Glenn Beck revisits the true meaning of the Pledge of Allegiance revealing how each word holds the key to restoring America’s moral and spiritual foundation. More than a schoolroom ritual, it’s a sacred promise: to defend liberty, pursue justice, remain united, and acknowledge a higher power beyond government. Have we forgotten what this pledge really stands for and what it asks of us as Americans?
Transcript
Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors
GLENN: What is the solution to fixing our country?
Let me take this line by line.
I pledge allegiance.
Those first three words, that's a solemn vow. Okay?
That's -- that's not a casual statement. It is a binding promise.
You are pledging allegiance. And allegiance is more than just an agreement. It is loyalty!
It means, I choose to stand. I'm going to stand here. I'm going to stand with. I'm going to defend. And I'm going to uphold something. I pledge, more than a promise. I pledge allegiance.
And I'm going to do it even when it's hard, even when it costs me. I pledge allegiance. That is not lip service. That is a declaration of devotion to the flag! The flag is not just cloth and stitching.
And you are not pledging your allegiance to that piece of cloth.
You're -- you're pledging can't allegiance to the flag, which is the embodiment of an idea. It is a visual representation of the nation itself.
When I pledge my allegiance to the flag, I am pledging not to the fabric. But to the principles! The history. And the sacrifices that that flag represents.
Every fold, every star, every stripe, is a reminder of lives given, dreams pursued. And a promise kept through centuries of struggle.
I pledge allegiance, to the flag.
Of the United States of America. We look at the United States of America now, and you see that kind of just as words on a map. The United States.
That's not what the United States is. That was never what -- what it was designed to be.
Okay?
The United States means separate, sovereign states. That has joined this union by choice, into one republic!
It reminds us that our strength is not found in our diversity.
It's -- nor is it found in our uniformity. It is found in our unity. The United States of America.
That's diverse people. Diverse cultures. Defers communities. That are all bound and share the principles of liberty and law.
America is not just a place. We have to reframe this.
It's not a place. It's not a map.
It's a covenant between free people in individual states, to -- to build something greater together than any of us could do, by ourselves. Or as a single state.
Maybe except for Texas. But that's a different story.
And to the republic, for which it stands.
This line is crucial!
We are not a democracy. Because a democracy always devolves into mob rule.
Okay?
We are a republic for a reason.
And what a republic means is that you are governed by law. Not whims. It means, our rights are -- are not the subject to popular vote. They are endowed by our creator. And protected by a constitutional system, designed to guard them, even from the passions of the majority!
And the flag stands for that system. The balance of our liberty and order.
One nation. One.
Not fractured by reason. Region. Not fractured by race.
Not fractured by ideology.
Not red states and blue states.
But one single nation. Made up of 50 sovereign states. All different.
This is a reminder that despite our differences, we share a common destiny, a common goal.
We rise together. We fall together.
And that oneness is not automatic. That oneness has to be chosen by each generation, by each citizen.
And defended. And renewed by every generation. One nation under God.
People try to make this all about a theocracy. It's not about a theocracy. This is humility. This is a humble admission that our freedom and our rights come from a source higher than government.
Therefore, they cannot be taken away or changed by government.
Because the government doesn't have the power. They're not issuing the rights.
They can't control the rights.
They can't take the rights away or add new right. Those all are issued by a power greater than man. And certainly, greater than government. It's a reminder also, in humility, that power must be restrained. That we are accountable to more than just ourselves.
It's the acknowledgment that liberty without virtue will collapse!
And that virtue requires something greater than yourself, or greater than man!
One nation, indivisible.
When I was a kid, I always thought, it was invisible. I don't think it is.
But indivisible. This is not a description.
This is a challenge. And one that we have forgotten. Indivisible means we don't allow hatreds. We don't allow division.
We don't allow ideology or faith to rip us apart!
It means that even when we disagree fiercely, we hold on to the bonds, that we have all chosen, as individual sovereign people. And sovereign states. To bind us together.
We hold on to those bonds, that make us one people.
We don't secede from one another. We do the hard work of staying united. Because division is the surest path to tyranny. With liberty. This one has gotten so screwed up over the years. Everyone thinks freedom means, I don't know. Freedom to do whatever you want.
Liberty is not license. It's not doing whatever you want, whenever you want.
It is the freedom to live by conscience. To -- to speak truth. To pursue happiness without coercion.
It's freedom that has been purchased with blood and preserved with vigilance. It's the foundation that everything else stands on. All other rights stand on that.
And it must be exercised responsibly or it will be lost. We are not exercising it responsibly. That's why we're having so many problems. We misunderstand liberty and justice, the next line. Justice is not revenge. Be it the Democrats or the Republicans. Be it Joe Biden or Donald Trump. It's not revenge. It's not equity or equality of outcomes. That's not justice.
Justice is the fair and impartial application of the law. Blind to wealth, to power, to politics.
Justice is glue that holds liberty with responsibility, together! And without it, without justice, freedom devolves into chaos.
With it, even the weakest among us are protected.
That should be the goal for all of us, is that kind of justice.
And the final two words are the most radical.
For all! They're also the most difficult. For all.
Not just those who look like me. Not those who think like me. Not those that go to my church or don't believe in God.
Not just those who vote like me.
Not just for the deserving. The ones who followed the rules with COVID. They got the shot!
No. Not those who are popular. Liberty and justice are promises extended to every soul, because the worth of this nation is not measured by how it treats the powerful.
How it treats the popular. But how it treats the least among us. The most despised. The poorest.
The most invisible.
As a kid, I said the Pledge of Allegiance a million times. I still say it.
But I don't think any of us think of each word and why it's there.
It's not a poem. You're not reciting a poem. You're making a personal commitment.
And this is the solution to fixing our country. You want to fix the country?
There's the grand dream, right?
There's the big dream. How?
When you think small, think every single line of the Pledge of Allegiance. Because that's the answer!
No matter how you voted, if you believe in those lines and understand what each line and each word means and why it was chosen, now, you can make a personal commitment.
You can make the commitment to defend liberty, when it's under threat. To pursue the -- to pursue justice, when it's inconvenient.
To remain united, when division is much easier and much more popular.
To place principle above party. And creator above state.
I pledge allegiance to the flag. This is not a vow to the flag. It is a vow to a living idea. That free people bound together, under God, humble under God, can govern themselves with liberty and justice for all.
