Friday, June 22, 2012

About that pledge of allegiance...

You can't be on facebook for more than 10 minutes without seeing a post about how wonderful the world would be if we just went back to making kids recite the pledge of allegiance. Usually the person posting the pro-pledge material leans toward the conservative side. They consider themselves patriots and believe a love of god and freedom is instilled by pledge recitation. Too bad that is not at all what the pledge was designed to do.

"...the Pledge was designed by an avowed socialist to encourage greater regimentation of society."
(more)

Every time you refuse to recite the pledge, a puppy dies


That's right folks. The pledge of allegiance was written by Francis Bellamy, a radical socialist, as an exercise in slavish devotion to the state. It's about as american and patriotic as a matryoshka doll. The original pledge even included a very Nazi-like salute, though after the rise of the Nazi party in Germany, it was changed to the more well-known hand over the heart.

Rather creepy photo of the original pledge hand placement 


The really funny thing about the pledge is the most debated section, the 'Under God' phrase, was not even in the original version. It wasn't added in 1954. After that, all the fun court battles began.

So next time someone gets bent all out of shape because schools don't require the pledge, go ahead and give them a little history lesson. I doubt they would cling to this antiquated authoritarian exercise if they really knew its true socialist history.