The Persistence of Tyranny

All the Johava witnesses I knew would not pledge allegiance to the flag but we’re all on government welfare. Not the type I want to associate with.

Your post brings up a number of challenging points. Let's break it down to the simplest example possible. Let's say you have three people wash up on a desert island with one fresh water spring, one fruit bearing tree, and one tidal pool calm enough to fish from. One castaway is physically strong, another is a great climber, and the third is an expert fisherman. Common sense would dictate that the three work together to survive, and eventually, they would agree on various protocols for sharing the work. The strong man might haul water to camp every day, the climber gather fruit, and the fisherman bring in meat. By necessity, each member would have to rely on the others to do their part for the common cause.

Now, let's assume that one day, the fisherman decides he can no longer eat fish. Should the other two continue to bring him water and fruit, or should he be forced to get his own?

A society is nothing more than a much larger, more complex version of the island. When everyone agrees to a system of shared values, each accomplishing a role within based on their individual skills, it "works". The minute the values of individuals conflict with the vales of the whole, it begins to break down.

We can suggest that a "free" society is one where individual values are more important than societal values...but this logically leads to the very disunion, hatred and fear we arguably have in the nation today. However, how to do we choose which values to promote, and not plunge into some form of "tyranny"?

Another way of looking at is this; if the fisherman has good reasons for not wanting to fish any longer, (say, because he knows the fish in the pool are slowly poisoning them all)...are there alternative ways the group's values can/should change to improve? This is (supposedly) why we have a representative republic, and why many early anti-Federalists feared a "list" of rights vs. the presumption of rights.

I've never personally faced a moral dilemma in the Pledge of Allegiance. That being said, I think history and logic would inform anyone that many of the "Founding Fathers" would've been suspect of it. For me, if some cannot make the Pledge, and others find it encapsulates their most powerful beliefs, then you cannot alter/remove it, or force one to take it, and claim we have a unified society.

This is why I personally question the notion that all ideas are equal or deserve equal rights before the law. Similarly, this is why I fear many "new" ideas that claim to be based on law. Inevitably, there will be a societal crisis, and there's no guarantee that the prevailing "side" will be the "right" side.