Have you seen those smarmy patriotic social media posts showing a picture of kids pledging allegiance with a caption like, "I bet you won't re-post this because your friends think it's offensive"? If you have any conservative family members on social media, you have probably seen this sort of thing before. I recently received a Facebook notification that someone had 'liked' my response from nearly a year ago to one such image.
Me: Why should kids be trained to swear loyalty to a government logo? Especially when the loyalty oath was penned by a commie?
Patriotic Flag-Waver: Sounds like someone needs to live in Afganistan
Me: What does that have to do with the substance of my comment? Ergo Decedo is a non-response.
We can recognize the sinister nature of nationalist brainwashing when other countries do it, but why is there a magical exception when American kids are subjected to the same thing? The flag is a government logo. This is a fact. It doesn't inherently represent any ideals, values, principles, virtues, or principles. The Pledge of Allegiance is a loyalty oath penned by a nationalist socialist. This is also a fact.
It is anti-liberty to mandate such oaths, especially from people who cannot possibly comprehend the ramifications. If soldiers fought and died for liberty, how can it possibly honor them to encourage or even mandate loyalty oaths for children to any government, whether one you support or not?
Admittedly, the term "commie" was perhaps excessive, but Francis Bellamy was an avowed socialist, and he advocated an authoritarian national government that could impose his socialist views upon society. In fact, rather like many politicians in America today, he was also anti-immigration. His words on that subject could be in any Trump speech today: "[a] democracy like ours cannot afford to throw itself open to the world where every man is a lawmaker, every dull-witted or fanatical immigrant admitted to our citizenship is a bane to the commonwealth." I thus stand by characterizing him as a nationalist. Not a Nazi, but definitely a nationalist, and definitely a socialist.
The flag represents the government. No more, no less. It is defined in U.S. Code Title 4, Chapter 1, and it cannot represent anything but the government that defined it. I find a measure of amusement in the patriots who violate the flag code willy-nilly in their enthusiasm to show their patriotic loyalty, though. The Thin Blue Line flag is an especially pernicious violation of flag etiquette displayed with great enthusiasm by the very people who most loudly condemn flag burnings.
It especially perplexes me to see protests against the government and its symbols treated as an attack upon the government's military. As I said in that response, if soldiers fought for our freedoms, how can they object to the exercise of those freedoms? In addition, if the military does not defend and protect us as advertised, why would their logo deserve respect?
I don't know how it is outside the United States, but here there is a religious aspect to the flag that manifests most aggressively among Republicans, military members, and political officeholders. Since I am inclined toward Quaker theology and anarchist philosophy, I have no interest in their religion or its rituals, but I think the video below encapsulates the ideas behind pledge as espoused by these modern nationalists.
