{"id":71648,"date":"2019-06-28T11:00:38","date_gmt":"2019-06-28T16:00:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=71648"},"modified":"2019-06-29T14:01:56","modified_gmt":"2019-06-29T19:01:56","slug":"all-the-wrong-reasons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=71648","title":{"rendered":"All The Wrong Reasons"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I’ll admit it. I’ve never much cared for the Pledge of Allegiance. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even when I was much younger, the idea of pledging allegiance to a government skeeved me out. Governments should get the loyalty they deserve. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Starting in my teens, when I was for any reason involved in saying the Pledge, I’d hold a clenched fist over my heart, by way of saying my allegiance had best not be betrayed – because my real allegiance is to freedom, to government of by and for a free association of equals, ruling by consent of the ruled – to the ideals, not the bureaucracy headquartered in DC with branches close to wherever you live. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the Saint Louis Park City Council, having solved all the west-suburban town’s other problems, has voted unanimously to stop reciting the Pledge before City Council meetings<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

And I’m not impressed with the rationale:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“In order to create a more welcoming environment to a diverse community, we are going to forgo saying the Pledge of Allegiance before every meeting,” said Council Member Tim Brausen. At the meeting, Brausen said members might recite it in the future if there’s an appropriate opportunity, like if Boy Scouts are there.  

<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Any parts of that “diverse community” that are uncomfortable with the fact that this is America should perhaps re-evaluate why they’re here. Stat. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’ll admit it. I’ve never much cared for the Pledge of Allegiance. Even when I was much younger, the idea of pledging allegiance to a government skeeved me out. Governments should get the loyalty they deserve. Starting in my teens, when I was for any reason involved in saying the Pledge, I’d hold a clenched […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[320,18,337],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-71648","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mndfl","category-pc","category-privilege"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71648","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=71648"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71648\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":71654,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71648\/revisions\/71654"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=71648"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=71648"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=71648"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}