Pledge This!

Dr. John Ray put the argument over the Pledge of Alliegence in perspective by linking to an interesting piece on the origin and intended purpose of the pledge:

Francis Bellamy and his cousin and cohort, the author Edward Bellamy, wanted government to take over all schools as a socialist monopoly, end all of the better alternatives, and use government schools to produce an "industrial army" (a Bellamy term) explicitly modeled
upon the military in order to nationalize the economy and create a society of totalitarian socialism as described in the book "Looking Backward" by Edward Bellamy. It explains the modern Military-Socialist complex. The Bellamy boys actively promoted what they called "military socialism." Part of the plan was the pledge.

The Bellamys and the pledge influenced the hate-spewing paramilitary societies of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (62 million dead), the People's Republic of China (35 million dead), and the horrid National Socialist German Workers' Party (21 million dead). (Death tolls from Professor R. J. Rummel's book "Death by Government" which is also available).

Most so-called conservatives are ignorant of the pledge's deplorable past, and to the extent they do know, they cover it up. Republican socialists have been duped into robotically chanting the pledge and there are probably socialists in-the-know who laugh silently at the spectacles.

There's another piece on the pledge featuring an interesting photograph.

When I left the public school system twenty-five years ago I promised myself that I would never subject a child of my own to a public school.

Banning the pledge would be a good start on the long overdue process of de-communizing the schools.