Topic: History
In God We Bust! A satirical essay about the results of adding "under God" to the Pledge of Allegiance.by David F. Nolan
(libertarian)
Thursday, August 6, 2009
In God We Bust!
The following essay is satirical; it illustrates how one can mix isolated facts, speculation and outright fabrication to "prove" a point. And while the thesis presented here is clearly ludicrous, it is no more so than its opposite.
I recently read an assertion by a libertarian semi-celebrity that the reason the United States is such a great country is that we believe in God. It's not our legal system, or our (formerly) free-market economic system, or the creativity and hard work of the American People. No. We are so much better off than everyone else on the planet because we love God, and pray to him constantly.
That's an interesting idea, but if devotion to God is the key to Earthly blessings, then you'd think that, say, Afghanistan would be just the peachiest place ever. After all the Taliban is nothing if not God-loving, God-fearing, and generally marinated in Godliness. As is the rest of the kindly, peace-loving Muslim World.
And don't forget Spain back in the days of the Spanish Inquisition. Now that was a great place and time, for sure. A veritable Heaven on Earth.
After pondering on this dilemma for a bit, I came up with a better theory. At least I think it's better, and I hope you will too. Here it is.
As Jack Nicholson (or maybe Dennis Hopper or Peter Fonda) said in Easy Rider, "This used to be a helluva good country." Note the past tense. And that movie was made in 1969.
So what happened? Where did we go wrong? I'll tell you where we went wrong: in 1954 Congress added the words "under God" to the Pledge of Allegiance. They did this because President "Ike" Eisenhower asked them to. And as Robert Welch proved conclusively in The Politician, "Ike" was an agent for the Commies or at the very least a Commie dupe.
Before those words were added to the P of A, America was riding high. We had whupped the Nazis' asses, we had H-bombs (and the Soviets didn't) and we were, figuratively speaking, the King of the World. The Big Dog on the Block. Cars rolling off assembly lines like never before. Cars with V-8 engines and Big Fins. Two chickens in every pot, maybe three.
Then those dumb-ass Congressmen had to go put "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance and in 1956 declared "In God We Trust" to be our National Motto ... and everything went to Hell. The very next year media darling Charles Van Doren confessed to cheating on a major TV Quiz Show. The Russians launched Sputnik, before we could get a satellite of our own into space, and all we had to counter it with was the Edsel. Humiliation City!
Then an American spy plane got shot down over Russia. Things were really looking bleak. So what did those ninnies in Congress do? They removed the promise to redeem our paper money in silver from our currency and added the words "In God We Trust." Nice going, guys; our money has lost 87% of its purchasing power since 1954 when all this obsession with God began!
After that, it just kept getting worse. We had black people and white people spitting at each other in Alabama. Our President was assassinated. The Russkies beat us to the Moon by 13 days. We were then subjected to Afros, bell-bottoms and disco.
And look where we are now. In a big economic depression. Any day now, Obama and his lackeys are going to destroy our healthcare and inoculate us all with the Krippen Virus. And it's all because Congress added those two words to the Pledge of Allegiance in 1954.
I think we need a new Pledge.
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The views expressed in this
article are those of David F. Nolan only and do not represent
the views of Nolan Chart, LLC or its affiliates. David F. Nolan is
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employee or otherwise affiliated with Nolan Chart, LLC in his/her role as a columnist.
Well I see your article is satirical but I'd like to add a serious comment. As I understand it, Eisenhower had written two press releases prior to D-day. Thankfully the one he gave to the press declared the invasion to be a success. Also thankfully he did not have to give the other, which declared the invasion to be a failure. In that one he took the blame for the failure and gave our soldiers credit for their heroic efforts. The point is that Eisenhower didn't know how D-day would turn out. He literally had the future of the planet resting on his shoulders. Now if you were in his shoes on D-day and if you were a religious man what would you have been doing? My guess is that you would have been praying like crazy. I'd bet that's what he did too. Happily his prayer was answered. So maybe Eisenhower felt that adding the words "under God" to the pledge was in some small way a thank you.
BTW After the American Revolution when George Washington reflected on the improbability of winning the war against the Brits he seemed to conclude that there was divine intervention.
Well maybe it's like they say; "There aren't any atheists in fox holes."
The original pledge was written in 1892 by socialist minister Francis Bellamy and featured a Nazi-style salute! The hand-over-the heart gesture replaced the salute due to the similarity to the Nazi one. Interestingly, Bellamy didn't like his pledge being changed to include "Under God"!
Perhaps even more damning than "under God" is the phrase "one nation" - which was an unknown concept to most Americans until Lincoln facilitated the loss of the American Revolution of 1861.
Great article, David. You know me, and I think you know that I'm a "believer." I don't say religious, because i'm just not very religious, but I do have a christian belief system.
I am not alone when I say that WAR's statement is completely bogus. In fact, putting "under God" into the pledge is idolatry, and tantamount to committing the sin of "taking the lord's name in vain." Saying "God damn" isn't. Saying that this nation is "under God" (when referencing the Christian God, specifically) is. In fact, the argument could be made that we have been 'punished' precisely for the fact that we superimpose God on our murderous, thieving government.
This 'nation' is not under God. Nor should we be indivisible.
Ummmm...Dan M.....Bellamy died in 1931, so did he come back from the dead in 1954 to object?? Now his granddaughter has said he would have objected to it much the same as he did in 1924 when at the National Flag Conference the words "my flag" was changed to "the flag of the United States of America".
Anyway, this is a subject of great interest to me over the past few years. You see, I'm down here in the "promise land" of Georgia and they love them some religion down here. Anyone who has ever attended a GOP event down here can tell ya it's much like bein' in a catholic mass, up and down, pray and pledge, up and down....oh the irony of the protestants!
But truthfully, the pledge grows more and more as a sign of the ignorance of the American people, in my opinion. For me, being surrounded by a church or every corner rather than a Starbucks, it represents everything that is wrong with religion and government. First, you have to realize that the pledge to the flag in and of itself is a violation of the christians 10 commandments..."you shall have no other god before me"....yet they pledge to a flag...IN his name, "you shall not make wrongful use of the name of thy lord your god". And this is done all of the time....over, and over, and over again at GOP events down here like life itself depends on it. And then you analize what you are really sayin' in the pledge and it's no wonder why we are in the situation we are in....it is really sad.
Anyway, I liked your article, David, serious or not. Truthfully, I think you should have gone a little further back...I agree with your "thesis" but I use 1864 when "in god we trust" was added to a 2-cent piece for the first time. After that, the hideous notion of "one nation....indivisible" was born...not sayin' the south should have won, but definitely sayin' that a new mentality of statism took hold and has squeezed this country from "these united STATES" into "one nation" like a boa constrictor.
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