“I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”
The words are ingrained in a lot of our heads. I was about to say “all of our heads”, but I don’t think it’s true anymore. Traditional America-hating “woke” culture infiltrated our schools years ago to the point where many institutions no longer require/offer the pledge any longer. I can’t say for sure, since my kids’ schools still performed the pledge every morning during their formative years, but even if the youths recite the statements these days, they aren’t ingraining the reasons behind saying them. In today’s confused sensibilities, no one is sure what to believe. Needless to say, schools don’t force kids to pledge allegiance to anything. Oh, how horrible it would be!
(Note: The Supreme Court’s reasoning for why we don’t compel participation in the pledge is because of honoring one’s First Amendment rights to religion and free speech. What would the “wokesters” cite as the rationale in 2021?)
At any rate, nowhere in the pledge is the word “equality” mentioned. Every American with even a shred of history education knows that “equality” is a concept that’s evolved over the years, with many ugly examples of individuals, sexes and populations being denied equal rights by the ruling class. Whereas “Equal justice under the law” was good enough for most folks -- at least until recently -- there’s a leftist movement afoot to once again divide us and make it so that certain people are more equal than others.
We don’t pledge allegiance to “equality”, yet liberals want to take the ideal and bludgeon those who don’t agree (translation: Republicans) with their version of it. Donna Brazile wrote at the USA Today last week:
“We saw the end result of Republican absolutism in the insurrection of Jan. 6 when a murderous mob of Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol, seeking to hang the vice president, murder the speaker of the House and kill any elected officials who disagreed with their leader’s lie about a stolen election.
“We are witnessing the same warfare again with state Republican parties waging war against voting rights. It’s part of a plan to roll back the progress of moving toward a more perfect union — the fight to make the promise of true equality real for everyone in America.
“Our children deserve to learn this universal truth and American value: Equality is either for everyone or it will be for no one.”
Duh. Does anyone disagree with Brazile’s last point? Who would put it past a liberal to say something so ubiquitous as to get everyone nodding their heads in agreement? Yeah, Donna! You go girl! As you just mentioned (in her piece), those awful “murderous” Trump supporters invaded the capitol building because they didn’t want everyone to be equal! Therefore, let’s teach the 1619 project to the kids, lecture them it’s all about slavery and that America is and was a hateful place that survived up to this point only because it was fascist and un-equal!
I don’t want to get too far off topic, but was the Mayflower Compact about slavery as well? Did the Pilgrims crave to enslave Africans too, assuming that they’d ever seen one? If slavery truly influenced all of American history, then how did the western states that never had slavery survive?
If slavery were such a crucial element of the American psyche around the time of the nation’s founding, why were there so few defenders of the institution? It was against the law for owners in many states to manumit their slaves until the early 1780’s, so they were literally “stuck” with it regardless of their personal views.
Having been to Colonial Williamsburg hundreds of times and had extensive conversations with each of the interpreters who portray Virginia’s Founding Fathers (most notably George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, Patrick Henry, George Mason and George Wythe), none of them spoke in favor of perpetuating African bondage.
In case you think it’s just a modern case of whitey papering over ugly historic truths at a tourist attraction to soothe equally backwards “white supremacists”, everything that’s presented at Colonial Williamsburg must be grounded in fact and backed up by documentation and research. There’s no hiding in these circumstances.
Everyone knows, or should know, that Thomas Jefferson himself earnestly tried to incorporate a condemnation of the practice in the Declaration of Independence, but Benjamin Franklin (who abhorred slavery himself) removed it, fearing the Southern states wouldn’t sign the document if such blatant language were included. In that moment of crisis, unity was essential. Freedom and “equality” would have to wait.
Jefferson wrote that “all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.” We’ve argued over what is “equal” ever since. What about women? What about slaves? What about landless white farm help? What about Mexicans in Texas? Depending on the state, very few could actually cast a ballot in the early years of the United States. There was no such thing as political “equality” yet there was “equality” under the law in most circumstances.
The rest was resolved through two centuries of struggle, a massive civil war and later on, everyone learning to live with differences without requiring government to step in and legislate an “equality” mindset that is impossible to enforce. It’s only been recently that the government, propelled forward by people like Brazile and Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama and Joe Biden, sought ways to punish citizens for opinions, no matter how backwards or unattractive they might be.
It used to be that freedom of speech and opinion were valued over the “feelings” of those who felt they were being oppressed. Attempts to impose mandatory desegregation -- through school bussing and other means -- failed miserably. These days, the race-haters actually want the races segregated through separate graduation ceremonies, no-whites-allowed “safe spaces” and increasingly, through laws that convey privileges for certain races and genders over others (see Joe Biden’s COVID “relief” bill).
Is this the “equality” that Brazile says Republicans oppose?
Democrats attach “equality” to their efforts to promote false notions of “voter suppression” to gain political power. Survey after survey shows Americans of all races favor stringent Voter ID requirements, yet liberals persist with the “racism” charges against states that adopt them. Leftist America-haters then shakedown the stupid and uninformed leaders of major corporations and incomprehensible things happen, like moving baseball’s All-Star game from Georgia to Colorado, a place which has even fewer black people and more restrictive voter ID requirements.
In the end, it seems what Brazile and company are after is “equality of ignorance.” They think the more they scream “racism” and seek to attach the label to Republicans, the better off they’ll be politically. But common sense indicates at some point, reasonable people will wake up (get reverse woke?) and recognize what Democrats have been doing all along.
They’ll see that President Donald Trump was an effective leader despite some personal shortcomings. They’ll see that Joe Biden, Kamala Harris and the rest of the Democrat leaders are just a gaggle of race-pushers and liars who spread misinformation to achieve their personal aims. And that “equality” is only achieved when skin color is removed from the discourse.
Who wants equality? Do you really want to be equally as ignorant as Donna Brazile? Count me out.
Donna Brazile
Republicans
Woke culture
1619 Project
Democrats
Donald Trump
Declaration of Independence
Joe Biden
Kamala Harris
reverse racism