In my culture, once a year or so, you had to pledge your fealty to your laird. It was a military contract. You promised your military service to a lord, who in turn promised his military service to the king. In return, you got a piece of land. People came attached to the land, and you had the right to tax them as your liege had the right to tax you, and the king taxed him. That’s how the system worked.
If you didn’t do it, you might lose your land and its income. In my clan, you’d probably lose your hand or your head. We were terribly gentle people. Your sword was the symbol of power here. Our swords were longer and thicker than just about everybody, but it hid the fact that our steel wasn’t as good as the Romans or the English. There’s an awful lot of twisted and broken claymores in museums. In “The Lord of the Rings,” Narsil is a great sword that is broken in battle. “It must have been Scottish,” I used to laugh to myself.
This system worked pretty well until some guys started going to Jerusalem, where they pledged their swords to God instead of a laird or a king. This was encouraged at first because everybody hated the Saracens, but eventually, people started to notice that this represented a pretty serious political breakdown, and since the governmental economy was based on fielty, it was a pretty serious financial problem as well.
The French were the first to decide that these Templar guys had to go. They broke them down in the time-honored tradition of taking them to court (literally a king’s court here), where they accused them of satanism and homosexuality. The Templars were broken up, and their assets were taken. A thousand, thousand myths about them began as well.
I belong to two organizations that claim ancient and legitimate ties to the Templar Knights. I’ve been waiting for the satanism and homosexuality part of the gig, but so far, it’s just been a lot of talk and beer. It’s a good thing we probably aren’t really Templars. We’d be excommunicated, for one thing, and we’d owe a bunch of taxes.
All over America, we have ordinances and laws requiring schools to have children recite the “Pledge of Allegiance” every day. We tend to do it because our grandparents did it, and our grandparents did it because there was an awful lot of jingoism involved in going to war in Europe twice and then Asia three times.
It’s a military contract, very similar to the ones my ancestors took, only there’s no mention of swords and you’re pledging fielty to “the republic” rather than to a lord, but everything else remains the same.
School in America starts at age six. At age six, you start taking the “pledge of allegiance” as a matter of law in many places. A lot of American six-year-olds believe in Santa. If you ask them what they want to be when they grow up, a fairly large number will say “Jedi” or “Avenger.”
A contract with a six-year-old will get you laughed out of court, and yet it’s required all over the country. It’s one of those situations where our right hand doesn’t know what the hell the left hand is doing and doesn’t care.
We’re very concerned about making six-year-olds “good Americans.” The quality that makes up a “good American,” we tell them, is allegiance to a flag and not that much else. Questions about equality and morality are often left up to the parents.
I hear an awful lot about how teachers are indoctrinating our children and how terrible that is. I actually agree with that one. Requiring teachers to have their students recite a “pledge of allegiance” and then post copies of the “Ten Commandments” in the classroom absolutely qualifies as indoctrination. It’s also required by law.
I’ve yet to see any proof that teachers are indoctrinating students to change their gender or do other “woke shit,” but I know of an awful lot of instances where teachers can lose their job if they don’t indoctrinate their students for ideas that are politically, more acceptable, but practically just as confusing to a six-year-old.
You don’t have to teach children to love their country. It’s their home. It comes naturally, a hell of a lot more naturally than anything else taught in school. Teaching students to “respect” and “obey” authority can be problematic, especially since this is a country that was founded by rebellion. At some point, teachers have to explain that they know they’re teaching their students conflicting messages but that they’re required to by law.
Most teachers can do a pretty stellar job of turning your six-year-old into a great American without any help at all from some asshole in the legislature who wants to score points with his MAGA buddies. Becoming a teacher requires a great deal of work, and most of them are more dedicated to their job than the assholes in the legislature. How many politicians would be willing to work those hours for that pay?
I’ve pledged my sword before. I was a grown man though (or close to it). I think there’s value in these ancient rituals, but only to people who understand what they mean, and, for the most part, six-year-olds do not.
