· The Oath of Allegiance:
"I hereby declare, on oath,
that I absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty of whom or which I have heretofore been a subject or citizen;
that I will support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same;
that I will bear arms on behalf of the United States when required by the law;
that I will perform noncombatant service in the Armed Forces of the United States when required by the law;
that I will perform work of national importance under civilian direction when required by the law; and that I take this obligation freely without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; so help me God."
that I absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty of whom or which I have heretofore been a subject or citizen;
that I will support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same;
that I will bear arms on behalf of the United States when required by the law;
that I will perform noncombatant service in the Armed Forces of the United States when required by the law;
that I will perform work of national importance under civilian direction when required by the law; and that I take this obligation freely without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; so help me God."
One of my fondest memories surrounding a formal occasion is from the Naturalization Ceremony held at Monticello near Charlottesville, Virginia on July 4th, 1976. President Gerald R. Ford administered the “Oath of Allegiance” to nearly two dozen people who wished to be citizens of the United States of America. It was a thrill to witness an event so inspiring on the Second Centennial Anniversary of the “Declaration of Independence” at Thomas Jefferson’s home. Later that afternoon my little family and I stood curbside on a street in Charlottesville watching a parade which featured Queen Elizabeth as the honoree. It has been more than 35 years since that memorable day. My two children are adults with children of their own, but I continue to recall many aspects of that day. Pomp and ceremonies however are not enough to preserve the essence of a nation. The country those new citizens pledged to support and defend no longer exists.
The new citizens lived in various lands around the globe, but they knew about America. Perhaps a family member had preceded them to our land, or they watched and read the news for their impressions of our country. Maybe the rumors and gossip that floated through their villages, town and cities filled them with hope and a dream for freedom and opportunity. They found a way to come here. After several years of laboring and studying they took the test and swore the oath to bear true faith and allegiance to the United States of America.....their NEW country that they chose.
When they left their native lands, they stepped out on faith. They chose to pursue freedom and opportunity. They tore up their roots and followed their dreams for liberty. A few years after that 1976 ceremony President Reagan described America as a “shining city on a hill.” He described a place where the glowing embers of liberty could be nourished to become the fires of freedom. It is so different now. The government that the Constitution of the United States brought forth has become a dangerous threat to our liberty and an enemy of our personal prosperity. The shining hill described by President Reagan has been perverted and converted to a new Mount Olympus for the political elites and their favored friends.
In theological circles when someone distorts the faith, we call it heresy. When self-serving career politicians, their corporatist sycophants, and statist fellow travelers twist their oaths of office and their constitutional obligations to their own benefit and power, we must call that treason and corruption. Neither God Almighty nor the Constitution of the United States invests them with the power or the authority to micro-manage my life....or yours.
The elitists who believe that they know more than we do about how our lives should be lived are corrupt and flat out wrong. Our liberty has been submerged beneath a tide of too-big government, and our freedom is drowning in a sea of regulation and legislation. Because of their oppressive meddling, our nation is at the brink of collapse. Because of their insistence that they know best, we are struggling to survive. Because of their cupidity and our stupidity, we may have squandered our chance for that shining city on the hill.
Thirty-five years ago a young man, his young wife, their six-year-old daughter and their infant son observed a monarch from a nation from which our country declared its independence two hundred years earlier. The majesty and power of her throne and her country has dwindled over the centuries to become little more than a memory. I pray that my children and grandchildren can someday stand on a curbside in an American city and witness the formerly powerful symbols of those who have stolen the dream. Maybe I should say....those who have mortgaged the dream. The faith and hope of those new citizens from 1976 must be restored again. The shining city on the hill must glow again. Liberty and freedom must rule again.
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"It was only under our Institutions as they are, that they were developed. Their development is the result of the enterprise of our people under operations of the government and institutions under which we have lived. Even our people, without these, never would have done it. The organization of society has much to do with the development of the natural resources of any country or any land. The Institutions of a people, political and moral, are the matrix in which the germ of their organic structure quickens into life, takes root, and develops in form, nature, and character. Our institutions constitute the basis, the matrix from which spring all our characteristics of development and greatness. Look at Greece: There is the same fertile soil, the same blue sky, the same inlets and harbors, the same Aegean, the same Olympus-- there is the same land where Homer sung, where Pericles spoke -- it is, in nature, the same old Greece; but it is 'living Greece no more.'
ReplyDeleteDescendants of the same people inhabit the country; yet what is the reason of this mighty difference? In the midst of present degradation we see the glorious fragments of ancient works of art-- temples with ornaments and inscriptions that excite wonder and admiration, the remains of a once high order of civilization, which have outlived the language they spoke. Upon them all, Ichabod is written -- their glory has departed. Why is this so? I answer this, their institutions have been destroyed. These were the fruits of their form of government, the matrix from which their grand development sprung; and when once the institutions of our people shall have been destroyed, there is no earthly power that can bring back the Promethean spark to kindle them here again, any more than in that ancient land of eloquence, poetry and song."
-- Alexander H. Stephens, speech to the Georgia convention in favor of remaining in the Union, November 14, 1860.
This is History's immutable Law of Empires -- once the Institutions that built a nation are destroyed, the nation itself is destroyed. Ohio might find freedom as a Republic; but I'm afraid the days of the United States of America are numbered.