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Indivisibly All

"I pledge allegiance to the flag. . . ."

I suppose I learned to say that, and what follows, almost eighty years ago, in school, although when I learned it, the phrase, "under god", had not yet been added.  That came about the time I finished college, during the Eisenhower administration after World War II, just to warn those damned communists that they ought not to be meddling in our elections.  Something like that.  It was during the era when communists were hiding under every bed.

The flag, as you know, is a powerful symbol of national pride.  We are a little short of pride at the moment, so patriotism has turned things around, and made the nation a powerful symbol of the flag.  It is the flag we love and protect!

"Did the President show up without a flag on his lapel?"  "Are there enough flags draped all over the convention hall?"  "Where are the flags for the victory lap around the stadium?"

Doesn't anyone else believe that footballs should have stars and stripes on them, just under the Wilson logo?

Doesn't anyone else believe that it is the nation that is what we pledge our allegiance to:  one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all?  The flag is a symbol; something that stands for something else.  In this case, the "something else" is the republic, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Unfortunately, we do not have liberty and justice for all.  There lies the dilemma.  We have never had liberty and justice for all.  What we had when the nation was founded was a pretty good place for white men.  Women were allowed to vote about 140 years later.  Well, things take time in a society in which the basic social unit is the family, and for a long time, the family has been a remarkably patriarchal place.  We are still working on that, so it is no surprise that the republic was pretty patriarchal, too.

And then there is that business of slavery.  And segregation.  "One nation, under god after the 1950s, indivisible, with liberty and justice for lots of people."

It is hard to say, "with liberty and justice for all", when there is not liberty and justice for all.  If you think there is liberty and justice for all, what was all that business about civil rights and Jim Crow and separate but equal all about?  Did we get it all out of our system after Martin Luther King was shot, after George Wallace got out of the schoolhouse doorway, after Brown vs. the Board of Education, after Harry Truman integrated the armed forces?

Of course not!  Those were just steps along the way.  There is more walking to do.

And if we cannot protest what is wrong with our republic, who is going to do that for us?  Football players, maybe?  Taking a knee for liberty and justice for all?  That'll be the day!  All football players are interested in is money and concussions!

It is not disrespecting the flag to drop to a knee when everybody else is saying "liberty and justice".  It is a reminder.  It is a reminder that the flag is a symbol of something we said we stood for:  liberty and justice for all.  Indivisibly all.














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