The Pledge

So much editorial space has been shat upon discussing the use of “God” in the Pledge of Allegiance and I have yet to see any that questions the need for a pledge whatsoever.

I honestly thought that this practice must have gone out shortly after being hit with on the knuckles with a ruler stopped being common. I was never hit with a ruler and I can’t recall saying the pledge much after maybe fourth or fifth grade, although my memory has failed me on far more important topics.

You get older and you imagine that the world is growing wiser with you, I guess. Maybe I assumed that at the point that I realized that this was obviously an arcane brainwashing technique that there was some sort of universal mind that would have come to the same conclusion. Funny how you can just assume something.

Having a child repeat a daily mantra of allegiance to a system that he/she can’t possibly understand is silly. To have that child swear loyalty to a concept that doesn’t really exist is obscene manipulation. Liberty and justice for all? They want you to pledge allegiance and they can’t even provide the product. Buyer beware.

Justice is for the rich and liberty is for the folks who color inside the lines.

Liberty means freedom from restriction or government control. Who has less freedom from restriction and government control than a child? Child molesters have more rights. So, kids, next time they want you to say the Pledge of Allegiance, ask for a copy of Hustler. Or the car keys. Or a ballot. Or a gun or a beer or a smoke or a job or at least a passing grade in political science.

Remember, whoever said “Give me liberty or give me death” is dead.

The pledge is nothing more than forced advertising and everybody knows it. If this country came through with all the promises that are drilled into you in the school system, you wouldn’t need a pledge. Great things don’t need to tell you how great they are, much less have you repeat it like a cult member until you can’t sandblast it out of your brain. Teach them the basics to get by and encourage free thinking. If you’re really all that hot I bet the kids will figure it out on their own.

The pledge is bad for the same reason arranged marriages are bad. You cannot “learn to love”. Anyone who has tried to stay in a bad relationship for the sake of their children knows that. Maybe you should stand over the wife chanting “I pledge allegiance - to my wife”, etc, etc.

They have the same pointless argument over teaching evolution. The debate should not be about how you teach it as much as why you teach it. I say there is no need. In fact, there is no need for most of the trivia you are forced to wade through in 12 years of uncomfortable time-wasting to memorize.

I have never needed to know where I came from, be it a monkey or divine. I have not needed to make a cabinet or an ashtray, never needed to when the Spanish-American war was fought or how to read a B flat on sheet music. I have yet to be in a position where I had to dissect a dead, pinned frog and point out his gall bladder. I needed to learn how to type in order to write this but thank Mary they put the letters right there on the keys. I learned letters around the time I learned that paste tastes icky.

I learned how to do 25 push-ups. Then I quit school after nine years and realized that you really only need to do one. After that one - you’re up! If you have to do 24 more, you may be having a seizure.

The fact that children are put thru so much unnecessary schooling is as fucked as the fact that I am forced to pay for it. Why do my taxes pay for your shit-head kid to wrestle? I’d rather teach him to drink beer. Either way he’s going to end up in the bar. I’d rather be drinking with him than having him tell me “Drink em up, people. It’s last call.”.

stanhope