Your comment started me thinking about the contrasts in our country before Woodrow Wilson set the stage for socialism starting in 1912 and what our country is like now since socialism has become the dominant segment of government, accounting for more than 60% of total spending and poised to grow exponentially in less than a decade.
It occurred to me that the Founders would find our "Pledge of Allegiance" repugnant. The Founders pledged their lives, their sacred honor, and their fortunes to freedom and the empowerment of the individual, a philosophy completely at odds with today's "Amerika". What follows are some excerpts from a Google search of "pledge of allegiance":
The Pledge of Allegiance
A Short History
Copyright 1992 by Dr. John W. Baer
Francis Bellamy (1855 - 1931), a Baptist minister, wrote the original Pledge in August 1892. He was a Christian Socialist. In his Pledge, he is expressing the ideas of his first cousin, Edward Bellamy, author of the American socialist utopian novels, Looking Backward (1888) and Equality (1897).
Francis Bellamy in his sermons and lectures and Edward Bellamy in his novels and articles described in detail how the middle class could create a planned economy with political, social and economic equality for all.
The Pledge was published in the September 8th issue of The Youth's Companion, the leading family magazine and the Reader's Digest of its day. Its owner and editor, Daniel Ford, had hired Francis in 1891 as his assistant when Francis was pressured into leaving his Baptist church in Boston because of his socialist sermons. As a member of his congregation, Ford had enjoyed Francis's sermons. Ford later founded the liberal and often controversial Ford Hall Forum, located in downtown Boston.
In 1892 Francis Bellamy was also a chairman of a committee of state superintendents of education in the National Education Association. As its chairman, he prepared the program for the public schools' quadricentennial celebration for Columbus Day in 1892. He structured this public school program around a flag raising ceremony and a flag salute - his 'Pledge of Allegiance.'
See also www.PledgeQandA.com: "Socialism" is usually defined as "government ownership and control of the means of production" (the means of production are often defined as "land, labor, capital, and entrepreneurship"). Many people broaden this definition to include "government redistribution of income and/or wealth."
Does this conjure up visions of Karl Marx or little parading Nazi youths in your mind? Perhaps you should consider taking our Pledge before its too late.
However, I shall not take your pledge at post 4 - my life is already pledged to Jesus Christ alone, He is my sacred honor - I have none of my own, nor do want any.
Also I am not pleased with the emphasis at post 134 on the socialist roots of the authors of the Pledge of Allegiance.
The meaning and power is in the words not the history of it.
Christmas and Easter both can be traced to pagan roots – but that is not remembered when the assembly gathers to honor what Christ has done for us. Again, the meaning is in what we derive from the moment – not the origin of the custom.
Because the political revelation is already raising alarms in my Spirit, please remove my name from your ping list.
Not sure about what you are implying here. Would you elaborate more? Thanks.
No, it sure does not.
I have previously read this story of how and who wrote the original Pledge of Allegiance. It doesn't impress me. It's irrelevant. Last year a town council member in my small hometown in the CO Rockies made a stink about "being forced to say the Pledge of Allegiance" and that "it was a religious test to be forced to say 'Under God.'" I wrote two letters to the editor explaining the meaning of the Pledge of Allegiance and why this putz was wrong but neither letter was ever published. I sent copies to the mayor, all of the other council men/women and the putz.
It is interesting that you hold up the personality and character of the author of the PofA as having some validating/invalidating bearing on the pledge itself while, at the same time, you are asking us here to sign on to your pledge on the merits of its literary intent alone. With a complete and total lack of knowledge of the personality/s and character/s of it's author/s.
I think you might benefit from reading my explanation/defense of "under God" in the PofA.
Especially if you want people to sign a pledge that, so far, states 'conservative principles' as its aim.
FRegards, TigersEye