable of when an embryo or corporation becomes a citizen?
“With liberty and justice for all”, implies that every citizen is an equal part of this republic, with liberty and justice administered as preferred by the majority that are so represented and to each equally.
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