Red Skelton’s Pledge of Allegiance … Under God

Being the 4th of July, independence Day 2011, it would be good to be reminded of what comedian Red Skelton once said about the pledge.





Hat tip goes the www.TheLookingSpoon.com for posting this great reminder.

NBC-TV: Take this Pledge and Edit It



"... under God, indivisable ..."  or  "a nation gone under, invisible"?

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Hat tip goes to the Family Research Council (FRC) a Christian advocacy group which sponsored a effort to contract and to ostracize NBC-TV for their blatant bias against God and America’s Christian foundations. This was a shameful censor of the Pledge of Allegiance that occurred in their introduction to this past weekend’s coverage of the U.S. Open Golf Tournament held in Wasting-a-ton, D.C. Here are some comments by FRC President Tony Perkins regarding this affort against God:

There may be more outrage over NBC's Pledge video, but there don't seem to be more answers. Yesterday, a local television reporter tried calling the network for an interview about the missing "under God, indivisible." After a few attempts, he was referred to the "Contact NBC" email address. When he finally did reach the Vice President for Communications at NBC Sports, Chris McCloskey, he was referred to the network's statement. "Unfortunately, when producing the piece--which was intended to capitalize on the patriotism of having our national championship played in our nation's capital--a decision was made by a small group of people to edit portions of the Pledge of Allegiance."

The reporter pressed for more answers about this "small group" but got nowhere. And apart from the weak apology offered by NBC during the U.S. Open, no corrective action has been taken. Perhaps NBC should be forced to sit through its own sensitivity training and learn to respect the hundreds of years of patriotic tradition that Americans sacrificed their lives for. At the very least, we should call for the network to feature the Pledge--the whole Pledge--in the programming leading up to July 4. Join us by contacting NBC. To hear more on the topic, check out my interview on CNN's "John King USA" last night.

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Contact NBC and urge the network to air the entire, unedited Pledge of Allegiance

Here is a copy of the petition I signed and sent regarding this malicious “oversight”:

Dear NBC Official,


During last weekend's coverage of the U.S. Open, your NBC Sports network aired a special Pledge of Allegiance video in which the words "under God, indivisible" were removed. I am deeply offended that NBC would censor the Pledge of Allegiance to the flag that so many Americans have died to defend. A mere "apology" is not enough.


As you know, the airwaves belong to the public and NBC is granted permission to use those airwaves. Removing "under God" from one of the most widely viewed sports programs is a misuse of the public trust that you've been granted. You have continued to downplay the incident, refusing to take any corrective actions. This is unacceptable.


Please show that you support the Pledge of Allegiance by airing a daily public service announcement with the entire Pledge of Allegiance (only 31 words!). This will authenticate your apology and help ensure that neither NBC nor any other network will censor the Pledge of Allegiance again.


Sincerely,


gregjaye

Indivisibility?

(The above display of an upside-down American flag is not a sign of disrespect, but of dire distress.)

http://www.jeffhead.com/liberty/flagdistress.htM

I have one thing in common with Michael Newdow, the ACLU and the Americans United for the Separation of Church and State. I hate the Pledge of Allegiance. But the reason why I hate it is very different than their reasons. The reason why I am writing this now is that in one of the town hall meeting videos on this blog, Tim Bishop responded to a question about the unconstitutionality of government-run healthcare (this is because of the 10th amendment) by quoting the part of the Pledge about our nation being “indivisible”. (This mentally impaired hack took this to mean that if one American needs healthcare, all Americans should pay for it.) The Pledge is not in the Constitution and never should be. It is not at all like the Declaration of Independence, the Magna Carta, or the Federalist papers. And if we are really so "indivisible", then why are so many people so angry at their congressman these days?

The original Pledge was written by a Socialist named Francis Bellamy. He claimed to be a Christian, at least at first, but (according some sources) fell away from the church into a godless Socialism. The writing of the Pledge was just an assignment given to him by the magazine he worked for. The purpose was to boost sales. There was no “under God” in the original Pledge. The original accompanying salute to the flag (according to Wikipedia) “involved stretching the arm out towards the flag in a manner that resembled the later Nazi salute.” It had nothing to do with the founding of the Union of states or any of its laws. The Pledge was not written until 1892 and "under God" was not officially added until 1954.

Now let’s examine the text itself. The original wording was:

I pledge allegiance to my Flag and to* the Republic for which it stands, one nation indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

(* 'to' added in October 1892).

I have no problem with “liberty and justice for all”, but these words had, by that time, been distorted, and much as they are today, mean different things to different people. But how can a Christian pledge allegiance to an inanimate object? Is this not idolatry?

Certainly I believe that we should have some sense of pride and patriotism for our country (at least Bellamy acknowledged the correct form of government of our country unlike our modern politicians who say “democracy”), but to pledge allegiance to it under any and all circumstances is dangerous. What better way to precede the daily brainwashing of children in the public school system than to force them to pledge their allegiance to an Obama-controlled, fascist government? If Michelle Obama can say, “for the first time in my life I’m proud of my country”, then maybe we should start saying that we are NOT proud of our country. How is it that it is improper flag etiquette to put the Christian flag above the United States flag when they are flown on the same pole? Why is it that there used to be such a to-do about a Constitutional amendment to put people in jail for burning a U.S. flag, but no one suggested criminalizing the burning of a Bible? Where are our priorities?

The original pledge, having been written after the Civil War, uses the word “indivisible” in a way that is a direct attack on state’s rights. The Declaration of Independence says:

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

The institution of the Pledge into the schools may also have helped solidify blind loyalty to the United States in the Spanish-American War, which was a war in which we were the aggressor.

If you read the entire Declaration of Independence, you will see that many of the grievances which compelled the Founders to secede from British rule are the same grievances we have today (and most we had even before Obama’s alleged Presidency). We do have a right to secede, and as far as I’m concerned, the sooner the better. We need to stop believing in this idea that the United States must be preserved under any and all circumstances. That is idolatry. We are to put the Bible first. If secession is the only way to abolish this tyrannical system and to restore a republican form of government, that is what we should do. But like disobedient Israel, we may someday be ruled over by another nation and if it is God doing it to punish us, no amount of patriotism or "pulling together" is going to stop it.