A Requiem for the Pledge

"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."

In the aftermath of the Bush Administration I propose the following alteration:

"I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Empire for which it stands, one kingdom under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for those who submit to the infringements on privacy and acquiesce to undeclared foreign wars."

In advance of the Obama Administration, I propose one further amended version:

"I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United Brotherhood of America, and to the Empire in decline for which it stands, one communal entity under a central state, with liberty for none and economic justice for the unproductive."

Perhaps I'm exaggerating a bit. But I'm not, really.

People can achieve self-actualization not through the accumulation of wealth, not through the achievement of status, not by earning a living wage, not by having health coverage, but by the unending pursuit of their Personal Legends. People can only pursue their personal legends when unhindered by force and unhindered by fraud. Government should exist to prevent these evils, not be a perpetrator of them. Yet every day federal agencies in the executive branch are perpetrators of force and our Central Bank is a perpetrator of fraud.

Through taxes, excessive regulation, and with the looming prospect of an Obama presidency, even more taxes and regulations are ahead, the Government limits and inhibits the American Dream every day by confiscating people's productivity to finance a bloated federal bureaucracy and massive transfer payments to our retirees. The Bush administration has further enhanced federal power by demagoguing the War on Terror to pass such blows to freedom as the Patriot Act. We have, wholesale, tossed privacy rights out the window--and with a Socialist about to become President, that loss of privacy will be transformed into a further loss of property.

On the fraud side, the Federal Reserve cranks up the electronic printing presses every day and gigs the American people with the hidden tax of inflation. With our banking sector teetering on the edge of a precipitous collapse, we are told that everything is OK--the Fed will save us. But they will only provide the illusion of salvation. All the while we wonder why milk is so expensive, and why the dollar is at record lows against foreign currencies.

This of course is not the only fraud perpetrated by the federal government. For one, nobody wants to talk about (much less deal with) the complete insolvency of Medicare and Social Security, which we are promised will be there (even though the facts clearly do not support such assertions). We were defrauded about Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq. We have been defrauded about the threats of so-called man-caused "Global Warming" while being asked to "invest" in green energy (like ethanol, which is starving the Third World and sucking our water reservoirs dry).

The government wants to pacify us by writing us all checks. Like the Soviet Union pacified its oppressed population with new washing machines and nylons, the American government seems to be so divorced from an honest ethic that whatever it takes to make people think they are helping is all that really needs to be done. Dealing with our problems, after all, requires a message that isn't nearly as happy or optimistic as Obama's hope-change-future triage. And who wants to be told that we have to cut back or face fiscal destruction?

In Rudyard Kipling's poem "The Gods of the Copybook Headings," the "Gods of the Marketplace" represent what is popular, where the Gods of the Copybook Headings represent wisdom and reality. I quote this poem frequently. It is by far the most wisdom-filled piece of verse I have ever read. I know it by heart. Here is the poem. It sums up my case against Obama and the rest of the status quo in the US government (which by the way, he is just more of the same). I will keep quoting it over and over until things change or it is too late:

As I pass through my incarnations, in every age and race,
I make my proper prostrations to the Gods of the Marketplace.
Peering through reverent fingers, I watch them flourish and fall,
But the Gods of the Copybook Headings, I notice outlast them all.

We were living in trees when they met us, and they showed us each in turn,
That water would certainly wet us, and fire would certainly burn.
But we found them lacking in uplift, vision and breadth of mind,
So we left them to teach the gorillas and we followed the march of Mankind.

We moved as the spirit listed, they never altered their pace,
Being neither cloud nor wind-borne like the Gods of the Marketplace.
But they aways caught up with our progress, and presently word would come,
That a tribe had been wiped off its icefield, or the lights had gone out in Rome.

With the hopes that our world was built on, they were utterly out of touch:
They denied that the moon was Stilton; they denied she was even Dutch.
They denied that wishes were horses, they denied that pigs had wings,
So we followed the Gods of the Market who promised these wonderful things.

When the Cambrian Measures were forming, we were promised perpetual peace,
They swore if we gave up our weapons, that the wars of the tribes would cease.
But when we disarmed they sold us, and delivered us bound to our foe,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings, said "stick to the devil you know."

In the first Feminian Sandstones, we were promised the fuller life,
Which started by loving our neighbor, and ended by loving his wife,
Til our women had no more children, and the men lost reason and faith,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said "The wages of sin is death."

In the Carboniferous Epoch, we were promised abundance for all,
By robbing selective Peter to pay for collective Paul.
And though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said "if you don't work, you'll die."

Then the Gods of the Market tumbled, and their smooth-tongued wizards withdrew,
And the hearts of the meanest were humbled, and began to believe it was true,
That all is not gold that glitters, and two and two make four,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings limped up to explain it once more:

As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of man,
There are only four things certain since social progress began:
That the dog returns to his vomit, and the sow returns to her mire,
And the burnt fool's bandaged finger goes wobbling back to the fire.

And as soon as this is accomplished and the brave new world begins,
When all men are paid for existing, and no man must pay for his sins;
As surely as water will wet us, as surely as fire will burn,
The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return.