Let's End the Pledge of Allegiance in Schools

[xchrom]

http://www.alternet.org/education/lets-end-pledge-allegiance-schools



Just in time for back to school: In Massachusetts this week, a venerable classroom tradition is facing a high court challenge. The state’s Supreme Judicial Court is currently weighing an atheist couple’s argument that the words “under God” be struck from the Pledge of Allegiance, because they claim the phrase is exclusionary to atheist children like theirs. In other news – wait, why are school children still saying the Pledge of Allegiance anyway?

The anonymous couple’s attorney David Niose contends that “This case presents an unpopular and wrongly vilified minority facing discrimination” by a state “promoting and propagating the idea that good patriots are God believers.” Though it’s mandatory for teachers to lead students in the Pledge each day, it’s voluntary for students to say it. Last year, Middlesex Superior Court Judge Jane Haggerty ruled that the “under God” clause “does not convert the exercise into a prayer” and does not violate children’s rights. OK, but who wants to be the one 7-year-old to sit out something the authority figure just invited the whole class to do?

The idea that God is an intrinsic and necessary part of the Pledge is silly. The original Pledge of Allegiance didn’t even include the phrase “under God.” It was added in the 1950s. But why is the Pledge itself still mandatory in so many places? Leading the Pledge is also mandatory in New York, but the rule is loosely enforced. Neither of my children’s pinko, godless public schools do it — my 9-year-old asked me this morning what the Pledge even is. (Their Girl Scout troop also unceremoniously struck the phrase “to serve God” from its Promise and the earth did not explode.) And my elder daughter, who recalls it vaguely from her old kindergarten, explained, “You say you’ll be loyal to the flag. Not your country. The flag. I don’t get it.” Maybe it’s blasé attitudes like theirs that pushed a Brooklyn parent two years ago to demand her local public school start enforcing it.

Growing up in Catholic schools, my weekday classroom routine consisted of facing the front of the room, hand over heart, and reciting the Pledge. I then turned around to the crucifix on the back wall and recited the Our Father. I was a patriotic Christian kid then and I’m a patriotic Christian adult now and I have never stopped finding the practice strange and pointless and time-wasting.

[NuclearDem]

1. I'm all for it. School is about education, not ingraining loyalty to the state

[hobbit709]

8. Schools have nothing to do with education.

They're designed to produce functional illiterates that can function as cogs in the corporate machine without knowing too much to make them discontent.
Why do you think slaves were forbidden to read and write?

[NuclearDem]

22. Correction: schools SHOULD be about education.

Unfortunately, you're 100% right.

[spin]

69. Well put. ....

If our citizens are well educated they might endanger the power of the ruling 1%.

What could be one of the most interesting subjects in high school, history, is viewed by the majority of students as incredibly boring. Taught properly the emphasis on events that occurred in our past would not be on the memorization of dates and names but instead on how these events directly influenced us today.

But a solid knowledge of history might cause voters to be more suspicious of the motivations of the 1% and more aware that the cost of getting elected to state or national office offers the opportunity for the rich and powerful to buy and own those we elect to represent all of us.

[Journeyman]

2. I swore allegiance to the Constitution when I was inducted into the military in the early '70s . . .

I haven't repeated that pledge since, and I've no intention of ever repeating it.

The way I figure it, once you pledge yourself to something, if you truly mean it, you need never do it again. In fact, to do so -- to engage in a "doctrine of continual reaffirmation" -- makes a mockery of the original vow, as only a meaningless pledge needs constant updating. I affirmed my commitment to the Constitution as a young man. If I ever change my mind, I'll renounce my pledge. Until then, I consider it my word, freely given. Any attempt to make me renew it simply insults me and casts aspersions on my honor.

As for those who insist that pledges should be recited on multiple occasions, who would prefer to see it rendered meaningless through reduction to nothing more than a rote recitation, I often wonder, if they can't trust me to remain true to my oath quietly, what's my mumbling it going to mean?

Perhaps we should just reduce it to a “Reader’s Digest” version: “I pledge allegiance to liberty and justice for all.” Short and to the point, non-controversial, useful for all peoples on the planet.

[Laelth]

4. Well said. n/t

-Laelth

[PADemD]

3. Interesting history at link

http://www.homeofheroes.com/hallofheroes/1st_floor/flag/1bfc_pledge.html

[Laelth]

5. As I understand the original purpose of the pledge ...

... was to shield newly-arrived immigrants from suspicion and persecution for supposedly treasonous foreign allegiances, by allowing them to freely and openly proclaim their loyalty to the flag of the United States, I wonder whether the pledge still serves a useful function.

While I have a long-standing distaste for loyalty oaths, this particular one has served a useful purpose, historically.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pledge_of_Allegiance

-Laelth

[hobbit709]

9. If you really want to piss off a RWer, tell them it was written by a Socialist.

[Laelth]

13. Precisely. n/t

-Laelth

[pitbullgirl1965]

37. Not true. The Pledge was in response to the Chicago Worlds Fair

aka The World's Columbus Exposition. Francis Bellamy was working for a childrens magazine and he was so excited over the Exposition he wrote the Pledge.

http://www.chicagohs.org/history/expo.html

[truebluegreen]

41. Tell them anyway.

Historically it may have been useful for new immigrants; now it is just an propaganda tool.

If some right wing heads explode / turn against it because of the socialist label, all the better.

[delrem]

6. I don't believe in some stupid fundamentalist/literalist/politicized notion of "God".

That'd make me an "atheist" in some judgments.
But as I said, I exclude those judgments because I don't believe in them. heh.
An easy way to take care of a vexing problem!

So I don't believe in the "God" promoted by tea-party fundamentalists in their political action committees and on the street.

Now I read the words of your pledge (I'm not an american)
"I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."

I see no problem with that whatsoever, even from the POV of an atheist.
In fact if a person asked to recite that pledge cannot find it in him(her) to understand how the term "God" signifies, in that context, I don't think that person could be satisfied anyway.

"God" in that sentence isn't defined to mean this or that or the other spectacle. It's defined to be a blessed container within which the Republic exists. Now, who wouldn't want that container to be blessed, to overflow with good feeling?

I don't see how that sentence could threaten the freedom of consciousness of an american student. It doesn't promote or deny any religion (or agnosticism or atheism). It declares that the USA is (absolutely, before no other being) indivisible, and is a place where there's liberty and justice for all.

That's how *I* read it, and to me it's poetry.

[delrem]

16. Because the pledge isn't to the Planet Earth, it's to the US republic.

C'mon, you must see that the entire thing is idealist, right?

What your republic does to the planet is a different matter, and we can only hope that popular awareness, worldwide, starts to carry the day toward a sane equilibrium. But that's a different topic.

[delrem]

42. I don't think it necessarily does.

In those contexts where "God" does carry connotations, the connotations are expressed by doctrine, by rites, credos and observances, and people have invented an incredibly diverse variety of often conflicting connotations. When a stranger uses the word "God" I don't jump to immediate conclusions because the connotations attached to the word are as varied as human culture.

There are "materialists" who don't believe in the individual "soul", or "spirit" -- but I wouldn't cordon those terms away from official and semi-official language just to satisfy the imaginary "hurt feelings" of a materialist belligerent. After all, if there is no individual spirit or soul, there are no individual feeling of "hurt" caused by "connotations of words", so the complaint is self-dispelling. I don't expect people to be so fucking dumb that they can't distinguish intent from random (negative) interpretations passing by in streams of consciousness.

The sentence from the Pledge that I quoted doesn't infer any particular contextual connotations - because that isn't its intent. It would be different if the pledge cited a Judeo-Christian God. That would be an unthinkable insult to people who don't believe in that credo. Likewise if it cited native North American "God(s)" or "Spirit(s)", or the great void that characterizes the Tao, The Way, it would be an insult.
The Pledge doesn't do that.

On the other hand as someone else posted, the entire procedure is nothing more than taking a loyalty oath, and I can't see a reason why someone should be required to take such an oath over and over. That too seems insulting.

[liberal_at_heart]

43. then change it to Goddess and see how many evangelical Christian heads explode.

[delrem]

50. You're just insulting. No other content.

The pledge:
"I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."
No "he".
The term 'container' was used as an *obvious* metaphor.

[delrem]

56. That's a valid argument.

But that isn't what you were debating with me.

[delrem]

60. And what makes you imagine that I'm such a "true believer".

Please quote, and have a respect for context.

It's correct, though, that your arguments didn't amount to a debate.

[delrem]

66. I did NOT argue in favor of the existence of a "soul" or "spirit".

You totally miss it and (from experience now) I know you always will.
Thanks for discussion - but it's time for me to move on.

[liberal_at_heart]

54. and to imply anything other than that is a provocation.

[delrem]

46. But that has no meaning except to be provocative.

The US Pledge doesn't pander to fundamentalism or to any particular religion. That's not what it's about.

The term "God", as it has been used throughout history by thousands of different cultures, doesn't signify a gender except in some interpretations; and why wouldn't I understand that in some cultures God has female attributes? My head doesn't explode at having that awareness, even though I'm more attracted to an austere Chinese Buddhism that doesn't speak of "God". I still know what the term "God" signifies in the US Pledge. It signifies the absoluteness of the subject concept "one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all", that there is no qualification.

Petty provocative digs at this religion or that, this culture or that, are distracting noise, and not consistent with the subject concept - the country which is being pledged allegiance to.

[liberal_at_heart]

49. Give me a break. I'm not buying it. Fundamentalist Christians want to be able to worship in

public but deny others from other faiths the same priviledge. I know. My father and both brothers are fundamental Christians.

[delrem]

62. The US Pledge of allegiance isn't a prayer, it isn't an act of worship.

By the way, I don't think your mocking iconic (rofl) asides contain a *reasonable argument*.
They are *provocative*, but not to thinking.

[liberal_at_heart]

63. If you think you have a reasonable argument you are fooling yourself.

Anyone who has studied the history of Christianity in this country knows better. bye bye.

[Warren DeMontague]

44. The fact that you seem to be calling folks who object to the word "God" in the pledge

"materialist belligerents", tells me more than I need to know about whether I should bother, here. If you have faith, bully for you; but don't try to slap a new coat of paint on faith and peddle it as logic. It's not the same thing.


"God" is a religious word, it's a religious concept, people are free to worship and futz around with religious concepts and words and worships and nostrums and prayers all they want but as per the Establishment clause they can't be prescribed by the government, doubly not forced onto schoolchildren.

Period.

[delrem]

48. I most certainly did not!

I made an argument - a syllogism that you ignore.

[liberal_at_heart]

53. yeah it sounded like a veiled dig to me. If you don't believe in a spirit or soul you can't have

hurt feelings. What a load of crap.

[delrem]

59. That's not what I said.

You put words *THAT I DID NOT SAY OR SUGGEST* in my mouth.

Now listen: When I say to you, that you are a cad, sir, for making that false allegation, you can rightly say that I said "you are a cad, sir". Because it's true.

[liberal_at_heart]

61. It is not your so called connotations that is offensive. It is the fact that the people who believe

in those connotations use it to dominate others. Fundamentalist Christians want to be able to worship in public so that all the non believers know that this is still a Christian nation. My brother's church is running a campaing right now called Taking Back Ground. And my niece is taking part in it. May I ask what ground they are taking back? the ground that non believers have taken maybe? Well this non believer will not have a Christian God forced on me by Christians who want to Take Back their Ground.

[delrem]

55. What is it that is hurt by "connotations". After all, such "connotations" aren't material.

My argument (however thin - you don't address it by sneering) has nothing in common with your (alleged) logic that "nothing can exist unless "God" put it there". I said "alleged" because you didn't produce such an argument, so there's nothing to pick apart except the "connotations" that you lay on thick.

[Warren DeMontague]

57. "People must have a soul because if people didn't have a soul they wouldn't be people", QED

Like I said, not playing. I have better things to do, like wax my mustache.

[oberliner]

76. Where are you from?

Do they have a pledge of some kind in your country?

[charlives]

7. Just Take the God Part Out

I don't care about saying it but take the god part out. With all the mandates in schools and lack of time kids are never told what the words mean anyway.

[Laelth]

14. Welcome to DU. n/t

-Laelth

[quakerboy]

75. Well, as long as they dont really understand what they are saying

then of course we should have them say it every day as the prelude to school...

Gotta turn them youngins into functional, appropriate members of society somehow!

[Warren DeMontague]

10. I'd prefer more time devoted to teaching critical thinking, and less to pledging blindly to ANYTHING

I know, I'm funny that way.

[whistler162]

11. Yes.... get rid of the Socialist propaganda

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Bellamy

[ejpoeta]

15. I too went to catholic school and did the same thing.

It is awkward when I go to girl scouts and they do the pledge. I just stand there with my hand over my heart and don't say anything. My daughter's troop say the "to serve god" part. I am not for religion, but my daughter really loves girl scouts and I don't think she really knows what that means. Though I have been asked why we don't go to church and can we say prayer before dinner. I go through this at school events... chorus concerts.... I just stand there with my hand over my heart so I don't look like I'm not doing it. I imagine that is how kids feel.

[Divernan]

17. US used Nazi-type salute during pledge of allegiance until 1942

There's are amazing photos of small kids (including several black kids) giving what the world came to know as the Nazi salute to the American flag, and multiple accounts that Hitler copied this salute from the US. Certainly since WW II, Europeans find salutes and pledges to flags to be fascist and offensive.


http://www.ickypeople.com/2012/02/us-used-nazi-salute-during-pledge-of.html
https://sites.google.com/site/edwardbellamysite/nazi-adolf-hitler
http://www.rationalrevolution.net/articles/rise_of_american_fascism.htm

AND FOR THE PC LINK POLICE, don't get your panties in a wad - I do not endorse these links - they popped up with google - I link to them for the photos because the pictures don't lie.

[telclaven]

72. Technically it's the Roman Salute

Went out of favor after being obsconded by Nazis.

Nazis, they ruin everything.

[Divernan]

74. No, historians disagreewith that explanation. It came from the U.S.

[KG]

18. even as a kid, i never saw the point of saying it every damn day.

older, it seemed to me the flag was a useless thing to pledge to. the constitution is the law of the land.

[kag]

19. My daughter came up with a great idea.

She hated saying the pledge because she considered herself an atheist (yes, even at the ripe old age of 10 or 11), and didn't like the "under god" part.

Her solution: Pass a law that you can't insist that kids say the pledge until you can prove that they know what every word of it means.

I know it sounds a little naive, but I thought it was pretty enlightened for a fifth grader. BTW, she's in high school now, and I'm not sure if they say the pledge at her (public) high school or not. Given that she doesn't talk much about it anymore, I suspect they don't.

[Igel]

20. Lots of kids just stand and say nothing.

That often includes those who are foreign nationals, at least some of which are here on a temporary basis.

No need to speak. Just like during the "moment of silence." No need to pray or still your thoughts. Just show respect for others. (But that's such a precious commodity these days, it seems like a shame to waste it on something so trivial.)

[hunter]

24. Or their religion forbids it.

My mom was a Jehovah's Witness for a time (until they kicked her out for various reasons, mostly because she always says what she thinks.) After that we were Quakers and they won't do the pledge either.

My mom told teachers I wasn't even going to stand up, I was just going to sit quietly. And I did, usually drawing something, or reading.

[liberal_at_heart]

47. I've come to really respect Jehovah's witnesses. Their belief in not accepting blood

transfusions is sacred. They are willing to die for that belief yet they don't go around telling other people they are not allowed to have blood transfusions. They don't try to push their weight around probably because they are a much smaller group than say the evangelicals, Catholics, Baptists, Mormons, or other large Christian groups.

[arely staircase]

77. I have had JW kids in my class and they never say the pledge and

nobody cares.

[DirkGently]

21. Vowing unquestioning allegiance to anything

...is creepy, not noble. In my book, anyway.

Seems like obeisance training.

[Mr.Bill]

31. Especially when you demand it from six year old children

who don't even know the meaning of the word allegiance.

[DirkGently]

34. Yeah. Seems more like brainwashing.

It's part of an older cultural tradition that demanded indoctrination. We need to grow beyond it.

And the sooner the better.

[Mr.Bill]

36. It is a forced loyalty oath

demanded of children who do not even understand it.

I feel the same way about children praying, but that's another subject for another thread, I suppose.

[DirkGently]

70. Training children to kneel before an Authority

and beg forgiveness ... is repugnant, in my opinion.

But yes, that's probably another thread.

[Bigmack]

23. I always think of ..

Glorious Loyalty Oath Crusade from Catch 22 when I see pics like this.

[Warpy]

26. I was a brat, I came up with alternative lyrics to both

and the kids who giggled got sent to the principal's office but nobody ever believed such an innocent looking kid (me) would have done such a terrible thing and they must have misheard, the miserable things.

I've always thought it creepy beyond belief that a daily loyalty oath is required of children.

[Cleita]

27. When I went to school, the pledge didn't mention God.

That phrase was added during the fifties. Go back to the original version, the way it was written, and all will be well.

[backscatter712]

28. Remember that the Pledge wasn't originally made with your hand over your heart...

[LittleBlue]

29. The pledge feels very Prussian

Like it should be ended with "glory to the fatherland" or something.

An outdated, pointless tradition

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

30. "Patriotism is the most foolish of passions and the passion of fools." Schopenhauer

[Jenoch]

32. I remember standing and saying the

Pledge when I was in the 2nd grade. The teacher would then sit down at a little key oard and she would play My Country 'Tis of Thee and the students would sing along. I suppose we said the Pledge of Allegiance through grade school but I am sure we did not say it daily in junior high and high school. It didn't have any effect on me one way or another.

[LWolf]

33. Okay.

It will HAVE to come from outside the system. This is a hot-button issue; so many families, community members, and those inside the system have an emotional (and illogical) investment in that pledge.

I can't advocate from inside. I have to follow my superiors' directions, which includes taking part in the pledge every day. So I stand silently while the school recites, which anyone is allowed to do if they want to abstain.

When my students ask me why I'm not saying it, I reply, "I've said it before. As far as I'm concerned, if I pledge my loyalty, I don't need to do it again unless someone thinks I'm faithless or a liar. If I'm either of those things, saying it every day isn't going to make me any different. I either mean it or I don't."

I don't tell them that I don't mean it. I don't pledge loyalty to a government. My loyalty belongs to people and to ideals and principles.

As far as I'm concerned, striking out "under god" isn't enough. We shouldn't be conditioning children to recite loyalty oaths at all. It's nationalistic propaganda that trains people to automatically support a government that may or may not deserve their support, and conditions them to support that flag and that nation in repeated wars.

But maybe getting rid of "under god" is a good beginning.

[Quantess]

35. I agree, but this is about #5,879 on my priority list.

I doubt it would impact anyone's life in a big way.

[pitbullgirl1965]

38. I resented the "under God" part.

As a non Christian I already felt like an outsider. I never said under god.

[gopiscrap]

39. I agree

my foster dad is a retired Lutheran pastor and in 73 he almost got voted out by the congregation because he decreed that the US flag be removed from the sanctuary!

[bhikkhu]

40. I had no problem spending 8 years in Catholic school as an atheist

In a way, it forced me to become better much educated about the whole area of experience than the absence of religion would have.

I agree with the sentiment about the "under god" line, but its just not worth the fight. Religion is human nature, and if one is not so inclined avoidance is easy. It becomes second nature after awhile.

[liberal_at_heart]

65. When my daughter became atheist she stopped saying Under God. The more she

learned about the bad things our country has done and continues to do the more she didn't want to say the pledge at all. So, she stopped saying it.

[Live and Learn]

67. I find the Pledge to be ludicrous.

The entire notion of my country right or wrong is just wrong.

[forestpath]

78. +1

[DFW]

68. "I spread the peaches....."

My daughters were born and grew up in Germany, where overt expressions of patriotism bring back memories they'd rather not dredge up, and are therefore discouraged.

In Germany, high school students are encouraged to take a semester or a year abroad to broaden their intellectual horizons. My daughter had visited the USA and spoke passable English, as I had spoken it with her from birth. She elected to take her semester "abroad" right back in Dallas at the local public high school near my residence there. I went with her for the first week to make sure she had no bureaucratic problems I could solve by being there.

After the first couple of days, I asked her if all was well. She said yes, but they did some odd things at the school. "Like what?" I asked.

She said that she found the ritual chanting every morning to be odd. Ritual chanting? Who did ritual chanting? This was not a Navajo school. She said that every morning, they all got up and did some kind of monotonic ritual chant. I couldn't imagine this. In a Dallas public school? Wasn't that forbidden by law? I asked what they chanted. She said they mostly mumbled as if they were tired. I asked WHAT was it they were chanting/mumbling? She said it started out with "I spread the peaches."

I couldn't believe that every morning, in a Dallas public school, that classes did ritual chanting that started with "I spread the peaches." I asked what else they did. She said they stood up and put theirs hands on their chests while chanting. Then I remembered. Her English was good, but in normal home conversation, I had never used the words "pledge" or "allegiance," and therefore, she didn't know them. The kids were already mumbling the words out of unenthusiastic boredom, so she just assumed she was hearing words she knew, but spoken indistinctly.

So, "I spread the peaches to the flag.............."

[FSogol]

71. Matt Groening's version

[FarCenter]

73. It should be changed to "I pledge allegiance to the United States of America".

All of the rest is disputable blather.

Besides, it doesn't fit in 140 characters.