Students at the Twin Peaks Middle School in Poway, Calif. were reminded by their principal that they were not required to participate in the pledge of allegiance. (source).
Initially, the principal would say “Please stand for the pledge of allegiance.” However, the parents of an unnamed student complained — informing the school that when the principal gives directions like that, students feel compelled to obey. Therefore, the school changed the direction to this:
For those who wish to participate to please stand, others please stand or sit quietly.
Naturally, this provoked a freak-out from the “I wear cowboy hats, and not to be funny” crowd.
School administrators said they have worked out a compromise. The principal will now say “It is time for the Pledge of Allegiance, those of you who wish to participate, please stand, ready, begin.” (source).
I think that the Poway school district should be commended. When “patriotism” and “right and wrong” hinge on whether we all stand, zombie-like, and recite a meaningless ode to a piece of cloth, then we have forgotten what the idea of America really was.
I, for one, will be instructing my children that they will neither stand, nor recite, the pledge unless “under god” is taken back out of it. Even then, I don’t want my kids pledging allegiance to a piece of cloth. You pledge allegiance to a person, a group, or an idea. Fetishizing a piece of cloth is for uneducated zombies.
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Marc, this is the one of the ONLY reasons I want to have kids… for the inevitable pledge of allegiance dustup.
When I was in the 8th grade, I uttered “jeezus christ” under my breath at a math question. The teacher slammed her hands to her desk and wrote up a disciplinary report stating that I had “taken the lord’s name in vain.”
My parents being from a fascist 3rd world country where you submit to all authority all the time yelled at me for causing problems… but oh man I can’t wait for my kid to say some shit like that and get the phone call…
“Fetishizing a piece of cloth is for uneducated zombies.” I agree with you 100%, and thought so in 1990 as well. Nonetheless, a strange cult emerged…
Ideally one could pick and choose among schools which do or do not impose the Pledge of Allegiance. Home schooling of course avoids the problem altogether. In other words I see this as primarily a control issue. Who controls the school? So long as it’s a publicly funded entity you’ll have compromises that don’t please everyone.
Give us another ten years, and homeschooling will be so ubiquitous that the obnoxious concern of kow-towing to a symbol of a half-dead ideology will barely register. Poor suckers that remain, poor poor suckers.
My only concern with home schooling is proper socialization of children- I’ve never met a remotely normal home schooled person. My in law runs a charter school for home schooled students, and one of them, and I’m not making this up- comes from a family of ayurvedic neo nazis. Stated differently, that means neo nazi ultra hippies. Yeah.
Although, I suppose if it’s that common in the future it wouldn’t be socially awkward.
Well if you want to get societal about it, isn’t that what’s slowly happening with the “social network” that appears to pull us away from each other and back into our living rooms?
[...] liberties and snark Randazza praises a school district that gives students an opt-out from the Pledge of Allegiance but goes a bi…: I, for one, will be instructing my children that they will neither stand, nor recite, the pledge [...]
So, showing respect for our flag, a symbol of national unity, shows a lack of education? Patriotism isn’t a bad thing, even in a somewhat abstract way such as the Pledge of Allegiance.
No one is forcing anybody to say “under God”, either. America was founded on Christian values. Are you saying that every other mention of God in our documents since the founding of this country are insensitive? I don’t recall too many people rising up against the President when he asked God to help us fight the Nazis during WWII.
Atheists/agnostics have been personae non gratae for a very long time here in the US (especially during the Cold War when the enemy was “Those Godless Commies”). You’re also generally looked down upon if you do anything that might lower morale during wartime.
Aside from that, America (in fact, the world) has changed quite a bit since our founding. Science hadn’t really begun to challenge religion yet.
In reference to your comment about patriotism, no it’s not bad in and of itself, but patriotism as a form of indoctrination is. The P of A came into popular use (and the line “Under God” was added) during the Cold War as a way to make us different from the Soviets (by making us all the same). It’s really just a leftover of Cold War indoctrination, not a show of patriotism.
It’s true that America has changed since its inception. I’ll give you that… it would be viewed as insensitive for a modern President to call upon God in a major manner. (Whether is is right or wrong is a personal comment on opinion, something separate.)
But I question how the Pledge of Allegiance makes us all the same. Or are you specifically referring to the “under God” line? Rallying around a central symbol and indoctrination are very different things in my eye.
The fact that the symbol is dictated by the state (or any authority figure) rather than the people is what makes it indoctrination.
As a teacher, I felt strongly pressured to say, “Under God.” In a number of districts I applied to, I was asked to sign a document stating that I supported the pledge of allegiance. Oh, sure, there was always some boilerplate alternative. But in practice, I certainly felt pressured to say the full pledge as an untentured teacher in certain districts.
I suppose no one forced me to say those words any more than anyone forced me to stay in the profession–but I did feel pressured.
To me the “Under God” line really just seems like a bright reminder to an ugly portion of American History. If the “Under God” were always in the pledge, and not just leftover McCarthyism, I’d have far less of a problem with it.
You mention that nobody is forcing anybody and this is technically true. HOWEVER my big problem really is that its children being taught the pledge.
My daughter is now 5 and has started Kindergarten and they recite the pledge everyday. At age 5 the words are almost completely meaningless. She will have recited the pledge somewhere between 1000 and 2000 times before she could make an informed decision as to whether or not to recite it.
Sure I could instruct her to stay seated while all her friends recite a pledge, but really the important thing about kindergarten is learning social skills and how to get along with others. In my mind there will be plenty of situations where she comes home crying because she is the outcast (it happens to everyone) I’d rather not add another.
America was founded on white men’s rule, too. So if the Pledge said, “one nation under white men” (which would have been as true when “under God” was added in 1954 as it was in 1776), then you would stand and just not say “under white men”?
Of course, you wouldn’t. It’s offensive to exclude people and absurd in what is supposed to be a pledge of national unity.
Here is what the flag pledge used to look like:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Pledge_salue.jpg
Just sayin’. And this is not the only such picture. Google around a bit. Look for Bellamy salute. Flag worship was promoted by another group, a notorious one, with similar salutes. Guess which group I’m talking about, and I will give you a cookie. (I’m trying real hard not to break Godwin’s Law here, but its not easy when there are pictures like the one above floating around out there.)
I don’t disagree with you on the “Under God” part of the pledge, but I do disagree about your “fetishizing a piece of cloth” comment. If you believe that one should pledge for an idea, why is it that you don’t see the flag as a symbol for the idea of America? The flag was made to represent America itself, with the stripes showing the past and the stars showing our present. At least that’s how I saw it while growing up.
Without realizing how it had come about, the combat men in the squadron discovered themselves dominated by the administrators appointed to serve them. They were bullied, insulted, harassed and shoved about all day long by one after the other. When they voiced objection, Captain Black replied that people who were loyal would not mind signing all the loyalty oaths they had to. To anyone who questioned the effectiveness of the loyalty oaths, he replied that people who really did owe allegiance to their country would be proud to pledge it as often as he forced them to. And to anyone who questioned the morality, he replied that “The Star-Spangled Banner” was the greatest piece of music ever composed. The more loyalty oaths a person signed, the more loyal he was; to Captain Black it was as simple as that, and he had Corporal Kolodny sign hundreds with his name each day so that he could always prove he was more loyal than anyone else.
“The important thing is to keep them pledging,” he explained to his cohorts. “It doesn’t matter whether they mean it or not. That’s why they make little kids pledge allegiance even before they know what ‘pledge’ and ‘allegiance’ means.”
-Joseph Heller