Back to Shanksville

Some time ago, I posted on this blog something I wrote in 2005, four sore and sorry years after our national response to 9/11 destroyed far more than the terrorists did or ever could.

It's come to mind as we commemorate the 150th anniversary of the Gettysburg Address.  That cartoon I link to raises a question concerning, of all things, our Pledge of Allegiance.  While "Under God" is the phrase of greatest contention -- a phrase introduced into the Pledge as a rebuke of godless communism, but which began almost immediately a culture war, for the most part won by Madeline Murray O'Hair.  She won because there is no such thing in Jesus' teaching as a Christian nation.  The kingdom of heaven does not have boundaries.  Some who call themselves Christian, and most particularly the Dominionists, regard the government of ancient Israel, according to the precepts of the God we have come to know through Christianity, as a model for our own time.  But that government didn't survive the era of Judges into the Davidic monarchy, much less into Jesus's time, much less our own.  But the silliness of "Under God" is just an aside.  Increasing coming under question is "Indivisible."  Some would remove that word from our Pledge.  Ought they?  Ought others resist?  Ought I?  I've not entirely thought it through.

But I've been trying to replace the phrase "Under God" when reciting the Pledge with "Of Laws Not Men."  In the context of that phrase, the heads of our nation are not men or women, but charter documents.  Many nations have a Head of State (The Queen), and a Head of Government (Prime Minister).  The head of State need not be hereditary.  Many nations elect or appoint one.  We might imagine those two in the USA combined in the office of the President.  But he's a man, just a man.

The Government originates from the State.  It serves the State.  Our Constitution is the LAW that constitutes our head of government.  The Declaration is the LAW that constitutes our head of State.  Our Declaration is immutable and inviolable except in its entirety.  Its repudiation results in a new state,  Repudiation of the Constitution is potentially gradual and remediative, as by amendment.  Or by upheaval.  As far as I know, the CSA of 1861-5 never repudiated the Declaration.  It remained their State charter.  A government in exile, perhaps.

When we pledge allegiance, do we pledge to both the State and the government?  I'm brought to say at this point the we've had 44 Presidents, but one government.  I'm not sure of the truth of that assertion.  And it seems less and less true as purported champions of the Constitution seem anything but.  Anyhow, I pledge allegiance to a FLAG, that I've honored in an essay I'm not sure I can find -- it was posted on GeoCities of all places.  But I characterized it as a sovereign of stars, the people of the 50 states, on a field of stripes, born in the charters devised by the original 13.  The Flag, not the President, is the institution in which the State and Government are joined.  It is my Flag, your Flag, and the Flag also of the aspirational non-citizen.  It is not the Flag of any class, party, movement, heritage group, or office.  And when it's made into a mattress tag by force of law (some anti-desecration amendment, perhaps) it ceases to be a Flag.  Which was the point of my GeoCities essay.

Back to the question of 'Indivisible.'  Anyone who desires to remove that from the Pledge, I'm obliged to name a "Succesh" spoken with the same venom as by a Soldier being fired upon by a Confederate rifle pillaged from a United States arsenal.