Every day since the first county (that I know of) banned the pledge in schools I have heard people say “If you don’t like this country you can get the hell out.” now I personally disagree with this on the basis that it goes against what our country is about. Now personally I think these people banning the pledge and national anthem are rediculous but I’m curiouse to see what other people think.
Do you have a citation for any school district actually banning the recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance or the banning of the playing/singing of the Star Spangled Banner?
Or do you equate schools who simply stop allocating the time to recite the POA at the beginning of the school day as “banning”?
This is one example of the pledge ban.
Hmmm…I don’t see anything in that article which would bar students from voluntarily making the Pledge of Allegiance, at any time during which they are free to stand up and speak aloud (i.e., students in that school could say the PoA during the break between classes, but not in the middle of a test or lecture).
From the link:
So the State of Wisconsin is mandating a practice that the Supreme Court declared, at the height of WWII, that no one could be compelled to participate in, and when a number of parents and teachers object to the McCarthy era insertion “under God,” the school board decided to pick a middle ground between defying the state law and violating the Supreme Court decision.
Maybe, instead of mandating that people proclaim a quasi loyalty oath as a litmus test for patriotism, we ought to let people choose to display their patriotism in the manner that they most see fit.
Much agreement with Tom’s last.
I grew up saying the pledge of allegiance and am struck by what an empty ritual it was. By the time I reached junior high or so the pledge was a goner; I think I must have moved to a place where the district didn’t mandate it or perhaps just not for older kids. When my son first started school he didn’t say the pledge and in his new school he does. He is nine and fairly articulate. Unsurprisingly, he had no idea what it might mean to “pledge allegiance” to anything. He didn’t know what a “republic” is or why a flag would “stand” for it.
My point: it’s surprising how much attention people will pay to whether the ritual is or isn’t observed w/ or w/o “under God” (in my school back in the early 70s, god was left out). And yet I don’t know that anyone particularly pays any attention to what is meant by the whole thing. When you think about it, the entire notion of pledging one’s allegiance to an emblem is rather bizarre; as is the idea that people would be made more patriotic simply by doing it by rote, much less being forced against their will (which is utterly barbaric and contrary to American principles). I’m sure a libertarian of the John Stuart Mill mold (a personal hero of mine) would gag at the very idea.
Joseph McCarthy was an evil man, who spread fear and destroyed people’s careers for the sake of gaining personal power. One nasty concept associated with McCarthy was guilt by association. This was a way to tar a liberal who was not a communist, but who shared some idea that was supported by communists.
It’s true that the words “Under God” were added to the Pledge during that period. However, those words are not the essence of McCarthyism. They do not constitute the harm done. Even if one doesn’t like those words, it’s wrong to detest them merely because they’re associated with Joseph McCarthy. Ironically, this sort of reasoning constitutes a kind of *anti-McCarthy *guilt by association.
donotprodme, your cite isn’t typical. It comes from Madison, Wisconsin – home of the University of Wisconsin. Madison, WI; Berkely, CA; Boulder, CO and other university towns are unique places, which are not located in the real world. The Berkeley City Council recently voted for The US to stop the war in Afghanistan, although some might think this region to be outside their jurisdiction. To keep up to date on Boulder, see Fenris’s hilarious thread, The Great Boulder Penis Flap: http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=97818
Okay, try this one on for why atheists (and other people) detest the addition of “under God” to the POA, from this web page on “In God We Trust” and similar issues:
Sorry, december, you aren’t really an American. IIRC, you don’t believe in God, so for you to be an American would be a “contradiction in terms”. Furthermore, your lack of belief is the root of Communism.
Nope. Not in any way. I have not smeared any individual with a claim of being a “McCarthyite.” I have identified an era. Just as idealism (or, for some, misguided idealism) is associated with the Kennedy era (or with “Camelot”), the particular aspect of hyper-patriotism linked to paranoid fears and demands for demonstrative loyalty that flourished most dramatically at the beginning of the 1950s is called the McCarthy era. Had I attempted to dismiss (without evidence) any individual’s efforts as being merely an example of McCarthyism or imputed (without evidence) an unethical hunger for power to some individual who opposed Marxism by labeling them “another McCarthy”, it might be valid to construct a McCarthy corollary to Godwin’s Law. However, the phrase the McCarthy Era is a recognition that McCarthy was allowed to trample the rights of citizens (for a period of time–his “era”) because of the silence and acquiescence of others in power and in the population at large.
Examples of this attitude of the era can be found in such diverse places as the link that MEBuckner has provided or the 1952 John Wayne movie Big Jim McClain which ends with the Duke bemoaning the fact that the nasty Communists that he has been hounding are actually using the Constitution to avoid prosecution (for acts that were, in fact, perfectly legal).
Thanks for that interesting cite, MEBuckner. I’m trying to remember Rep. Louis Rabaut, but failing. I was 11 years old when he made the cited speech.
tomndebb, you are correct that my use of the phrase “guilt by association” was an analogy, rather than the exact meaning. I was applying the concept to the guilty words “under God”, when the phrase really refers to guilty people.
I’m unable to cut and paste from your cite. It appears to be a standard, non-partisan history book. Interestingly, the paragraph bends over backwards to not take a position on whether the threat of internal subversion was truly serious. In my opinion, it was indeed a serious danger. The problem McCarthy claimed to fight was real; his methods were detestable and ineffective.
I was pleased to see that your cite described McCartyism in terms quite close to mine. In particular, while it mentioned wild accusatons, disrupting people’s lives, and causing fear, it didn’t mention adding “Under God” to the P of A.
Rep. Rabaut may be forgotten, but the attitudes remain.
Okay, so I have no idea who Kathleen Parker is (I am assuming some kind of editor to USA Today), but I am sure she made a lot of fans with that article. I mean, she would have if anyone read USA Today.
So yah, what happened to all the atheists?! What, they had the maturity not to rub their lack of faith in the faces of a nation that was obviously suffering an unexpected blow? Rubbish–they just realised that loving Jesus wasn’t really that bad of an idea after all! I am not an atheist (one town over–agnostic that understands the philosophical loophole in atheism but sympathizes for the most part), but I remember dry-heaving a few times when the American flags and religious fervor started showing up all around me after the attacks (I happened to be in the States visiting the family at the time)–I just kept my reaction to myself for the most part because I deemed it not an appropriate time for a heated debate (to be honest, I got into one with my parents in a public place anyway, but I tried, dadnabbit!). I’d imagine that many of my other heathen sinner brethren (and sestren) probably had similar thoughts.
Anyway, on the subject of the OP, when I was a kid I got out of saying the pledge once I noticed that the Jehovah’s Witness in my class didn’t have to say it for religious reasons–I of course came up with a bogus line about how Jews (my father being one of the Chosen People) couldn’t pledge allegiance to anything either, and the WASP-y administration had their reasons for loathing Jews justified a bit more by my childhood fibbery. So, if you couldn’t tell yet, I am not a big supporter of the pledge (even lemon-scented). But I wouldn’t say that it should be banned. Not that anyone here was saying it should. Alrightie then…
The phrase “McCarthy era” refers to a period of time in which various actions were taken. I’m not sure what distinction you were making in your post.
Do you think that the phrase “under God” was added because of a resurgence in religious fervor in the U.S.? (Then it should more likely have happened in the 1920s.) Based on my memories and MEBuckner’s citation, I would say that the addition of the “under God” phrase was exactly a reflection of the attitudes of the McCarthy era.
If one were looking at a different historical event, one could characterize the same period as the “early civil rights era” with Truman’s desegregation of the armed forces and the several lawsuits that culminated in Brown v Board of Education, but that overlapping “era” contributed nothing to sticking “under God” into the POA.
The idea that “McCarthy era” can only be used if one is describing witch hunts seems to be a bit disingenuous. “McCarthy tactics” should certainly be limited to witch hunts, but I simply used a phrase that is in fairly common usage to denote a time period with a prevailing attitude among the populace. I see no reason to modify my original statement.
Mandelstam, the situation surrounding the PoA is certainly bizzarre, but I actually do like it. As I mentioned just a few moments ago in Merc’s thread the PoA means something to me, and the flag means something to me, almost independent of the situations that have surrounded either.
I pledge allegiance to the flag of the US of A
And to the republic for which (I think) it stands
One nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
I don’t think about McCarthy when I say the pledge. I don’t think about racism when I say the pledge. I think about the USA that is written about in the Constitution, briefly outlined in the Bill of Rights and the ideals behind the Declaration of Independence, and the emotional struggle the revolutionary founders went through to bring this country together. Those are themselves a mess of symbols, and wrapping them up in a flag is easy enough for my mind to do, and I do it, and I mean it. It is no less intellectually satisfying than “worshipping” Eris as the athropomorphized version of the second law of thermodynamics and the HUP, Star Trek’s IDIC, and a whole host of doubt-ridden phenomenological observations.
So I do get a little worried about both sides of the spectrum. Like the OP, I worry about the “love it or leave it” types, but I also worry about those who shun the flag as well. I am not asking you to blindly follow the country when I ask you to say a PoA to the flag (and “I” really means me, here); I am asking you to say a pledge to the ideals you find America represents to you. Like a personal prayer. “Freedom means ____ to me. Liberty means ____ to me.”
So yeah, sometimes I get the feeling that people are being just as silly about the PoA when they shun it out of anti-jingoism as when they adopt the PoA for it. Neither are embodied in the America that was declared independent in 1776.
**No doubt tomndebb is correct about how the words “under God” came to be in the P of A. However, I don’t care why they were added. The words “Under God” stand on their own. That phrase should be judged as beneficial or objectionable, regardless of its genesis. (Personally, I have no particular feeling for or against “under God”. I consider these words to be an inconsequential part of the P of A)
One sometimes sees a tendency to take certain position because one’s opponents are on the opposite side. IMHO the NY Times editorial page sometimes applies this sort of reasoning. E.g., their support of Clinton during the impeachment seemed to be based in part on their desire to oppose anything the right wing favored.
Considering that the founding fathers managed to write the entire constitution without even using the word God, it’s a shame that McCarthy had to add “under God” and “In God we trust”. I think it should be removed – IMO, it’s the best way to honor the principles upon which the USA was built.
eris, I have had my own flag moments–most recently when a very large flag near where I live was being flown at half mast to mourn the WTC. But pledging my allegiance to it as part of a morning ritual as a schoolchild was no more meaningful to me than was the principal’s announcement afterwards about the weather. (Actually, since whether we got to play outside or not depended on the latter, I’m sure I paid more attention to the principal). As an adult, pledging allegiance to the flag–say, at a baseball game with 35,000 other people–can be kind of neat. But then, no one is being made to do it there.
december: "One sometimes sees a tendency to take certain position because one’s opponents are on the opposite side. IMHO the NY Times editorial page sometimes applies this sort of reasoning. E.g., their support of Clinton during the impeachment seemed to be based in part on their desire to oppose anything the right wing favored."
This is pretty ridiculous. For one thing, the Times did not consistently decry the impeachment. This was in fact a subject for much grumbling over at The Nation which caters to a more consistently left clientele. For another, there were so many reasons why anyone from moderate Conservative to flaming leftwing radical would find the impeachment proceedings dubious and partisan in the extreme. Why would a reflexive desire to oppose anything the right favored necessarily have anything to do with it?
Don’t your liberal wife and daughter tell you anything about how our minds work? 
Enjoy your bird (I don’t suppose you’re a vegetarian).