I must be from another planet. All too often I read or hear a debate about politics in this country and finding myself thinking that everyone is missing the point.
The Pledge of Allegiance has been ruled unconstitutional because of the words "under God" and to me, that's a no-brainer. Our country was, among other things, founded on freedom of religion which, duh, includes the freedom not to believe.
But am I the only one who thinks there is another problem with the Pledge of Allegiance? Because I am willing to accept I'm out of step with the rest of the planet...
In practice, and to be truthful, infrequently, I am a Quaker. One thing I
really like about the Religious Society of Friends is they think about what they say.
Many Quaker meetings do not sing during worship because it requires a group affirmation of that song's
lyrics. Having not been raised a Quaker I've sung many hymns -- the lyrics tend to be trite and unsophisticated praise of the almighty.
So yesterday's court ruling makes sense, that the words "under God" violate the rights of schoolchildren to be "free from a coercive requirement to affirm God." Praise be.
Yet despite U.S. District Judge Lawrence Karlton's intelligent and spot-on interpretation of the spirit of our constitution, aren't we all missing something?
Doesn't the Pledge of Allegiance violate the rights of an 8-year-old to be free from a coercive requirement to affirm their country?
When I was 8, I swore I was gonna be a football player. That career choice ended in 7th grade, when my belt broke during an end-around and my pants dropped to my ankles in front of a crowd.
The english language is great -- I swear, there's a word for just about everything. There's even a word for requiring children to pledge their allegiance to an ideology 5 days a week, 9 months a year, for 12 years:
it's called indoctrination.
As adults, by accepting the benefits of US citizenship, we accept certain responsibilities as well. Those of us born in this country never formally speak it, but we agree to abide by the law, we internalize concepts like treason, we interpret and assume a complex set of codes and behaviors that define an ideology.
Children do not have the capacity to understand these choices. And as a society, our laws reflect that we understand this. If an adult has sex with a minor, it is legally mandated that that minor is not capable of making that decision.
Yet from the time they are old enough to begin formal education, we ask our children to repeatedly chant words they cannot fully comprehend.
Pledge. Allegiance. Republic. Liberty. Justice, high concepts that even our judges can't consistently interpret. Yet we demand this rote oath from our children, despite concluding they aren't even qualified to choose their own attire.
Isn't it finally time to just put the Pledge of Allegiance where it belongs, into history books? Put it next to all the other abandoned, sacred, and meaningless oaths that serve no other purpose than endorsing acts of zealotry, like the Salem Witch Trials and McCarthyism?