by Jeffry R Fisher

Created on: February 18, 2010

Should the "US Pledge of Allegiance" contain the words "under God"? The question itself is a non-sequitur, because one should first ask if the US government should even have codified a "Pledge of Allegiance" in the first place. If one imagines that America is still a free country,  then the answer is an emphatic NO!

That means that the reason the "under God" phrase should not be in the US Pledge of Allegiance is that there shouldn't even be an "official" US Pledge of Allegiance to begin with.

The Pledge of Allegiance was first codified in 1942 during a spike in patriotic emotions (both pride and fear) surrounding World War II. In 1954, Congress inserted the words "under God". In 2002, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decided that the 1954 revision was an unconstitutional establishment of religion.

With too much attention focused on the phrase "under God", few even realize that the original 1942 law is itself unconstitutional. It not only violates free speech by stuffing words into the mouths of its supposedly sovereign citizens, but it also enacts a mandate that is neither necessary nor proper to carry out any constitutionally enumerated power.

A Pledge of Allegiance to the flag should be a citizen's loyalty pledge to the nation, meaning fellow citizens that the flag represents, and not to the nation-state that drapes itself in that flag.

Therefore, when we recite a pledge of allegiance to the flag, we should be pledging loyalty to each other, and not to some government that is trying to supersede us.

However, as long as Congress codifies the Pledge of Allegiance, and especially where government institutions can still mandate its recitation, the government usurps the symbol of our loyalty.

Completely apart from phrasing like "under God", the codified pledge has become a statement of loyalty to government, not to each other.

When, in a government school or elsewhere, we obediently recite the government's pledge on command, we are no longer volunteering anything. Our government is demanding obeisance from us, and our pledge is debased, becoming an oath of fealty to new masters rather than an oath of loyalty to our peers.

I am offended.

Rather than fighting each other over the "under God" phrasing, we should unite against  the very codification of the pledge. We should demand the repeal of the whole 1942 act, leaving ourselves, as free citizens, individually or in free associations, to craft our own pledges in our own words to recite in times and places of our own choosing.

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