In response to the story about Will Phillips, the 10 year-old Arkansas boy who refuses to recite the Pledge of Allegiance due the country’s woeful record on gay rights, Michael Lind argues that the very notion of a pledge of allegiance is counter to what America is supposed to be about. He traces the history of our pledge and describes it as a “toxic compound of collectivism, nativism, Spartan militarism and theocracy.”
Lind’s article suggests an interesting thought experiment. Imagine we have no Pledge of Allegiance (as we did not through our first century as a nation.) Barack Obama thinks one would be a good idea. So he proposes a pledge with the exact same language as the one we now have, under God and all, and asks the Nancy Pelosi-led House of Representatives and the Harry Reid-led Senate to adopt it as the official Pledge of Allegiance of the United States of America. How do you think Glenn Beck will react?
-AR
Is this one of them rhetorical questions?