I still think he's nuts, but I will have to say that I agree with whatever court banned the Pledge. Perhaps if Newdown had gone with the 'ban the whole thing' approach, instead of just plucking a couple of words out of it, he might have garnered a little more support. Here's why I agree with the court:
1) It was written by a socialist.
2) The only thing to which Christians should be pledging allegiance is God. Not some piece of fabric and definitely not to the state. The state is not higher than God. This fact seemed to escape the Baptist minister/socialist who wrote the pledge.
3) It was written as a part of a marketing campaign to sell flags. Do you pledge allegiance to Nike? Well, maybe some people do.
4) Did I mention that it was written by a socialist?
Or does Newdow want to remove only those words, because he holds the state up as God? We know Nancy Pelosi is close to thinking that, every time the Supreme Court renders a decision. (Is that like rendering bacon...? Just curious.)
Bellemy, the author of the pledge states:
The true reason for allegiance to the Flag is the "republic for which it stands." ... And what does that vast thing, the Republic, mean? It is the concise political word for the Nation - the One Nation which the Civil War was fought to prove. To make that One Nation idea clear, we must specify that it is indivisible, as Webster and Lincoln used to repeat in their great speeches. And its future?What is the point of a republic that exists without the consent of the governed? Truth is, we don't live in much of a republic anymore. We may still elect representatives but they are not beholden to the people. They are beholden to the special interests lobbies that fund their campaigns. Doesn't this sound a bit more like the country we live in today?
Just here arose the temptation of the historic slogan of the French Revolution which meant so much to Jefferson and his friends, "Liberty, equality, fraternity." No, that would be too fanciful, too many thousands of years off in realization. But we as a nation do stand square on the doctrine of liberty and justice for all ...
A Democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of Government. It can only exist until the voters discover they can vote themselves largess out of the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidate promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that Democracy always collapses over a loose fiscal policy, always to be followed by a Dictatorship.And if all of that isn't disturbing enough, check out this photo on wikipedia. It was changed in 1942 so that it didn't represent the Hitler salute.
-- Professor Alexander Fraser Tytler, nearly two centuries ago while our thirteen original states were still colonies of Great Britain. At the time he was writing of the decline and fall of the Athenian Republic over two thousand years before.
