It’s just an expression about having some courage in the face of tyrants and petty bureaucrats. I suppose if someone had an actual gun to my head, I’d say the damn pledge. Maybe we are in agreement there.
According to Joesph Heller, the correct quote is that it’s better to live on your feet than die on your knees.
In this case living on your feet means respectfully ignoring the judge’s demands and holding fast while the judge gets bounced from the case and possibly removed from the bench.
Nevah mine.
The lawyer was not aware of any such choice, so how could he have made a reasoned decision. The judge did not say I will throw you in jail for 5 hours before he had him arrested. The judge was being a jerk. I hope he gets in trouble for it.
Make him stand up in court and recite the constitution.
You are completely wrong. Completely.
The lawyer took the only reasonable action: he refused to give in to an illegal order issued by someone in a seat of power. As a result, this issue got national press and now there are lots of people aware of the situation. His sacrifice shone light on a racist, petty despot who refused to uphold the law of the land and who hopefully will now be stripped of whatever powers he holds over anyone.
A quick question: Mr Lampley is noted as being from Oxford. I know that there’s more than one Oxford in the world, but could it be that he is not an American citizen, but a British one? Therefore it would be wrong - perhaps even treasonous - for him to recite the American Pledge of Allegiance.
Reasonable observation, but Oxford MS (site of a major university) is only 50 miles away along a US highway, and it makes a great deal of sense that someone not wanting a local lawyer, for whatever reason, might well get a lawyer from Oxford instead.
Right. But even granted that, do you need to be an American citizen to practice law in America?
IF we want to get into name calling, then you are a coward.
This was not a big deal until the crazy judge made it a big deal. The judge could have either not brought the pledge up, or could have dropped it. He chose to pursue it for his personal power trip. Let’s place the blame where it belonged. As far as any choice between a real “die on your feet” situation, assuming we want to get into that, if you want to be a slave, fine. Personally, I’m not into that.
Slaves can be set free, tyrants can die? If everyone knuckles under, then who gets to kill the tyrant? Probably some “idiot” who refused to go with the program, and does the things you could have and should have done (but didn’t). Bah. In that sort of extreme fantasy situation, where I’m the mythical hero, I’d free those who had tried to stay free, those are the ones worth saving. I’d leave the willing slaves, the cowards, to rot in the hell of their own choosing.
It is my understanding that you need to be licensed to practice in the state you are practicing in. I don’t believe one needs to be a citizen of the US to be eligible for a law license.
However, I’m no expert on that topic.
Not a lawyer or anything resembling one but wouldn’t the correct action have been to have recited the Pledge under strong protest and then made an official complaint when the business of the court had finished? In other words, you don’t get to argue with the judge over what is proper procedure in his courtroom and surely it could be argued that he was rightly held in contempt for not obeying the judge. It’s for the judge’s superiors to decide whether hizzonner is an ignorant asshole (and it’s my fervent hope and belief that they will do just that).
Nope. That didn’t work at Nuremburg, and it isn’t going to work now. 
An illegal order is an illegal order, period.
Not to mention that, if the lawyer had said the pledge and simply complained later, this incident almost certainly would not have received anything like the national attention that it is getting now. The judge has abused his power in the past, and has never been held accountable for it, so the lawyer probably felt that a simple complaint might not be sufficient to effect any change. But now this story has spread well beyond one particular stunted little backwater, and is getting much wider attention. This truly was an act of civil disobedience that served a very clear purpose.
So, you’re denying it, you cock-faced vaginal bloodfart?
Your own goddamn posts, you diarrhetic cumstain.
Give him a chance to answer, you syphilitic tampon-brained discharge residue!
Captain Amazing – ever heard of the concept of “civil disobedience”?
[sub]MTCicero – don’t hold back. Tell us how you REALLY feel.[/sub]
Redneck? I thought that the rednecks of the American south revered the confederate flag, which would suggest to me that reverence for a facsimile of the union flag would be discouraged.