Letter: Skipping pledge is not un-patriotic

Doesn’t anyone read their history anymore? Pledges of allegiance were invented by the tyrants of the world to justify killing those who spoke against the crown as traitors for violating that sworn oath to be faithful to the realm no matter what. Quakers and others have been killed and otherwise persecuted for refusing to swear any oath as an affront to their religious dedication to the truth and their human right to honor their God above any government.

Pledging and national anthems were created to intimidate citizens from expressing dissension from the assumed right of governments to violate the human rights of the citizenry. Here in the United States we have further developed that violation with the practice of convening mobs of the protectors of the status quo (crown) to boo, shame, and persecute dissent to the extent of a shameful suppression of the very freedom of speech so wisely written into the bill of rights as a guard against the persecution of expressing disapproval of de-facto and de-jure government sanction of human rights violations. This was what we formed a new nation to protect ourselves from. It was what we fought a Revolutionary War for.

Nobody is threatening sedition, here. Nobody is suborning outlawry. The only unpatriotic action going on is the will to give injury and humiliation for exercising the legal right to object to an injustice. That is wrong, it is un-American, and it is stupid.

Harold R. Pettus

Everett

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