I stopped saying the Pledge in 3rd Grade.

[Solly Mack]

My friend C.P. was a Jehovah Witness and couldn't. The school term had been going on a while and I think maybe the issue came to a head for her parents who said something to the school.

Mrs. Smallpound (not her real name) started making her go out into the hall during the pledge. Only, it wasn't done quietly or anything, it was done in a pointed manner. I took offense. The other kids would snicker and I knew that was the teacher's intentions. To make C.P. leaving the room as uncomfortable as possible.

I got up and walked out as well. Me being me, and yes, it's been pretty much a lifelong thing, I made sure to announce why I was walking out. Confrontation has never been an issue for me when I'm riled up about something - I confront.

So out I go and I never looked back.

Thus ended my relationship with the pledge, not that I had much of one anyway.

Never been much of an anthem kind of girl either. Not big on displays of patriotism. And, yes, I do mean patriotism.

Oh, there were times when I heard it being played while Shrub was in office that I'd cry. Not so much because of the song or the words but because of what I believed and how America was failing so badly to live up to any of her ideals.

I'd also get angry at those singing it with gusto because I'd wonder how many of them supported torture.

I came away from the Bush years wondering that about almost everyone I ran across in my daily life. I still do.

Meet a stranger - I wonder.

Doctor visit - I wonder.

Buy groceries - I wonder about the cashier.

The waiter/waitress. The person in the car next to me. The couple I see walking down the street.

Time hasn't changed that too much.

I still wonder.

I'm not mean about it. Well, not unless they confirm what I am already wondering, that is.

But the thought does cross my mind and I can't help it.


Under Trump, the sense that I am living among strange beings has intensified.

I know my history. Doesn't change how I am perceiving the times we are living in right now.

Doesn't change my disgust.

Doesn't make me feel better that tides turn.

I think about all those who will drown in the tide we're in now.

Later won't save those people now.

Later won't save us now.

So, I wonder.

[unblock]

1. I stopped saying the pledge when I realized it didn't have an expiration date

really, how meaningful can this pledge thing be if it needs to be renewed every 24 hours?

[Solly Mack]

2. No shit, right?

[vlyons]

3. I stopped saying the pledge of allegience long ago

I do stand out of respect for those saying the pledge, but I don't say it. First and foremost, it's a piece of cloth, not a god. As a Buddhist, I recognize that it is completely empty of the values, emotions, concepts, and symbols that people impute onto it. All that stuff exists not in the piece of cloth, but in the minds of people.

Secondly, the pledge was a PR gimmick created by Francis Bellamy in 1892 to sell flags. And the bit about "one nation under god" was added many years later. We Buddhists don't believe in a creator God. A far better way to practice the values imputed onto the flag is to respect and love your neighbor and practice peace and tolerance.

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/pledge-allegiance-pr-gimmick-patriotic-vow-180956332/

[Solly Mack]

4. Yes. There is a whole lot of symbol embracing w/ mere lip-service to the ideals.

[cutroot]

5. I have not stood for the national anthem since the Vietnam war

It has been a corporate tool for a long time. I mean no disrespect for veterans, but they fought to give me that right. I am verifying that the freedom that they gave me is real.

[Solly Mack]

6. It is a right to not stand or recite or sing.

A fundamental right of conscience. One that harms no one. One that deprives no one of anything.

And yet...some people get so angry. Feigned or otherwise.

[cutroot]

10. If they really cared about the sanctity of the anthem, they would close the concession stand during.

[Solly Mack]

12. And lose that money?

Yeah. They don't care about the anthem.

But they care even less about police brutality.

They do care about money - regardless of who they harm in the process.

Trump cares about himself. Nothing else.

[treestar]

55. That is a great point

I read it somewhere, and thought: exactly, if it is such a big deal, then surely all such activity would stop for it. If they still want to rake in the cash while it is playing, they are lying that it is so sacred.

[cutroot]

58. Vonnegut called them Granfalloons

Social psychologists have given it a more sinister definition:

The granfalloon technique is a method of persuasion in which individuals are encouraged to identify with a particular granfalloon or social group.[1] The pressure to identify with a group is meant as a method of securing the individual's loyalty and commitment through adoption of the group's symbols, rituals, and beliefs.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Granfalloon

[treestar]

59. Interesting. I think the right does use it that way

Debating this with them, they seem to want you to just simply identify with the flag, so as to create group cohesion, same with the anthem. They want everyone to respect it for itself. War is especially good for them, in that they can guilt people (the troops) into thinking they should support anything because it is a group thing.

[cutroot]

60. Yes, it is very apparent in their current jingoism.

[Solly Mack]

61. Yes!

[Laffy Kat]

7. We had an issue at my workplace where a physician refused to work with a tech...

After she learned tech voted for 45. Doctor had questions about tech's judgement. I support the doc's position (in silence, because I'm pretty low on the totem pole and nobody would care anyway) and eventually the issue died a quiet death. I guess tech could have taken it to the union but didn't. I have no idea if it would be a legit grievance, probably would.

[Solly Mack]

8. I've worked all kinds of people but my opinion of them correlates to their not so much politics

as to their way of seeing the world - which then correlates to their politics.

Years (and years and years) ago at a fast food job one of my co-workers said good girls don't get raped. While I know what the thinking behind that is - I understood her fears - if she's a good girl it can't happen to her - it didn't stop me from never wanting to talk to her beyond work related things again.

I wouldn't want a doctor treating me that worked on detainees at GTMO, for example. Just wouldn't. Fixing them up for more torture.

Sick, sick.

Nor a shrink that supported or worked for the military with torture "guidelines" - which some did.

I don't want to put my life in the hands of someone who supports Trump either.

I simply think they can't be trusted.

I know it's my baggage and I'm OK with that.

[Laffy Kat]

15. Yep. I mean technically I don't think voting should impact your work AT ALL.

But I do understand the doc's concerns. I can see both sides. The tech is actually very good at what she does, IMO.

[Solly Mack]

16. My co-worker was an excellent worker as well. Terribly misguided though.

Still, if she grew up to be a counselor and still held those views - wouldn't want her near me.

[Igel]

17. I don't care about how people I work with vote.

Nor do I care what they say in private.

It's what they do on the job with customers that counts. It's how they comport themselves in their responsibilities that matters.

I've seen (R) that you think are the most racist scum on Earth take a kid whose hurting and help him through a rough time, and it didn't matter what the skin color was. The naive, simplistic prediction would have said that how the person dealt with the group would necessarily dictate how the person dealt with an individual from that group. That prediction was handily and utterly falsified, and the judgments about her would have been false. She perceives group membership not as binary and defining.

So it's not that simple.

Workplace persecution and feuds over non-essentials are petty and silly. Over politics and the requirement I've heard from some that samokritika be required strike me as Stalinist.

[Laffy Kat]

18. Well, the tech was bragging about her vote....

And this was after 45 had been in office for a while and was obviously destroying the country. I supposed I do sort of wonder about judgement when a healthcare professional brags about her love of tRump. Part of me felt like she had it coming. It's actually beyond me how anyone who even works in the periphery of healthcare can support 45, or even the GOP for that matter. Still, I do get your point.

[treestar]

54. Yes, the job itself might not be affected

It would depend on how much judgment is needed. Your unconscious biases could affect you, even if you did not intend it.

It is really in play being a lawyer, as what you think of people could easily affect your zeal no matter how much you tried to avoid that.

[msongs]

9. when I was kid in Tx we did not pledge to the yankee flag. there were no schools named after

abraham lincoln I suspect

[Solly Mack]

11. I grew up in Georgia and I wasn't exposed to the uh confederate frame of mind until I was older

and moved to the mountains.

Oh, I knew about racists and the klan and the battle flag, etc., but never really had an up close and personal with anyone waving or celebrating the confederate battle flag until we moved.

Folks in my neighborhood didn't celebrate such things. Not even a little.

My mother's family had to leave during the night because the klan was coming to burn them out.

So, the US flag was and is the only flag.

[Kirk Lover]

13. If I say the pledge I leave out the God part. Shouldn't be in there in the first place.

[Solly Mack]

14. True. It shouldn't.

[Laffy Kat]

19. True, and it WASN'T in there at first.

Too lazy to look up the year they sneaked it in. To me, sticking "under God" in our pledge violates the separation of C & S, so what are we pledging to exactly? It's stupid.

[trixie2]

44. 1954 - McCarthy era/Communist scare

[treestar]

57. And it wasn't there in the first place

The Faux Patriots refuse to believe that.

[llmart]

20. My father taught us that we didn't have to say the pledge.

This was back in the 50's when uber patriotism was flying high. He used to tell us, "Just move your lips and they won't even know the difference."

I have never felt comfortable saying "I pledge allegiance..." to anything. Sounds so Hitlerlike.

[Solly Mack]

21. My mom didn't care either.

The teacher told on me to my mom. My mom asked me why. I told her. She said OK.

I bet they didn't know the difference either. Which tells us a lot.

[brer cat]

22. "I think about all those who will drown in the tide we're in now."

That keeps me up nights, makes me angry and sad.

[Solly Mack]

28. Me, too. :(

I know understanding can come. A moving toward a better way - but why is it the understanding and moving forward comes all too often over the bodies of the dead?

Do humans really need to see suffering to know something is wrong?

Do they really need to experience the same pain others suffer to know something is wrong?

How little is your world that you need to have your children ripped from you to know that it is wrong?

How little is your world that you need to be tortured to know it is wrong?

How little is your world to not know that racism and discrimination kills?


Mind you, I don't think not wanting a health-care professional who engaged in torture to treat me is discrimination. I get treated at a military hospital and it could happen. They might be good as gold to me but that isn't the point. The point is they committed a crime against humanity and I want no part of them. My skin crawls at the thought of them touching me.

[Iggo]

23. As I've grown older, the more I've thought about it.

And the more I've thought about it, the more I've wondered why they needed me to pledge every day.

Once should have been enough.

[Solly Mack]

29. Right! Once and done - if it meant anything at all.

It indoctrinates to repeat it over and over again.

[smirkymonkey]

24. I have never been into it either and feel pretty much the same

way you do about it. These external gestures of patriotism are meaningless and I have always resented them. I admit I also have a problem wondering who is "on our side" or our "enemy". I can't help it, but I see the world much differently than I did even a few years ago. Anyone who can support someone like Trump can never be a friend of mine.

[Solly Mack]

30. Not so much the enemy for me as it is "Where do you come from?" kind of thing.

How did you get that way?

What's wrong with you?

lol

If I'm the one who thinks differently within a community that seems to have very different ideas from me - then obviously I'm the alien.

I say that jokingly.

[BigmanPigman]

25. I haven't said it since High School

when I was courageous enough to stand by my atheistic decision to not say it due to the GOD issue. I was bullied for being pro abortion in Middle School so I laid low. Finally in High School other students were old enough to rebel against their parent's religious and political control and I wasn't bullied any longer. Also, I had become confident enough to stand up against them and give them a "fuck you attitude" and it showed. I was labeled "individualistic" and "a rebel" and that was cool with me. Being an "artist" has its rewards.

[Solly Mack]

31. There comes a time, for a lot of people. You just can't sit on the sides any longer.

[seleff]

64. Omit "under God"

I’m a HS teacher and a sports official. I replace the phrase “under God” with “under the constitution”. Surprised no one has struck up a conversation so far.
Whenever someone brings up the idea of the “Deep State” , I agree, it’s better name is the US Constitution.

[BigmanPigman]

65. I taught first grade and I could have led the class

to recite it each morning but I chose to teach something practical like civics. The were only 6 so they didn't know other classes saluted the flag sometimes. If anyone ever asked (they never did) I would've told them several students were Jehovah's Witnesses and weren't allowed to.

[saidsimplesimon]

26. Yet, we both

still wonder. Thanks Solly, we are not alone. It's a wild world. Indulge me and enjoy the music.

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="

?rel=0" frameborder="0" allow="autoplay; encrypted-media" allowfullscreen></iframe>

[Solly Mack]

33. Thank you! I love that song!

[saidsimplesimon]

36. You are welcome.

It was my pleasure. Have a wonderful weekend.

[notdarkyet]

27. I quit saying the pledge, but would stand for the anthem, but not put my hand over my heart. I grew

Up on base and every day the pledge and anthem was part of our lives. It played at the movies theater, school, taking down the flag at the end of the day. I actually became immune and disrespectful of it because I began to realize it was a major propaganda tool. Too much of this can have the opposite result. Saturation overdose.

[Solly Mack]

34. You're right. It is a propaganda tool.

You're right about the saturation overdose too.

It doesn't hit all people but it strikes enough.

[Iggo]

40. If I'm at my seat at a sportsball game when the song starts, I stand.

And I moan and groan and complain and roll my eyes the whole time I'm getting up, like it's the most inconvenient and painful thing to stand up just because people around me might get get butthurt if I don't.

And then I do it all again when I go to sit down after the song's over, enjoying myself the whole time.

I do remain seated when it's time to put the spotlight on the night's featured warfighter, but this time I clap along with the others. It really fucks with the flat-hats. "Grrrr," I imagine they're thinking. "He's not standing! Oh wait. He's clapping. I'm so confused."

It the little things in life.

[fleabiscuit]

32. 10-4 my sister.

[Solly Mack]

35. :)

[gibraltar72]

37. I don't stand for the flag or anthem.

I hoped someday when the words were true I'd be able to. That ain't happening anytime soon. I just am not comfortable giving witness to a lie.

[Solly Mack]

39. Thank you. That's how it feels - being a witness to a lie.

And expected to swallow it anyway.

I can't. I won't.

[oasis]

38. So many shit-for-brain idiots populating our great nation.

At least 60 million. Too damned many.

[Solly Mack]

41. lol True

I sometimes feel sorry for them but it can be a danger to feel that way - yet, I do - sometimes. In between the anger and the disgust.

[leftstreet]

42. DURec

Excellent post
DURec

and you have GOT to be a writer

"Mrs. Smallpound"

[Solly Mack]

45. Thanks

She once wanted to teach me a lesson about talking in class, so she tied different colored yarn in my hair in hopes of embarrassing me. The other kids mocked me, which was her goal. It didn't stop my talking, but she got some of what she wanted.

I was the youngest and all my siblings had her as a teacher first - before I came along and shattered her assumptions.

She wasn't the super nice and kind teacher they all told me about, but then I wasn't the eager to please type she was accustomed to either.

[trixie2]

43. I am happy to report that many school systems don't have the pledge anymore

My parents who were in school in the late 40s did the original pledge, the one without God. They never understood the addition of God and always said it ruined the whole cadence, or flow, of the pledge. I agree.

[Solly Mack]

46. Schools I went to had stopped by the time I got to Jr. High.

But we had moved by then and people sure did like their "moment of silence" each morning in the new school.

Needless to say, I wasn't silent.

It was also when I first became aware of how much football meant to people. I'm the new kid and they didn't want to know my name so much as what college team I supported. Turns out, there were wrong answers. Coming from a home where while we did attend home games for the Braves and the Falcons, we didn't predicate our likes and dislikes on what teams someone supported.

It was my first taste of culture shock.

[trixie2]

62. Yes, I'm with you and not giving a crap about teams

I am lucky my parents were about us playing sports and not watching the "boob tube". Their term.

To this day, no sports are allowed on tv in the main room during holidays. To the basement with you few! Oh and take this infant with you.

[Solly Mack]

63. Those kids could get heated over not picking the "right" team.

They remained that way through high school.

Don't really know after that as I was happy to be away from them after graduation.

[Martin Eden]

47. "the sense that I am living among strange beings"

I remember walking through my neighborhood in the run-up to GW's invasion of Iraq, wondering about the people who were flying the flag in front of their homes. I felt like a stranger in a strange land among people whose minds had somehow been overthrown.

It's even worse with Trump. How could anyone in their right mind think that pathological liar is even remotely fit for the presidency, mentally or morally?

[Solly Mack]

48. Because he makes them feel good about themselves and what they believe.

He's their validation.

As sad and tragic as that sounds.

[Martin Eden]

49. If their beliefs coincide with Trump's rhetoric

That is even more disturbing than greed for tax cuts or ignoring everything else to get "conservative" judges appointed.

The real aliens in this country are the 40% or so who approve of the orange abomination as president. If I were 30 years younger I would seriously consider moving to Canada.

I'm sick of being ashamed of my country.

[Solly Mack]

50. It is disturbing. Trump fashions a lot of his rhetoric to fit what they already believe

and Trump believes whatever he claims is true at any given point in time.

If he says it it must be true (to him) even if he contradicts himself with his next words. And his followers only hear the part that appeals to them.

I wouldn't exactly fight against moving elsewhere either. Not sure I could leave family behind though.

[Thunderbeast]

51. My wife was hauled before the School Board

In the late 60s, she taught sixth grade in suburban Detroit. One of her students reported to her parents that the pledge was not recited daily. The parents were local leaders in the John Birch Society (early deplorables). The School Board was not happy. She continued to resist their demands that the pledge be recited each day. It was the end of the school year, and she closed the book on her teaching career.

She did return to teaching 30 years later in a district and school that had no use for such nonsense.

The flag salute originated as a commentary in the magazine "YOUTH COMPANION" late in the 19th Century as the "Bellamy Salute". It was adopted as the "Flag Salute" with instructions: "The Bellamy Salute consisted of each person -- man, woman or child -- extending his or her right arm straight forward, angling slightly upward, fingers pointing directly ahead. With their right arms aiming stiffly toward the flag, they recited: "I pledge allegiance..."

As Hitler rose to power, something had to change. The flag code was modified in 1942 the instructions to place the right hand over the heart, or if in uniform, salute with the official salute of the organization.

The salute, like the National Anthem has become a meaningless gesture of jingoism and militarism. NO WHERE should it be deemed mandatory.

[Solly Mack]

52. Thanks for adding that. The deplorables, in all their guises, need conformity to exist.

Otherwise, we challenge everything they believe - simply by existing - and become a threat to them. If everyone is doing the exact same thing the exact same way then everyone must be right and everything they believe must be true.

Then people like us come along - and they can't allow it.

[treestar]

53. In my high school there was a guy who refused to say it

I think they let him not say it. It was related to Vietnam, though that had recently ended.

[Solly Mack]

56. That was nice of them.

How my friend was being treated did it for me.

The collective mocking of the perceived outsider. And then consider they were too young to even know why they were doing it other than taking their cue from an authority figure.