How about, I pledge allegiance to the Constitution?

The Pledge of Allegiance has been held to be unconstitutional by a federal judge.  What this means in the bigger picture of constitutional law is an open question, right now.  Social conservative bloggers, like Michelle Malkin, are unhappy.

Hugh Hewitt, whom I regard as one of the smartest conservatives, sees this as an opportunity for Bush to nominate Judge Michael McConnell to replace Justice O'Connor on the Supreme Court.

First things first.  I am not an atheist.  I am not a killjoy, card-carrying member of the ACLU.  I don't even know or care whether this decision was correct.

I suppose that I am agnostic about it.  In other words, it is not an issue that particularly excites me.  And I do think that the ACLU busybodies who pushed for this ruling are not doing the civic fabric any particular good, because it touches on very emotional issues that for me are best resolved by popular consent rather than through the courts.

However, I have always been somewhat troubled by the importance that many social conservatives place on the Pledge.  I recall being irritated at Bush I's repeated call in one of his campaigns (don't remember if it was '88 or '92) for a constitutional amendment making the Pledge mandatory in all classrooms.  Actually worse than irritated: I thought that it was silly pandering on an issue that made no difference in the larger scheme of things.

I don't really buy Hugh's argument that this ruling would be equivalent to banning the Founding documents from the classroom.  The Pledge simply isn't in that category, and in any event the Pledge is of relatively recent vintage, and was written by a socialist as a way of expressing a need for a sense of commonality among all Americans  in the wake of the Civil War.  The words "under God" were added in 1954, an era which, unfortunately, witnessed some of the worst reactionary tendencies in this country.

As a civic ritual, the Pledge is of very marginal value.  Worse, it may do some harm because it tends to accentuate the value of symbolism over substance.  I have never believed that our military fights for "the flag," nor do I believe that the flag embodies the values of our Republic.  It is a symbol; one which stirs strong emotions in many, but just a symbol, nonetheless.

My experience in Eastern Europe was that the communists had been quite adept at using civic rituals to enable their citizens, especially the young, to wax poetic about the state by rote.  But this did nothing to instill civic virtue.  In fact, it had quite the opposite effect.  I often heard stories of young people mocking these rituals.  The state of civic morality in that region was and, to some extent, remains in a shambles.  An extreme example, but worth remembering.

It is of course correct to note that the Founders believed in Natural Law, that our rights were inherently endowed in us by the Creator.  The appeal of this is that it gives every citizen a connection to the Almighty that supercedes the rights of the Government, except in those areas where the Constitution specifically authorizes the Government to act.

But it seems that the Pledge turns this notion on its ear, somewhat.  The idea of "One Nation, under God," implies that we are all living in a collective sense under God's authority.  That is not a correct expression of the source of human rights as envisioned by the Founders.

As expressed by the Founders, a diagram of God's authority would look something like this:

God ---> Rights ---> Man ---> Consent ---> Limited Powers ---> Government.

The Pledge suggests:

God ---> Nation/Government ---> Liberty and Justice (i.e., "Rights") ---> Citizen/Man.

The latter suggests a collectivist structure that, one would hope, should be anathema to most conservatives (and I lump libertarians in with that group).

A  more useful investment of civic energy and resources would be spent on actually educating grade school kids about the Founding documents.  Not just the Declaration of Independence and Constitution (of which most high schools kids can barely recall the preamble), but also the Federalist Papers and preceding documents like the Magna Carta and so forth. 

A kid who can recite the Pledge, but who knows nothing of the meaning of our political and civic order, is a fairly useless citizen.  We've seen the results of this recently, with numerous persons, including supposedly educated journalists, who have no clue about the structure and purpose of our federalist system of government.  This has led to some ignorant and dangerously inflammatory rhetoric being tossed about.

So, my sense is that the Pledge is something that people have grown attached to out of an emotional sense of patriotism.  But  I am frankly uncertain as to what good it does for us as a nation, today.

UPDATE:  Welcome, readers from Captain's Quarters, a/k/a  The Playboy Mansion North!

Comments

[Darleen]

Your second diagram only works if you assume Nation = Government. However, as the yet another national moto observes, "e pluribus unum" -->"From Many One", Nation refers to the People. In essense, the Pledge has almost nothing to do with Government and everything to do with the rights of The People aka The Nation which dedicates itself to living as a Republic.

The Pledge is but a reitterance of Jefferson's appeal to an Authority from which inherent rights flow, rights of man that men cannot usurp.