You assume everyone wishes to defend the Constitution, which isn’t in evidence. Obviously if we want to keep it we must actively defend it and not rely on hollow legislate. What really killed the Constitution, assuming as I do it no longer has the force of law, though, was an ideological shift from relative laissez-faire to progressivism. So it was not the scrap of paper itself, no, but how people esteemed it, or didn’t.
This points rather to Natural Law as what to which we must pledge our allegiance. Pledging allegiance to the Constitution stinks to me of idolatry. Should we wish to hold politicians to the Constitution, it might be better to do so through promoting Natural Law, partly which the positive law of the Constitution embodies.
By the way, when I asked why we occasionally pretend to still be an oath taking culture, the answer I believe is social control. Oaths are necessary for hierarchical societies. Your betters, ones in a higher caste, pledge to defend you, and you pledge to obey them. This arrangement persists in certain aspects of our civilization, for instance the family, churches, various clubs, etc. But it has nothing to do with the relation of citizen to government in the contemporary U.S.
No, I don't.
I do wish to defend the Constitution; I took an oath to do so, and meant it. It was required for me to embark upon my chosen voluntary employment, but contained little that I had not, from my extreme youth, already determined to do. There are more than a couple other people who agree with me in this.
...assuming as I do it no longer has the force of law...
Enough of it survives that the President still felt compelled to campaign for re-election on schedule, and probably would have felt compelled to leave office had the vote count gone the other way. Enough of the Second Amendment survives that the would-be tyrants among us are still talking about so-called "reasonable control" rather than door-to-door SWAT-led confiscation. I could go on, but won't.
This points rather to Natural Law as what to which we must pledge our allegiance.
Please point to where the "Natural Law" is written out and everyone agrees on what it is, reather than being a nebulous construct (Like a recipe for hash) that is whatever a person says it is. For me, "Natural Law" is the "law of the jungle"-- the strong devour the weak.
...pretend to still be an oath taking culture...
Perhaps you pretend. Others, including myself, do not. I dismiss, without malice, the remainder of that paragraph.