God should not be taken out of the Pledge of Allegiance.

[JackRiddler]

The Pledge of Allegiance should be taken out, period. No such thing should be required to recite in schools. Especially not a pledge to a piece of cloth, which anyone can wave and claim for themselves. That kind of shit belongs in totalitarian systems.

Schools should educate about democracy generally and in particular the form of government in the United States (democratic or not). Students should be learning the Constitution from Preamble to Bill of Rights, the history of the amendments and major court decisions, their rights and privileges and duties and requirements as citizens generally, the means for organizing to protect their rights, how to get involved in and influene the politics that affects their lives (not only inside the voting booth), why it's important...

EDITING TO ADD POST #39 HERE:

http://www.firstamendmentschools.org/freedoms/case.aspx?id=442

Writing for the SC majority in 1943, when Jehovah's Witnesses refused to say the pledge, Justice Robert Jackson:

“If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein.”

[msongs]

1. what? you don't want christian idolatry for every kid every morning? ummm nt

[Nye Bevan]

8. Where does the Pledge mention Christianity?

If you are referring to "under God", is Christianity the only religion with the concept of a God?

[jeff47]

11. Only Jews and Christians would use the word God.

Other faiths have other words. Allah, for example.

Then there's us terrible atheists.

[JackRiddler]

14. The phrase was inserted by Christian fanatics...

as an act of Congress during the Red Scare.

[nadinbrzezinski]

58. You should read into why the pledge has under god now

it did not originally.

By the way, those references also need to get done for in coins, same history.

[DURHAM D]

2. When saying the Pledge I have never once said

"under god". I just count 1, 2.

[JackRiddler]

3. I have never once said the Pledge since I was 10 or so.

Oh, except for when performing it it for foreigners who don't know what it is.

[Kelvin Mace]

4. Not a big fan of mandatory loyalty oaths.

[branford]

19. That's good, because the Pledge of Allegiance is not mandatory

in any government setting, including all public schools.

[ShrimpPoboy]

36. Truth.

[Kelvin Mace]

48. My reference context

is conservatives who wish to make it and prayer mandatory.

Also, in my view, it is mandatory if it is voluntary, but one's refusal to participate will result in ostracization by their peers.

[branford]

50. Freedom of religion and speech is not protection against social pressures and exclusion.

Further, although certain conservatives might want to make prayer and similar conduct mandatory, the relevant and long-standing jurisprudence has repeatedly made clear that such attempts are be clearly unconstitutional and will be prohibited.

[Kelvin Mace]

56. True, but that hasn't stopped them from constantly

trying to pass such laws.

Also, if the teacher in a school stands up and says, "We will all now recite the "Pledge of Allegiance". Those of you who do not wish to recite will stand in front of the class quietly", that is a state mandated loyalty oath since the teacher is compelling students by peer pressure and virtue of their authority.

[nadinbrzezinski]

60. You obviously have never been to some real small town

government bodies. Let's just say social pressure can be a wonderful thing

[JackRiddler]

68. Or New York City, for that matter.

Plenty of schools require it and you know what? It doesn't matter what's the law. Schoolchildren are herded, that's how it is. And at "Town Halls" of local representatives, they don't do history lessons, they start with that shit. That's when I run out of the room (since I'm there to lobby these dumbshits) because I ain't standing and I ain't reciting.

[nadinbrzezinski]

69. Media boxes do not let you get out

[OxQQme]

5. I was 14 when god got injected into the PoA

and that was about the time that "TheChurch" attempted to silence that Satanic Elvis Presley.

I have not mouthed those PoA words since I bought my pair of Blue Suede shoes.

Damn Puritans.

[SusanCalvin]

10. But Elvis would probably have approved of "Under God"

Ain't life strange.

[Juicy_Bellows]

6. Great post. Civics and ethics... no longer taught. Nt.

[roody]

7. I taught first grade for 17 years and rarely had the kids recite it.

Last year we did not do it once.

[JackRiddler]

12. Good for you!

[SusanCalvin]

9. Well, I was about to knee-jerk disagree,

But I find I agree. Especially as it is a pledge to a piece of cloth. EXCUSE ME????

[3catwoman3]

13. We have friends from England, who have been in the US...

...for many years. The husband has a one-of-a-kind expertise in some sort of metallurgy. When their then-8 yr old son was in the local elementary school, TPTB insisted that he recite the POA in class every morning, even though he was not an American citizen. They were not content for him to just stand quietly. His parents chose not to make a big deal of it, to minimize controversy.

While I understood their outlook, I would have raised holy hell. The school district was completely out of line.

[VMA131Marine]

30. I am also from the UK

I came to the US at age 14 and never once said the Pledge of Allegiance nor did anyone try to force me to do it. It couldn't have been that harmful because I felt enough loyalty to my new home to enlist in the Marines after high school.

[SheilaT]

15. I'm old enough to remember when the Under God

thing was put into the Pledge.

I was attending Catholic school at the time, and I clearly recall the nuns being very unhappy with it. They actually had a good grasp of what was meant by separation of church and state.

I no longer recite the Pledge. Haven't for about a decade now, although admittedly I don't often find myself in a place where that is happening. Sometimes I will stand up and just be silent. More recently, I sit quietly. I will say that I do feel uncomfortable, but that's better than feeling like a total hypocrite.

[JackRiddler]

16. I have literally run out of rooms...

so as not to have to deal with the reaction because I do not stand for it.

[SheilaT]

17. At least that has never happened to me.

[gyroscope]

18. Replace the word 'flag' with 'US Constitution'

that would be a proper pledge of allegiance

(also remove the god part)

[JackRiddler]

22. You want children "pledging" to a constitution?

This is not really in the supposed spirit of the document.

It makes sense in totalitarian countries.

[truebluegreen]

45. Do you also object to the Oath of Office

for the President, Before he enter on the Execution of his Office, he shall take the following Oath or Affirmation:—"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States." Article II, Section One (my bold)

or for the various Congresscritters, "executives and judicial officers" to be "bound by Oath or Affirmation to support this Constitution...."? Article VI

Yeah, actually, if we are going to pledge to anything, that would be the one.

[JackRiddler]

57. You don't see a difference?

One is an oath taken willingly by adult persons who worked to be elected as officials under the rules of the same constitution that they are swearing by. The other is an non-official "pledge" that millions of children and minors are forced to recite unwillingly and before they even understand what the words mean. This is the difference between constitutional procedure and mass brainwashing.

[gyroscope]

29. Its a lot better than a flag

I don't know how anyone who believes in real freedom and democracy can be against what the Constitution stands for. At least it actually stands for something real and concrete while a flag can be easily interpreted or misinterpreted by people like George Bush and Donald Trump to promote their false brand of patriotism. But its harder to misinterpret something that is well articulated in words, and there's no mistaking what the US Constitution stands for (people like Trump and Bush do not respect what it stands for)

[DFW]

20. I have posted this story before, but it is very relevant to this OP

My elder daughter was born and raised in Germany. This is the story of her first encounter with the Pledge of Allegiance. It had been so long ago for me, I had completely forgotten to tell her about it before she attended her first American school:


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.............."

[JackRiddler]

25. I spread the peaches!

Thanks, great story.

[DFW]

43. She was reluctant to ask the American kids in her class

She felt a little stupid not knowing what the hell was going on, since all the other kids in her class did it so routinely, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. Since the defeat of the Nazis, to someone who grew up as a German, making a daily pledge of allegiance to a flag was the least natural thing in the world.

[ShrimpPoboy]

35. Kids are awesome.

Thanks for sharing that.

[nadinbrzezinski]

61. That is great

[DFW]

70. It showed how seriously our kids take it these days

They just stand there, because they have to, and mumble it ritually to the point where anyone else can't figure out what they're saying. It can't be said that it instills them with patriotic fervor every morning, and if it doesn't do that, what's the point? We're making them do it for someone else's benefit, not theirs.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

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

[hobbit709]

23. The original version from 1892 did not have "Under god" in it.

That was added in 1954 during the red witch hunt years.

[JackRiddler]

24. Yeah I know.

The original writer had good intentions.

In practice it's a ritual daily brainwashing for children - with or without "god."

[ileus]

26. Do they say it at your kids school?

[JackRiddler]

42. At the International School in Berlin, Germany? No, they didn't.

But we said it at my parochial elementary school in New York. Have times changed? Is this no longer a big thing? What percentage of schools engage in this nonsense?

[frizzled]

27. Why have nationalism at all then? Why have a nation?

Your reasoning is sound, but why stop there? Why are we forced to be part of a nation? I never agreed to this government, or any government. Isn't it discrimination to not give foreigners equal rights?

Once you pull this thread it all starts to unravel.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

28. Maybe eventually it will entirely unravel.

Simply because we have evolved a system doesn't mean that eventually it won't evolve into a different system.

[JackRiddler]

41. Reductio ad absurdum.

Also mirrors in its logical structure arguments against gay marriage, or not harshly punishing minor crimes (since if you start there, why not go all the way). If you dispense with flag worship and jingoism, it might lead to etc., etc. pick an ultimate extreme.

Why have nationalism, however (as distinct from nations/states) is a VERY good question in itself.

[frizzled]

46. Fallacy

There's no logical connection between gay marriage and, oh, let's say bestiality.

On the other hand, there is a glaring LACK of ethical justification for nations to exist. The lines for foreigners and citizens at airports look like Apartheid. Why treat foreigners differently? Why have countries?

[JackRiddler]

47. Historically, modern nation-states...

arose mostly in response to the dynastic system and its empires, which were constantly at war. There were many good as well as bad reasons for it. It was a hope of development and freedom and better days, for most who believed in it. I'd say these enlightenment projects managed some amazing things, but have failed and have reproduced new systems of empire, violence, and endarkenment, also the World Wars, nuclear war, neo-imperialism and all the rest, to put some names on it. And currently a new rise of fascism in various places. How to get out of this into a better world is no simple question. I'm sure you're aware that no borders at all is not a possible goal in the middle historical term, and would foster conditions that are opposite to the perpetual peace I'm assuming you're wishing for.

[Smarmie Doofus]

31. Realistically....

let's just drop "under god" for now. He ( or she; I guess "he&quot belongs in church, etc.; not in public school classrooms or at civic events.

In our increasingly secular era, this is a reasonable and achievable political goal. Meaning: most people can be persuaded to go for it.

I don't know about the rest. Does every country have a "pledge"? Or something resembling it?

[JustAnotherGen]

32. I kind of like it

But take the God out.

Francis Bellamy - not a perfect person - no historical figure is but :

http://www.chattanoogan.com/2012/7/11/230070/The-Surprising-Story-Of-The-Pledge-Of.aspx

[Alkene]

33. Maybe substitute, under, with, oh my.

That would be, like, totally awesome.

[geomon666]

34. Done!

[ghostsinthemachine]

37. When I was a kid (the early 60s) I refused to recite

The pledge, not so much for the religious aspect, but the fact that they would show newsreel footage of "The Hitler Youth" doing exactly the same thing. Then talk of propaganda and brainwashing of those kids.
This did not set well with anyone, especially my parents and school administrators who suspended, the expelled me over it then forced me to participate against my will. (Which probably led to my rebellious nature)...they never could give me reason, other than "you are required"....

[Gabi Hayes]

39. I have had to cite this when told I MUST say the pledge at school:

http://www.firstamendmentschools.org/freedoms/case.aspx?id=442

writing for the majority in 1943, when Jehovah's Witnesses refused to say the pledge:


“If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein.” (Justice Robert Jackson)

[JackRiddler]

59. THANK YOU.

I'm adding it to the OP.

[Gabi Hayes]

65. thank you for this thread. It's something that

really gets my goat.

I've been avoiding paying any attention to the pledge for fifteen years, with only a couple of queries as to why, with my paraphrasing the 43 decision only once, to a librarian, free speech lover, she was, ha.

the first of these two pics are of US kids doing the Bellamy salute in 1942. this salute, I believe, has been already mentioned here as having originated when the original pledge (''to my flag'') was written, and the salute described, in 1892.

the second is a room full of German kids doing something recognizably similar

[Gabi Hayes]

38. how we say it at my school

https://m.

from the comments:

"...yet another simple-minded sheep repeating an outdated, cliche rhetoric that has already been disproved thousands of times. americans are not under any active, imminent threat at any time today. it's like saying you should be grateful and show your allegiance to me for not murdering your dog because i totally have the ability to do so.

it's illogical. with an ever increasing gap between the rich and the poor, an overburdened welfare system, countless social issues, and tons of people being forced out of retirement, america is far from being a nation that can be described as "safe" and "guarded."

the middle class and the poor are under the constant threat of FINANCIAL harm, no matter how hard they work. "classless society" in america is a myth. yeah, thanks america. oppressing/suppressing those who choose to be critical thinkers rather than obedient sheep vulnerable to government exploitation is what's unamerican.''

[yuiyoshida]

44. omg..

that video!

[hunter]

40. My mom was Jehovah's Witness, and then Quaker.

Saying the pledge got you in trouble with God, so I didn't.

I was a weird skinny reactive autistic spectrum kid, so me refusing to acknowledge the pledge only added to my aura of weirdness and wasn't unexpected.

When I was teaching there were so many teachers neglecting the pledge that the administration decided to do it on the PA system every morning, read by students who were undoubtedly praised and encouraged by their patriotic parents, probably the same parents who'd complained about teachers not doing the pledge. Our school was very well worn, had no intercoms, and in many classes you could only hear the PA announcements on the speakers outside, so not much changed.

[pokerfan]

49. I'd rather have them sing

[AwakeAtLast]

52. This Music Teacher agrees!

[awoke_in_2003]

51. I agree

it's indoctrination

[Stargleamer]

53. Always seemed like a Loyalty Oath to me

reminiscent of the Loyalty Oaths required in the 1950's

[bklyncowgirl]

54. Do we really need this fight?

Seriously, we have bigger fish to fry. This is the sort of boutique liberal issue which sets the right wing off into the stratosphere and makes ordinary people, you know the folks we's like to have voting for Democrats shaking their heads and wondering whether their beloved pledge would disappear if they vote for Hillary or Bernie.

Let's let the silly belong to the right wing, shall we?

[JackRiddler]

55. Do you think everything relates to a narrow definition of 'us'?

This is the General Discussion section, where all discussions can be had, not a strategy session on Clinton's next rebrand.

[bklyncowgirl]

63. I'm talking about liberals in general and to correct your impression I'm a Sanders supporter.

I just don't think giving the other side fuel over something as silly as a ban on God in the pledge of allegiance is worth it. Others may differ of course. From where I stand 60 something, white, female from a blue collar family it seems like the sort of thing that gives liberals a bad name. I'd personally prefer it said "I pledge allegiance to the Constitution" and leave out the "under God" part but no one asked me when they wrote it.

[JackRiddler]

67. What's the problem? I'm some guy talking on an Internet board.

Sorry, I didn't think anything about whom you might support, I was just using a rhetorical example of what you seem to be saying, which, after your latest post... still seems to be what you are saying.

I have a view and I'm expressing it, and it certainly doesn't need to characterize "liberals" (of which I am not one, by the way). If someone wants to do that unfairly, then it's on them. They're wrong.

We can't all shut up now because some theoretical mainstream hates "liberals" or clings to symbolic bull or lumps unrelated people together. Things on the Internet get taken out of context and used for false characterizations of larger groups all the time, and unscrupulous operators will do that no matter how much "we" self-censor. Far better to normalize these uncomfortable ideas by stating them, if we believe them. That is exactly what Sanders has been really good at (and OWS before him). A faithfulness to their own convictions is central to the success of the right, by the way. They don't triangulate, they don't package, they push for what they believe in.

Otherwise you have a recipe for permanent incremental maintenance of everything status quo. Everything will have to be vetted against how it might play in a theoretical intolerant Peoria. I think more highly of Peoria's potentials, however, I have high hopes for Peoria to be better than that one day.

[bklyncowgirl]

71. In the face of the important things that need to be done this is, as I said before, rather silly

Oh and by the way conservatives do package. What is all of that nattering on about "Freedom", "Family Values" and "Patriotism" if not packaging?

If they did not "package", if they did not hide their intentions behind patriotic phrases dear to the American people, no one who is not a member of the corporate elite would vote for them.

[Arugula Latte]

62. Yep. I despise both.

Well, in the case of (nonexistent) god, I despise what the idea of this evil a-hole deity and all the harm this belief has caused our planet.

I agree, the pledge is like a fascist wet dream. Turn off your brains and submit to the propaganda, kiddies!

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

64. Are his lawyers demanding royalties because He's broke again?

[burrowowl]

66. I remember

having to relearn it in second grade because they inserted "under God"
The pledge was written by a socialist Baptist preacher!

[B Calm]

72. Congress is voting on taking it out?

[Orrex]

73. My school didn't require the daily recitation of the pledge

Instead, we gathered each week at the football field in robes of muslin and slaughtered a goat on the 50 yard line.

If you can think of a better way to keep the rain failing, I'd love to hear it.