I got into a discussion today on YouTube with someone who disagreed with pledging allegiance to the flag of the United States and said that people should not be forced to do that.
I said I agreed, that we should pledge allegiance to the human race and the whole planet.
He then got back to me and said that what he had in mind was that people should just be allowed to pledge allegiance to what they wanted, to their families, their own state if they wanted, to Nato if they felt strongly about that level, etc etc.
But here’s the rub with that one: what if I pledge allegiance to the ordinary man and woman, regardless of where they are born, but no-one pledges allegiance back to me, then it seems I’m on the losing end. So the only way to be fair is for everyone to pledge allegiance to everyone else. Nation of birth should be as irrelevant as star sign.
To war for a country should be as ludicrous as to war for Gemini or Sagitarius. Time and space are both dimensions so if we can be agreed, as most sensible people are, that the timing of your birth shouldn’t prejudge anything about you, and that all these star signs are just sillinesses, then why can’t we apply the same reasoning to space also? Why does the fact that you are born in this point on earth and not another give you a different status in the eyes of some people? Why will they pledge allegiance on to those born near them to go and fight against you? Is there any real sense in that?
We’re human beings, and when you go around the world, either by travelling physically or by using the social platforms that the internet affords, you can find people who are on your wavelength and who share your views and passions and priorities and likes and dislikes who look completely different to you in that they might be a so-called race, gender, generation, class, nationality, etc, from the ones you’d expect to have any similarity with.
You might find a partner for life in a nation which is supposed to be utterly unlike your own, and understand that person more closely than if she had been the girl next door when you were kids.
And you might find that your own family members, brothers and sisters you shared a table, a telly or even a bedroom with growing up are utterly different to you in outlook, priorities, likes and dislikes, personality traits…
So why even have nations? Why get so het up about them? If they are the cause for people to be segregated and given unfairly differing packets of rights, then we need to treat the nation state with the contempt it deserves, along with everything else that divides us.
Related Articles
- Pledge of Allegiance (nowpublic.com)
- Judge Reprimanded Over Pledge of Allegiance [Dispatches from the Culture Wars] (scienceblogs.com)
- Does “Under God” Belong in The Pledge of Allegiance? (socyberty.com)
- The Pledge of Allegiance and Legal Challenges in Education. (jwitness.wordpress.com)
I believe that the ultimate authority and highest power is God Almighty, and his “banner” is the cross of Christ. My support and devotion is based on a firm and eternal foundation, which the world cannot see nor discern. My loyalty to any earthly organization or authority is predicated on and is guaranteed to the extent to which it parallel scriptural precepts, and recognize itself as subordinate and accountable to the highest power. The God above has instituted government to govern justly and beneficently over his people and land.
I cannot trust a government body or agency enough to pledge my support and allegiance to it. In the past as a schoolboy, I had been solemnly saluting the American flag in my classroom, putting my hand over the chest. But now I must recant my prior loyalty, because I was doing so in ignorance. I could promise to uphold and defend the innocuous U.S. constitution, but it’s constantly being amended by inordinate laws such as the Patriot Act, defaced and devalued by unscrupulous politicians.
If the USA is indeed a Godly nation, where is the respect to the supreme sovereign who founded it? Whence the tyrannical laws of predatory legislators and the oppressive oversight of pompous police? Why the need for increasing numbers of surveillance cameras to monitor Americans walking the streets? Even if the USA is supposedly still a nation of the people and for the people, it’s rolling farther away from its Godly heritage and divine mandate to provide freedom for Christians to practice Christianity. This is because the USA is controlled by large corporate and banking interests, and the military-industrial complex, which place their interest in profit-making and subjugation of the populace. Their vested interest is to bend the will of the people and convince them to relinquish their rights and shift their allegiance to earthy dignitaries and dictators.
The ideal of American freedom and democracy as currently upheld and proclaimed by the majority of Christians is illusionary and elusive. Soon Americans will be pledging away their freedom in exchange for a vicious and merciless police state, that will wear down their faith and attempt to extinguish the last measure of devotion for their heavenly King.