This Week Inside the Beltway

On the off chance that some branch of the federal judiciary might find unconstitutional the reciting in public schools of a pledge that includes the words "under god" in a country who's constitutions makes no mention of god whatsoever and contains an amendment ensuring freedom from religion, The House of Representatives passed HR 2389, which says in part:

"... no court created by Act of Congress shall have any jurisdiction, and the Supreme Court shall have no appellate jurisdiction, to hear or decide any question pertaining to the interpretation of, or the validity under the Constitution of, the Pledge of Allegiance, as defined in section 4 of title 4, or its recitation."

Well isn't that nice. The patients running the asylum have decided, in their infinite lack of wisdom, to start carving up the U.S. Constitution, bit by bloody bit. It would be nice to blame the Republicans (221 Ayes, 8 Noes) entirely for this attempted rape of our founding legal document, but the Democrats bear a bit of the responsibility, as they certainly added to the insanity (39 Ayes, 158 Noes). The lone independent, Vermont Congressman Bernie Sanders, voted against the measure.

This whole pledge of allegiance has been one giant SNAFU since it began, and with each modification, it gets worse:

1. 1892 to 1923: "I pledge allegiance to my Flag and the Republic for which it stands: one Nation indivisible, with Liberty and Justice for all."
(As written by Baptist minister Francis Bellamy--a socialist, by the way--on September 7, 1892.)

2. 1923 to 1954: "I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands: one Nation indivisible, with Liberty and Justice for all."
(Defining exactly which flag was the subject of our pledge our allegiance was made because we wanted to make absolutely sure that newly arriving immigrants understood which flag it was. In other words, fear drove the change.)

3. 1954 to Present: "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."
(At the urging of the Catholic organization The Knights of Columbus, Congress added in the words "under God" because we were in the middle of a cold war with those godless communists.)

Note that as poetry, it became progressively worse with each change. Note how iteration 2 maintains a poetic meter completely missing in iteration 3, which sounds positively clunky by comparison. If you grew up reciting iteration 3, at first iteration 2 will sound awkward, but just listen for the rhythm.

Note also how with each change, the pledge becomes less inclusive. First we'll deal with those pesky immigrants, many of them economic refugees from other countries. Next, we'll give a figurative "bitch slap" to the nonbelievers among us. It's amazing how we institutionalize intolerance. As an aside, the author, Minister Bellamy, chose not to mention god for precisely the same reasons given by those who, like myself, argue against the appropriateness of those two words today.

One of the truly unfortunate side effects of electing so many lawyers to the U.S. Congress is that we Americans end up being represented by people who are well versed at twisting law well beyond any reasonable interpretation, have no qualms acting completely without morality, and are conditioned to not give creedence to opposing viewpoints. Letting lawyers make laws is a dangerous, dangerous thing.

By the way, if this actually becomes law and passes constitutional muster (highly unlikely, and really, really highly unlikely), then at some future point, if, for example, the Congress is overun with atheists and they are able to pass a law changing "under god" to read "godless and free from superstition" then this law will prohibit the federal judiciary from having jurisdiction on the matter. And that, my friends, is the perfect example why HR bill 2389 is excrement, pure and simple.