Atheist parents and students wanted the Pledge of Allegiance banned in schools in Massachusetts because it contains the phrase "under God," but the state's highest court has ruled that reciting it does not violate the commonwealth's constitution or laws.
"We hold that the recitation of the pledge, which is entirely voluntary, violates neither the Constitution nor the statute [which prohibits discrimination in Massachusetts public school education] ...," the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court said Friday in Doe v. Acton-Boxborough Regional School District.
"Simply being offended by something does not make it a violation of the Massachusetts Constitution," said Senior Legal Counsel Jeremy Tedesco of Alliance Defending Freedom. "As we argued in our brief and as the Supreme Judicial Court found, the recitation is completely voluntary, and listening to the words 'under God' does not violate anyone's constitutional freedoms."I agree that the term "under God" may not be unconstitutional per se, and neither does a mere inclusion of the phrase into the pledge violate any First Amendment restrictions on the government. However, I am of the personal conviction that the Pledge of Allegiance should not be recited and should be scrapped as a whole, as it is a statist pledge that argues for pledging allegiance to a flag that represents a bloated State, and the "under God" phrase doesn't help that much either. Laurence Vance says of that phrase:
...just because the phrase “under God” in the Pledge doesn’t violate the Constitution doesn’t mean that it belongs in the Pledge or, more importantly, that Christians should recite the Pledge.
One reason why Christians should not recite the Pledge is a simple one, and one that has nothing to do with patriotism or religion.
The United States is not a nation “under God.”
Only a madman would say that the United States is a nation “under God.”
Oh, but the Pledge is just some words, some say, the reciting of which doesn’t really mean anything.
Then why say it? If the Pledge is just some words that don’t really mean anything, then it makes more sense not to say it than to say it.
The Pledge doesn’t say that the United States used to be one nation under God. It doesn’t say that the United States should be one nation under God. It says that the United States is one nation under God.
That is a lie.
Christians are not supposed to lie:
Lie not one to another, seeing that ye have put off the old man with his deeds (Colossians 3:9)
Wherefore putting away lying, speak every man truth with his neighbour: for we are members one of another (Ephesians 4:25)
Thou shalt not bear false witness (Romans 13:9)
Is it unpatriotic to not say the Pledge? It may be. But it is certainly right, Christian, and biblical not to.And not only that, the Pledge can be said to be un-American as well. As Benedict D. LaRosa points out:
To Americans of the late 19th century, “allegiance” was a feudal concept denoting subservience to a master. Americans considered themselves sovereigns, not subjects. They feared that the natural supremacy of the individual over his government, as reflected by the Declaration of Independence and guaranteed in the constitutions of the United States and of the several states, might eventually be overturned by the ideas expressed in the Pledge. They, unlike so many Americans today, understood that those who exercise the instruments of government – public servants – feel more comfortable ruling than serving.
The Pledge’s words also smacked of nationalism, which Americans of that period considered, well, un-American. Their objection to nationalism seems strange today, but to Americans of 1892 it was a dangerous concept.
Although [the Americans] saw themselves as separate and distinct from foreign peoples and powers, internally they considered themselves a collection of independent states united by a compact called the Constitution of the United States. “One nation” implied that the states were merely subdivisions of a national government, which Americans of that era knew was not the case. Pledging allegiance to one nation, they knew, would undermine the concept of federalism and threaten constitutional government.
Their suspicions were justified, for the intent of the Pledge’s author, a socialist named Francis Bellamy, was to support the secular education of the public-school system and efforts by the National Education Association (NEA) to counter the growing influence – especially among immigrants – of the Catholic Church’s parochial schools. Bellamy and the NEA felt that inculcating a sense of nationalism into America’s children would serve their purposes.
Great perspective here and keep up the great work!
: Another sound defense of Mr. Rockwell, Anand. The main group of people he (and many other LRC and Mises associates) seems to have a grudge against are beltway "libertarians" who are generally weak on the anti-war issue (and plenty of other key issues) and all too willing to compromise with politicians on this or that. These same "libertarians" have no problem attacking "purists," but when they are on the receiving end of criticism, you'll hear plenty of whining.3. Aaron Catlin Styles on the same article:
: The "adding to libertarianism" crowd is making a fatal mistake. They are under the delusion that this tactic will draw in "new blood" to the liberty movement. In reality they will push more away since the ideas/philosophies they wish to add are the same flawed ideas and philosophies that drove most of us to libertarianism in the first place. Libertarianism finds it strength in its very basic, widely acceptable, core principles. Lew Rockwell knows this is the case and that is why he is such a integral part of our community. You have defended him wonderfully. Keep up the great work, Anand!
I've noticed a general tendency here. When the right is in control, the left looks better to libertarians. When the left is in control, the right looks better. We are all generally drawn to the merits of the people who are not in power! So it is hardly surprising to see a rise of "left libertarians" in a time when the chief threat to liberty comes from the right, that is, from the red-state fascists who celebrate militarism and see no downside to every form of human-rights violation. Right now, it seems as if most of the intelligent non-libertarians are on the left. I would only caution that the left is beset with as many problems as the right. They want freedom without markets, peace without free trade, civil liberties without property rights. This can't work.
Lew strives to present a diverse daily selection of interesting articles from our writers and other sites, but he does not necessarily endorse every view expressed. He does, however, believe that each piece will repay your reading.
Revisionism is an historical discipline made necessary by the fact that all States are governed by a ruling class that is a minority of the population, and which subsists as a parasitic and exploitative burden upon the rest of society. Since its rule is exploitative and parasitic, the State must purchase the alliance of a group of "Court Intellectuals," whose task is to bamboozle the public into accepting and celebrating the rule of its particular State. The Court Intellectuals have their work cut out for them. In exchange for their continuing work of apologetics and bamboozlement, the Court Intellectuals win their place as junior partners in the power, prestige, and loot extracted by the State apparatus from the deluded public.
The noble task of Revisionism is to de-bamboozle: to penetrate the fog of lies and deception of the State and its Court Intellectuals, and to present to the public the true history of the motivation, the nature, and the consequences of State activity. By working past the fog of State deception to penetrate to the truth, to the reality behind the false appearances, the Revisionist works to delegitimate, to desanctify, the State in the eyes of the previously deceived public. By doing so, the Revisionist, even if he is not a libertarian personally, performs a vitally important libertarian service.Thus, revisionism is actually far more noble than its detractors, libertarian or otherwise, would like to believe. And Lew Rockwell's resources—Mises.org, LewRockwell.com, and the other stuff—do that brilliantly. They shine light and promote liberty, and they do a fine job at that.
During the Reformation, however, Nicholas fell out of favor with Protestants, who did not approve of canonizing certain people as saints and venerating them with holidays. His holiday was not celebrated in any Protestant country except Holland, where his legend as Sinterklass lived on. In Germany, Martin Luther replaced him with the Christ child as the object of holiday celebration, or, in German, Christkindl. Over time, the celebration of the Christ child was simply pronounced Kris Kringle and oddly became just another name for Santa Claus.
It’s no mystery, really: Ron Paul is, in many ways, the exact opposite of the Beltway fake-“libertarians.” He’s a populist: they suck up to power, he challenges the powers-that-be; they go along to get along – he has never gone along with the conventional wisdom as defined by the arbiters of political correctness, Left and Right. And most of all, he’s an avowed enemy of the neoconservatives, whom he constantly names as the main danger to peace and liberty – while the Beltway’s tame “libertarians” are in bed with them, often literally as well as figuratively.
Mentioned in Weigel and Sanchez’s piece was another libertarian giant, Murray Rothbard, who was mostly an advocate of what is known as “anarcho-capitalism.” This is what libertarians are typically branded with by those on the right and left, that we want to create a world where there is no government, where everything is handled by private companies (including courts, fire departments, police, highways, you name it, it’s private.) While I feel that anarcho-capitalism does get a bum rap, most libertarians do not espouse this position. Most of us instead believe a minimal government is ideal, even some of us (myself included) may be “philosophical anarchists,” that it would be nice to have anarchy, that it would be a great ideal, but it’s just that—an ideal, something that will not work in the real world.
Certainly the most ambitious attempt to impose limits on the State has been the Bill of Rights and other restrictive parts of the American Constitution, in which written limits on government became the fundamental law to be interpreted by a judiciary supposedly independent of the other branches of government. All Americans are familiar with the process by which the construction of limits in the Constitution has been inexorably broadened over the last century. But few have been as keen as Professor Charles Black to see that the State has, in the process, largely transformed judicial review itself from a limiting device to yet another instrument for furnishing ideological legitimacy to the government's actions. For if a judicial decree of "unconstitutional" is a mighty check to government power, an implicit or explicit verdict of "constitutional" is a mighty weapon for fostering public acceptance of ever-greater government power.
Libertarianism is concerned with the use of violence in society. That is all. It is not anything else. It is not feminism. It is not egalitarianism (except in a functional sense: everyone equally lacks the authority to aggress against anyone else). It has nothing to say about aesthetics. It has nothing to say about religion or race or nationality or sexual orientation. It has nothing to do with left-wing campaigns against “white privilege,” unless that privilege is state-supplied.
Let me repeat: the only “privilege” that matters to a libertarian qua libertarian is the kind that comes from the barrel of the state’s gun. Disagree with this statement if you like, but in that case you will have to substitute some word other than libertarian to describe your philosophy.
Libertarians are of course free to concern themselves with issues like feminism and egalitarianism. But their interest in those issues has nothing to do with, and is not required by or a necessary feature of, their libertarianism. Accordingly, they may not impose these preferences on other libertarians, or portray themselves as fuller, more consistent, or more complete libertarians. We have seen enough of our words twisted and appropriated by others. We do not mean to let them have libertarian.
The trouble is that by attempting to redefine a narrow political philosophy to encompass all things that we like and think are nice – like non-discrimination, like treating people as ends rather than means – we dilute its power and simplicity. We destroy what makes it great. Once we proceed down the road of declaring everything we think is good to be “libertarian,” we will quickly find that libertarianism suddenly has no meaning at all.
At first, of course, it is startling for someone to consider taxation as robbery, and therefore government as a band of robbers. But anyone who persists in thinking of taxation as in some sense a "voluntary" payment can see what happens if he chooses not to pay. The great economist Joseph Schumpeter, himself by no means a libertarian, wrote that "the state has been living on a revenue which was being produced in the private sphere for private purposes and had to be deflected from these purposes by political force. The theory which construes taxes on the analogy of club dues or of the purchase of the services of, say, a doctor only proves how far removed this part of the social sciences is from scientific habits of mind."4 The eminent Viennese "legal positivist" Hans Kelsen attempted...to establish a political theory and justification of the State, on a strictly "scientific" and value-free basis. What happened is that early in the book, he came to the crucial sticking-point, the pons asinorum of political philosophy: What distinguishes the edicts of the State from the commands of a bandit gang? Kelsen's answer was simply to say that the decrees of the State are "valid," and to proceed happily from there, without bothering to define or explain this concept of "validity." Indeed, it would be a useful exercise for nonlibertarians to ponder this question: How can you define taxation in a way which makes it different from robbery?
The necessary result, then, of the unequal fiscal action of the government is to divide the community into two great classes: one consisting of those who, in reality, pay the taxes and, of course, bear exclusively the burden of supporting the government; and the other, of those who are the recipients of their proceeds through disbursements, and who are, in fact, supported by the government; or, in fewer words, to divide it into tax-payers and tax-consumers.
But the effect of this is to place them in antagonistic relations in reference to the fiscal action of the government — and the entire course of policy therewith connected. For the greater the taxes and disbursements, the greater the gain of the one and the loss of the other, and vice versa . . . . The effect, then, of every increase is to enrich and strengthen the one, and impoverish and weaken the other.
Beyond the realm of goods and services, the State has stolen the messianic mindset. For in its massive taxation of the people, what has the State really claimed, but that it is the ultimate owner of whatever revenue the individual makes for himself? This soon becomes a knowledge issue. By its decrees and by its own calculation, the State assumes the ability to determine exactly how much money an individual “needs” and how much is good for him. And when by licensing and certifying business to provide services for each other, the State has set up itself as Society’s sovereign institution, making it plain that, by only the grace of itself can the economy operate.
The origination of the State is in conquest. Whereas many Statists will attempt to show that the State is a grassroots or “bottom-up” phenomenon (an interesting claim, as those who today write the political narrative generally despise “bottom-up” approaches), the so-called “Austro-libertarian” theory is that the State forces itself onto the people it claims to “represent.” There is interests of wealth, money, and economics on one hand, and also a general disposition to be in charge and to rule over others. The State, therefore, is alien to the people, its victims.
They believe that the origination of the State is to be found in God’s ordination. God ordains the existence of the State. Therefore, it is a reality because He seeks to accomplish some aim by means of this State. Try to stay with me here. Many Christians will then say: “Therefore, the State is good.” But that is absurd. Doesn’t God ordain evil? Why would we ever take the position of: “God ordained the existence of Satan, therefore Satan’s existence is good”? That is not a Biblical logic. More importantly, consider Acts 2:23: “this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men.” The gravity of understanding that the death of Jesus Christ was planned, ordained, from eternity past should be emphasized. Is not the murder of the God-man Christ Jesus the most horrific crime in all of history? Is there any better way of demonstrating the depravity of mankind? And yet, it was ordained by God Himself. Yes, God ordains evil. God ordains all things. So the assumption that the State is good because it was ordained by God is a poor assumption if that is the only reason given.
(This is, of course, setting aside the discussion of the goodness of some agency, perhaps on the free market, which plays the role of “punisher,” or “government.” And I assume that by now the reader is familiar with the distinction that I find useful of separating the State as a monopoly institution and the government as a role in civil society. One can be provided on the free market and the other requires the initiation of force. Whether or not the State should be accepted as a civil good is a different conversation, but I do want to point out the coercive nature that is core to its character.)
...the idea that the procedure of the "democratic" State is any less criminal than that of the State under any other fancy name, is rubbish. The country is now being surfeited with journalistic garbage about our great sister democracy, England, its fine democratic government, its vast beneficent gift for ruling subject peoples, and so on; but does anyone ever look up the criminal record of the British State? The bombardment of Copenhagen; the Boer War; the Sepoy Rebellion; the starvation of Germans by the post-Armistice blockade; the massacre of natives in India, Afghanistan, Jamaica; the employment of Hessians to kill off American colonists. What is the difference, moral or actual, between Kitchener's democratic concentration camps and the totalitarian concentration camps maintained by Herr Hitler? The totalitarian general Badoglio is a pretty hard-boiled brother, if you like, but how about the democratic general O'Dwyer and Governor Eyre? Any of the three stands up pretty well beside our own democratic virtuoso, Hell Roaring Jake Smith, in his treatment of the Filipinos; and you can't say fairer than that.
