Liberty and Justice for My Tribe

I’m sure we’ve all heard about the “One Nation Indivisible” billboards in North Carolina and their subsequent vandalization.

We know all about Michael Newdow’s quest to restore the Pledge of Allegiance to it’s former state, before Congress vandalized it in 1954.

While I support any effort to get religion out of my government, I would propose getting rid of the Pledge altogether.

Since Independence Day is here once again, and with all this Pledge stuff in the news, I thought it would be a good time to take a closer look at this chant.

“I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America,”

This is simply absurd. Why would anyone give allegiance to an inanimate object? It can’t punish you, it can’t respect you, it can make decisions for you to support, it can’t give orders. It’s a piece of cloth, a symbol—nothing more.

“and to the republic for which it stands,”

I reject your tribalism. This sounds like, “my country right or wrong.” This is the same bullshit religion pulls. You are a subject of this organization and therefore should remain loyal to it without thinking about whether or not you agree with its policies.

Somehow we get this idea in our heads that simply belonging to something makes us better than those who don’t. This is fine if we’re talking about a football team; it can be fun to pretend that your team has some absolute status of being better than another team regardless of win-loss records. The ramifications are insignificant. This doesn’t work when we’re talking about nations or religions or ethnicities. The ramifications are far too great. It’s the type of thinking that leads to people flying planes into buildings and almost an entire country thinking that dropping nukes on hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians is justified. (Lookup: overreaction).

Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad I live in a place that tends to respect human rights and not a place like China or Iran; I’m glad I live in a place that isn’t a total theocracy and not a place like Saudi Arabia or Utah. But we need to understand that there is nothing inherently good about America or Americans. There’s a whole other world outside our bubble and believe it or not, it isn’t all third-world out there.

“one nation under God,”

I see. Your god gives special treatment to your country and your football team. Aren’t we a narcissistic bunch?

“indivisible,”

Redundant. The previous line already said, “one nation.”

“with liberty and justice for all.”

Finally. Something we can take away from this useless chant. Something we can strive towards—as long as we recognize that all means all people. Not all white people, not all heterosexuals, not all Christians, not all Americans—all people.

This phrase alone doesn’t really work as a pledge—more of a motto, really. So I guess we’ll have to do away with “In God We Trust.” And we’ll need something to take the place of the Pledge. I realize we already have a national anthem, but how about an official song? I propose John Lennon’s, “Imagine”:

Imagine there’s no Heaven
It’s easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today

Imagine there’s no countries
It isn’t hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace

And it’s written by a Brit. Happy Independence Day!