At the high school where I formerly taught for 15 years in Brooklyn, N.Y., the Pledge of Allegiance was not recited when I arrived there in 1997.  I was told that it had not been recited since 1966 because of the anti-Vietnam War protests.  At that time, students, faculty, and administration agreed, the USA was supporting a corrupt government in Vietnam to protect oil interests, to promote a phony anti-communist script, and to deny the Vietnamese people their true national identity – namely, a united nation under their national hero, Ho Chi Minh.  According to those antiwar activists, there was no sense in which we could be standing for "liberty and justice for all."

Now, since the 9/11 attack of 2001, the Pledge is recited on a daily basis, but students are allowed not to stand for it.  In 9th grade, most stand.  In 10th grade, about half stand.  By 11th grade, if two or three stand, a patriotic teacher may consider himself lucky.  However, most of the teachers do not stand and do not recite the Pledge.  And in 12th grade, none stands.  Thus, there is a clear correlation between academic progress in the high school and patriotic respect, or rather lack of same.

One of my communist colleagues said to me, "Standing and reciting the Pledge has nothing to do with love of country or patriotism.  It's just a gesture."  Is it not an expression of commitment to our country despite there being different levels of enthusiasm or "love" motivating the saying of that pledge?  I totally  disagree with that colleague on this matter, and although I would not call him a traitor for not supporting the saying of the Pledge, I do think his commitment to and gratitude for living in the land of the free and the home of the brave (he'd disagree with that phrase as well) are deficient.

The above phenomenon in the NYC public schools reveals the extent of leftist alienation from our national history, our national destiny, and our national responsibility.  The depth of leftist alienation from our national vision cannot be glossed over.  Every day, we see President Donald Trump dogmatically repudiated by the leftist media and the politicians of the left. 

The American public, which is far more aligned to the left than in the 1950s to the 1980s, sadly does not see the alienation from classic American ideals as even being a left-right issue.  Rather, those who identify with the unworthy Democratic Party often see the Democrats as merely trying to correct inequities in "the system."  The Democrats have successfully sold the view that they are more compassionate and concerned for the "downtrodden" than the Republicans.  They have successfully deceived too many people into not seeing that the Democrats are themselves – by denying God, the working man, individual liberty, the moral law, patriotism, the Christian roots of America, the right to life, and free markets – oppressing the very people they claim to be helping (women, gays, blacks, American Indians, trannies, etc.).  They do not realize and do not believe that the Democrats are now driven by a cultural Marxist and deep-seated ideological commitment to overthrow capitalism.  Democratic voters do not understand that the leaders of their party want to so control the U.S. wealth as to in effect collaborate with the titans of finance in a kind of syndicalist (fascist) venture in order to feather their own nests.  Their motives are impure, and their goals are unrealistic.  They do not love the United States of America, and citizens who do not love their country will destroy their country.

Let us consider the ways in which the repudiation of the Pledge is a repudiation of the USA.

1."... the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands ..."  Symbolism is more than mere signification.  Rather, there is a bond between the symbol and what it symbolizes.  The symbol is an expression of reality, not merely a verbal or pictorial representation.  "Don't Tread on Me" as an original flag captured the sense of the American colonial resistance to tyranny.  It did not mean we were snake-like, as in the Garden of Eden, but rather that, like snakes, we are a threat to whoever unjustly encroaches on our liberty.  The American flag is not a mere sign, but a symbol of our original unity in the thirteen colonies (stripes) that resisted the Crown and Parliament to forge a more perfect union, and that from the original, we have become 50 "stars" – namely, we have expanded into a unity with cosmic significance.  Powerful but humble original colonies have become a stellar expanse worth celebrating.

2."... one nation under God ..."  Here the unity of the original thirteen and the present fifty is highlighted.  We are one nation under one God.  Our dignity and strength are pointedly inscribed in our hearts and minds as we consider that our country does not exist in an existential vacuum.  Rather, despite the "fifty" separate state units, there is an integrity whereby we are bound together, not merely in some superficial political sense, but with a kind of manifest destiny whereby Almighty God has laid his hand upon our Christian forbears to create, sustain, and develop our country.  The Constitution is the political and legal foundation, but the unity of our country is providential as the Founding Fathers often repeated in their public statements.

3."... with liberty and justice for all."  This is not hypocritical self-justification by a gullible public, as the left would have us believe.  With scorn, leftists throw a seemingly endless litany of injustices into our faces, and mock our gullibility as we express thanksgiving for living in this great country.  Psalm 1 reminds every reader to "sit not in the seat of the scornful."  Yet the left, with the Democrats as their latest commie maidservants, heap scorn upon those who continue to see America as the fruit of that "city on the hill" that the Puritans envisaged when they settled here.

My own grandfather came here, landing in Baltimore, Md. with 25 cents in his pocket – and raised four children, all of whom became solid citizens.  My brother and I, both sons of a city bus-driver (blue-collar worker), earned degrees from Ivy League institutions and have made professional contributions.  Further, 600,000 citizens, mostly white, died to free our black American brothers and sisters from bondage.  I cannot wonder why more are not like Allan West, expressing gratitude for living in the USA.  Why cannot more say, like Joseph when confronted later in life by his conniving and cruel brothers, "You meant what you did [selling him into slavery] for evil, but God meant it for good."

To this writer, the Pledge is a precious expression of our national ideals and identity, and it should be recited and appreciated by every citizen.