The Pledge of Allegiance controversy continues (*sigh*)

Scott Piepho, publisher of Pho's Akron Pages, cites a story from the Youngstown Vindicator about a high school student in Hubbard who conscientiously objects to reciting the Pledge of Allegiance:

Roxanne Westover, 17, of Elmwood Drive, had been reprimanded by the school for refusing to stand during the pledge, which is recited each morning. She said it contradicts her beliefs and she elected not to participate. “I’m an atheist, and I believe the pledge isn’t something toward our nation,” she said.

“It’s more like a religious oath, and I believe that if I stand I’m still participating in it.” Westover said she had been written up and sent to the principal’s office multiple times for her refusal over the course of the past few weeks. The ACLU sent a letter requesting the school to stop requiring students to say the pledge.

Ironically, following a complaint by the American Civil Liberties Union, a review of school policy showed that recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance was not required. Forced recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance was struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court in West Virginia Board of Education v. Barnette, 319 U.S. 624 (1943).

I have not recited the Pledge of Allegiance in nearly 20 years, because I choke on the word "indivisible." The right of secession is essential as a final guarantee of liberty to the people of a state when the federal government has crossed the line into tyranny. The requirement to recite a loyalty oath is contrary to the spirit of a free people -- and the United States of America did just fine for 117 years without one (the Pledge was written in 1893).

One of my earliest posts offers some additional discussion on the subject.

Why I do not recite the Pledge of Allegiance

Following is the text of a speech I delivered to my Toastmasters club today. Small portions have been edited out for brevity.

I am standing before you today to confess that I do not recite the Pledge of Allegiance to the flag, and have not done so in the last 17 years. My refusal to do so should not be construed as contempt, either for the flag or for the Republic for which it stands. When it is recited, I usually stand in silence, out of respect for the flag and for the others in the room.

The Pledge of Allegiance was written by Francis Bellamy as part of a public school program in celebration of Columbus Day 1892. His original pledge read,

“'I pledge allegiance to my Flag and the Republic for which it stands, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”

In later years, “my Flag” was changed to “the flag of the United States of America” and the words “under God” were added.

I have no problem with the phrase under God. I understand why atheists find it offensive, but since an overwhelming majority of the American people profess belief in a Supreme Being, the majority’s beliefs should be respected.

Anyone, anywhere, can swear loyalty to their nation. From 1933 to 1945, millions of Germans showed their enthusiastic loyalty by raising their arms and shouting “Heil Hitler!” So what is the moral difference between America today and Germany then? The difference lies in our loyalty, not to a flag or a territory, but to the ideas on which our nation was founded.

My throat sticks on the word indivisible. That is, I believe in the right of a State to secede from the Union. …

So, in Septemer 2007, why should anyone care?

The writers of our Constitution understood human nature. People want power; and given the opportunity, they would let their lust for power override their ideals and sense of fairness. Powerful people would want to strip away our liberties when those liberties became inconvenient for them. The Founding Fathers asserted that the States were sovereign, because, if the ultimate power were left to the States and to the people, that of the Federal Government would be limited. They held that the States, because they were closer to the people, would reflect their needs and beliefs, and would be more responsive to their will.

In spite of this, the Constitution faced heavy resistance from those who believed that an effective Federal Government was a threat to the rights of the States and the people – so much so that five states (New York, Virginia, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Texas) explicitly reserved to themselves the right to secede in their ratifications of the Constitution.

As a Georgia Supreme Court judge wrote in 1868 [dissent in Chancely v. Bailey and Cleveland, 37 Georgia Reports 532],

“If any prominent advocate of the Federal Constitution had … intimated an opinion, that by ratification of the Federal Constitution, the states surrendered their separate individuality and sovereignty as States, such was the extreme jealousy for the maintenance of State sovereignty, [that] such an opinion… would have led to the prompt and overwhelming rejection of that instrument.”

The idea that this nation is indivisible did not occur to anyone prior to the Civil War.

I will not recite the Pledge of Allegiance, because it violates the spirit of the Constitution that protects our freedom. Our own Ohio Constitution, in Article I, Section 2, states one of our most essential rights in this fashion:

“All political power is inherent in the people. Government is instituted for their equal protection and benefit, and they have the right to alter, reform, or abolish the same, whenever they may deem it necessary…”

Thus, by implication, the framers of our State Constitution agreed that our Republic is not “indivisible.” Secession is an essential right, to be used only as a last resort; to protect our people from a Federal Government when it becomes so powerful that it is no longer accountable to the people. To state that the Union is indivisible is to suggest that preservation of the Union is worth sacrificing our freedom. I do not believe this, and I hope you don’t either.

The truth is stranger than fiction

In my update to yesterday's post, I addressed the conspiracy theory (actually well-grounded in fact) that the destruction of the World Trade Center on 9-11 was not only the attack by commercial jetliners, but a controlled demolition as well. This has led to a Facebook conversation with a skeptic (whose name I am withholding), which I thought deserved a larger audience.

Skeptic: Who set the charges?

HT: As I indicated in my post, we do not know. If it was a false-flag attack (conspiracy theory alert), it would probably have been done by undercover CIA operatives, possibly agents of al-Qaeda on the CIA payroll, as suggested by my link to Michael Chussodovsky [director of the Canadian think tank Global Research, often quoted in this space]. I do not know -- we may never know.

Skeptic:  really!? Our own CIA was in on destroying two of the most expensive buildings in the world and killing thousands of people and doing incalcuable harm to the American economy. okay, gotcha.

HT: I know it's hard to believe. I get that. The problem is that our federal government has been manipulated for years (I'm not sure how many) by people intent on using it for their own benefit at the expense of the rest of us. These people have no problem with murdering thousands (even hundreds of thousands, if you include Iraqis and Afghans) and cleaning millions of Americans out of their savings (through bank and currency manipulations) to maintain their wealth acquired through an imperialist American foreign policy. I'm not speculating about Jews, Illuminati, and Freemasons -- I'm talking about New York bankers (and by extension, the Federal Reserve Bank, which prints our money), arms merchants, and people like George Soros, a billionaire who profited heavily from our moratorium on oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico (by buying into a Brazilian oil company that is drilling in the Atlantic and ... the Gulf of Mexico), and is trying to replicate on the dollar his feat of profitably crashing the British pound about a decade ago -- effectively stealing billions in savings from the British people. [To which I should have added a host of very corrupt Congressmen, like inside traders John Boehner and Nancy Pelosi and those who donate heavily to their campaigns.] The endgame is to reduce all but a small elite of the American people to poverty, so they will willingly enslave themselves to the rich that remain in order to survive. It serves their interest to have Americans more interested in football, Lindsay Lohan, and Dancing with the Stars, and in what would be (but for Ron Paul) a meaningless Republican primary, than to understand what is really going on.




A future historian might well entitle their work on the last fifty years, While American Slept: The decline and fall of the United States of America.

Wednesday night, I attended a meeting of an organization of which I have been a member for sixteen years. Before it started (it is a small group), I briefly went over the Defense Appropriation Bill's detainment provisions and their implications (essentially what I wrote Nov. 29), and asked them if this was the kind of government they really wanted to pledge their allegiance to (They know I have not recited the Pledge of Allegiance since I joined them). And again, even with this warning, I remained the only one not to stand up for the pledge. Our people are very confused, and I am beginning to wonder what, if anything, will shake them out of the myth that we still live, and always will live, in a "sweet land of liberty."

My allegiance to the United States government is conditional on its fidelity to the Constitution, which represents the basic principles of our Founding Fathers. My desire for Ohio independence is to replace that government with a smaller one that is faithful to the same principles, as the Ohio Constitution is (in some ways better than the U.S. Constitution). If we see a miracle next year in the election of a President and Congress who are faithful to the Constitution, I will reconsider my position, but I am not confident that such a miracle will happen.

Another view of the Pledge of Allegiance

This time, from Russell Longcore at dumpDC.com . He gives the complete history of the Pledge, including the change from the Roman/Nazi salute to the hand-over-heart in 1942, but its his last two paragraphs that pack the punch:

So, when you place your hand over your heart and mindlessly recite the Pledge of Allegiance, you are pledging your fealty to a nation that does not exist, and an authoritarian Federal Government that has completely ignored the Constitution and rules in any manner it chooses, without regard to any restrictions on its power whatsoever. Your pledge of allegiance says that you belong to the tyrants and criminals who stole the United States of America. They don’t even have to threaten YOU…you’re voluntarily their property. (Emphasis added)

Now, how does that feel?

I'd feel pretty sick if I were still doing it.

Pledge of Allegiance

Here is the view of a former teacher who sees the Pledge of Allegiance much as I do.

I acknowledged earlier that I have not recited the Pledge since 1990, and nothing since then has persuaded me to change my mind. One change since that post was written: I have remained seated while the Pledge is recited, but out of respect for the opinions of others, I try to sit near the back of the room.

The Pledge of Allegiance ... again

I've been around this bend several times before, but controversy about the Pledge of Allegiance seems to be a gift that keeps on giving. Here, NPR reports that Martin Rosenthal, in Brookline, Massachusetts, wants to get the pledge out of the public schools, in the belief that it creates social pressure to recite a loyalty oath against their conscience. Not surprisingly, he has attracted hate calls and hate mail for taking this stand.

Here is the simplest way I can put it: In a free republic no one owes allegiance to the government. Government earns its allegiance from the people by preserving their liberty.

"One nation under God ..." indivisible?

Joseph Farah, a columnist with WorldNet Daily thinks it's time to admit that we can't put Humpty Dumpty back together again -- at least not while the two colors of states espouse conflicting values and worldviews:

"I've lived through some turbulent years of American history, but I have never seen our country more polarized, more divided, more ripe for – dare I say it? – breakup, dissolution, a secessionist movement.

"I admit I'm unafraid of radical ideas – if those radical ideas are just, righteous, moral and godly. I believe it's time for radical ideas – just as it was time in 1776.

"Frankly, I don't see a way to unite a people as divided as Americans are today. We are trying to pretend we're one nation when we are really two [or more]. ...

"It's not a Republican vs. Democrat split – as the current election illustrates. I know many Republicans would find themselves more comfortable in the country of no standards. I also suspect many Democrats would actually find themselves more at home in the nation of the Bible, Declaration and Constitution. Isn't it time for separation? Is the breakup of the union really such a difficult thing to consider? When there are no new lands to discover, what choice do we have? ...

"America was founded as a sovereign, independent nation. The vandals want to yield sovereignty to global authorities and make America interdependent. America was founded with a federal government that was to be constitutionally limited in scope. The vandals have already succeeded in obliterating the enumerated powers.

"America was founded as a nation of self-governing free people and sovereign states with significant authority reserved to them. The vandals have placed America under the shackles of a central government to which the states and people are subordinate.

"America was founded as a nation of people 'endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of happiness.' ...

"We already are two peoples [the "red states" and the "blue states" with irreconcilable differences sharing one nation. It's time for an amicable divorce – with each people free to pursue their own way. I don't know how to make this happen. But I think it's time to start talking about it – start working toward it. I don't want to live under the consequences of the actions of the vandals. I don't want my children to do that.

"There ought to be a choice. Maybe we can live side by side in peace as two nations, but we can't live freely as one people any longer.

"The moral justification for secession was found in our Declaration of Independence. It says governments are created to protect our unalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. It also says, 'Whenever a government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it.' ...

"What choice do we have but to break the bands that tie us together? Actually, to be honest, those bands have already been broken – by those who have, over time, grabbed control of our lives in a thousand insidious ways over the last 200-plus years. It's time to move this debate forward – front and center. It's time to begin asking the real questions. It's time to restore liberty to America.

"There's only one way to recapture the greatness of America. That is to start over – with only those willing to play by the rules. Let those who don't believe in rules have their own country to destroy. "

By the way, that word "indivisible" sticks in my craw, which is why I said I do not recite the Pledge of Allegiance.

Virtual buckeye to Mike Tuggle.

Iowa Congressman floats secession as solution to forced health care

ThinkProgress captured Rep. Steve King (R-IA) suggesting that if all else fails, he might have to [help] "start a country":

Yesterday as the House passed historic health care reform legislation, groups of Tea Party activists were still amassed on Capitol Hill protesting the bill. When word reached them that they had lost their battle, they began singing the national anthem and reciting the pledge of allegiance.

“The most important thing to remember,” said Jenny Beth Martin of Tea Party Patriots, “is that the fight for freedom, it never ends!” Reps. Pete Hoekstra (R-MI) and Steve King (R-IA) then went out and spoke to the protesters, with King floating the possibility of secession (even though he said they should “hope” it doesn’t come to that):

KING: I just came down here so I could say to you, God bless you. … You are the awesome American people. [...]

If I could start a country with a bunch of people, they’d be the folks who were standing with us the last few days. Let’s hope we don’t have to do that! Let’s beat that other side to a pulp! Let’s take them out. Let’s chase them down. There’s going to be a reckoning!



True, there will be a reckoning; but what still doesn't make sense to me is, why they are still pledging allegiance to the flag of the tyranny they are trying to overcome? Our Founding Fathers believed that allegiance must be earned -- and this federal government doesn't deserve it!

American "justice" Soviet-style

Federal prosecutors like to play a game after hours: they pick a celebrity -- any celebrity -- and find a way they could prosecute that celebrity in a way that fits their character, by applying odd provisions of Federal law.

That's one story William L. Anderson (in LewRockwell.com) tells in his review of Harvey A. Silverglate's book Three Felonies a Day: How the Feds target the innocent:

"If you want to understand the federal assault on the law and upon our rights, read this book, for it will provide an education for those who believe that federal prosecutors have long been overstepping their constitutional boundaries and are railroading thousands of innocent people into prison.

"This is more, much more, than a book full of anecdotes, although the anecdotes themselves tell a depressingly familiar story of the decline of law in the United States. This book also lays out the chilling facts of how the federal system of what Candice E. Jackson and I have called 'derivative crimes' is patterned not after anything that Americans inherited from Great Britain and its great body of common law, but from the former Soviet Union.

"That is correct. Federal criminal law closely mirrors the Soviet code and its 'crimes of analogy.' Silverglate writes that under the old Soviet law, 'any citizen was in constant danger of being prosecuted for virtually any action if it could be analogized to or derived from something in the criminal code' (emphasis his). As Lavrentiy Beria, Stalin’s head of the dreaded secret police said proudly, 'Show me the man and I’ll find you the crime.' ...

"[F]ederal law itself also permits prosecutors to fashion acts that are legal into crimes that carry serious time. Furthermore, prosecutors can take one action and then pile multiple acts upon it. For example, when jurors declared [Enron CEO Kenneth] Lay guilty of 'fraud,' they also convicted him of 'money laundering, 'wire fraud,' and other such acts that by themselves carry draconian prison penalties.

"What makes these other 'crimes' so insidious is that they cannot be instituted without an underlying act, which means they cannot stand alone. If I mail a letter with a fraudulent tax return, then not only am I guilty of 'tax evasion,' but I also can be charged with 'mail fraud' for the simple act of mailing a letter. If I put some of my alleged ill-gotten gains in a bank, or purchase any goods with that money, I have
committed 'money laundering,' for which the penalty is a maximum of 20 years in prison.

"The combination of these 'crimes' gives prosecutors enormous leverage against defendants, for if they choose to go to trial and falter on just one criminal count, they are sent to prison for many years. Thus, many people – even people who maintain their innocence – will plead to something because the alternative is much worse.

"As Silverglate says, that is not justice; it is tyranny. He writes:
'If I am right, we must foster the realization that the Justice Department’s tactics too often are employed not to protect, but to attack law-abiding society (emphasis Anderson's). While it is true…that sometimes creative criminal 'miscreants' cleverly get around the letter of the law (especially laws that have become obsolete) and therefore tempt equally creative prosecutors to stretch the law, it is also true that too many ordinary, well-meaning, and innocent people get caught in the maw of the
Department of Justice’s prosecutorial machinery.'

Meanwhile, the masses pledge allegiance to the flag of a nation that
supposedly has "liberty and justice for all."

The Pledge of Allegiance, translated

This video was brought to my attention by two of Ohio's most outspoken secessionists. To those who think we owe allegiance to the flag, it will be very offensive --- but I thought it was hilarious and spoke the truth.

Dennis Steele asks the tough questions

Second Vermont Republic advocate Thomas Naylor can get a little irritating sometimes, but when he makes a point, he packs a punch.

Vermont secessionist candidate for Governor Dennis Steele stunned his opponents at a recent debate in Hyde Park, when he asked them, “If you are elected governor, will you do everything in your power to bring home the Vermont National Guard troops from Afghanistan and Iraq and block any future attempts by the Federal Government to deploy them overseas? And if you are unsuccessful in bringing the Vermont troops home, will you call for Vermont to secede from the Union?”

Mr. Naylor reports:

Without exception the five neoliberal Democrats lined up behind the U.S. Commander in Chief marching in lockstep to the beat of the American Empire’s drum. They summarily rejected the idea of intervention on behalf of the Vermont National Guard troops to bring them home sooner. They made it abundantly clear that their loyalty lies first and foremost with the Empire, not with the people of Vermont. (Emphasis added).

His comment:

How is it possible that [they] continue to pledge their allegiance to the most materialistic, most racist, most militaristic, most violent empire of all-time? An empire which is owned, operated, and controlled by Wall Street, Corporate America, and the Israeli Lobby. They ought to be ashamed of themselves.

We need to ask the same question of Gov. Strickland, Mr. Kasich, Mr. Spisak, and Mr. Matesz.* Where is their allegiance -- to the Empire, or to the people who will elect them?

* The latter two candidates represent the Green and Libertarian Parties, respectively.

There is a right way and a wrong way to protest...

... and this definitely is the wrong way:




Since I am a secessionist who has no problem with singing a foreign national anthem, I have no problem with singing the Star-Spangled Banner, either (but I have it in my head that I _am_ singing a foreign national anthem). However, I do refuse to recite the Pledge of Allegiance. The way I express that is to remain seated and pray silently. If enough people would just remain seated and let everyone else sing or pledge, the growing numbers would get the message through much more effectively and much less offensively.