Pledging Allegiance (Flag Debates Again)

As long as we're re-cycling arguments on patriotism, treason, the National Anthem, and such, here's me briefly on The Pledge of Allegiance to the U.S. flag from April of 2004. Hey, if we're going to keep recycling arguments on symbols, I think I should get to recycle my short contributions. Anyway,  I take very seriously my oath "to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States (and will repeat that below) but have some qualms about the patriotic exercise of pledging allegiance to a flag.


* First off, allegiance is pledged to the flag, with "to the Republic" almost an afterthought: following an "and" and never mentioned as a variant title for the exercise (we don't talk about "Pledging Allegiance to the Republic").
* The Republic in The Pledge is defined as "one nation," as opposed to a confederation of states undoubtedly, but also as a conflation of nation and republic. The U.S. isn't a nation in the same sense that Japan is a nation, or in the sense of "nations" in the joke in the song from HMS Pinafore: "But, in spite of all temptations / To belong to other nations / He remains an Englishman."
In everyday usage "nation" is still often expanded to "Christian nation," and at one time that was "White, Christian nation" (and Catholics, in such usages, weren't Christians, and Jews weren't White). And the nominally-Christian racists had and have a point: traditional nations were supposed to be united by "blood" and faith or "blood and soil" (Blut und Boden). I am a citizen of and have sworn my loyalty to the American Republic established by the U.S. Constitution; I don't belong to some hypothetical American nation.

* As the U.S. prison population continues to rise, with many inmates incarcerated for minor drug crimes — and many of them young African-American males — the line on "liberty and justice for all" becomes increasingly problematic.  In the War on Drugs and the War on Crime, Americans may prefer security for themselves over liberty for other Americans, often justly, but often not.
* Between "liberty for all" on U.S. territory and a sense of security for "natural born" U.S. citizens, most Americans would probably go for security.

If we want a patriotic exercise, maybe reciting this: "I pledge allegiance to the Constitution of the United States and the Federal Republic established thereby, and will strive to achieve domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty for us today and for future generations."

It's Not Just the Nazi-ish Salute ...

      It's not Just the Nazi-ish, fascistic salute that should bother people about Donald Trump's asking for a pledge of allegiance; it's more important that Trump came close to requesting an oath of allegiance to himself, Donald Trump.

“Let’s do a pledge. Who likes me in this room?” Trump asked the crowd at a rally in Orlando, Florida, which was frequently interrupted by protesters. “I’ve never done this before. Can I have a pledge? A swearing? Raise your right hand.” The Republican presidential front-runner then proceeded to get the audience to repeat after him. “I do solemnly swear that I, no matter how I feel, no matter what the conditions, if there are hurricanes or whatever, will vote on or before the 12^th for Donald J. Trump for president.”

This is "the cult of personality" in politics, and it does not turn out well. Taken further, it's not just asking for a promise to vote for a person one "likes" but an oath of loyalty to the individual. One famous one went "I swear eternal allegiance to Adolf Hitler and to those designated by him unbroken obedience." More significant were the oaths sworn by the Wehrmacht, German civil servants, and the SS, "swearing loyalty to the person of Adolf Hitler rather than the nation or the constitution."

     In the United States we pledge allegiance to the flag in a relatively recent and not particularly binding ritual of civic loyalty. When we "solemnly swear" or affirm in the United States it is to support and defend our Constitution. Donald Trump is casually, almost flippantly messing around with that tradition. Combined with Trump supporters' supporting the man and not his policies, that is a very bad sign.