The writer of the Pledge of Allegiance was Francis Bellamy, a Christian Socialist and a Baptist Minister. He wrote it in 1892. It originally said:
Note that it did not refer to the USA or to God, even though Bellamy was, again, a Baptist minister.
When “my Flag” was changed to “the Flag of the United States of America” in 1923 and '24, he protested. (Why he did not copyright it, I don’t know.)
Bellamy’s granddaughter said he would have protested the addition of “under God” because he was expelled from his church because of his socialist sermons. He did not attend church in Florida after retiring there because of racist practices.
According to www.census.gov, the population of the USA is now over 283,600,000 It isn’t predicted to pass 300,000,000 until sometime in the year 2010.
I don’t recall here being any mention in any of my posts concerning religious freedoms, though the bill of rights says one doesn’t have to do squat if they claim it under religion.
So, in that matter, I would not expect someone whose religion forbids him to honor state symbols to rise. Then, neither would I expect a wheelchair bound person to do so either. Can you stretch the point any further?
BTW, Dwight Eisenhower. My spelling was off. Remember Ike?
I see you did not get the comparison of rights in my paragraph concerning a person’s home, but then those out to just be antagonistic have a tendency not to grasp comparisons.
Mercutio
[quote]
::shakes his head::
I could make my font size 72 and twentyeight would still ignore my question.
Oh well.[/q uote]
You question is, in my opinion, not applicable to my beef with you, kid.
Czarcasm
Where did I say anything about his refusal to say the pledge? Quote me please? This kid comes on the board, bragging about how he argued the educator into allowing him to sit when others stood to say the pledge, in other words, pleased as hl that he snubbed the national flag, a symbol of the US. I do not believe that he had any actual reason for this aside from choosing to be a smarta, attempting to ‘show up’ a teacher, and to prove to his dubious and slack jawed peer group that he could do it. The act was for self gratification. He wanted to test the powers and see how far he could get. I have no doubt that once his attempt was successful, he spread it among his classmates and companions and now has a questionable status among the immature.
Nowhere have I said that he does not have the right to refuse to stand. If I have, please point it out to me. I have stated that in my opinion I find his actions detestable.
Then I gave reasons why I find his actions reprehensible. I recall kids similar to him when I was in school, always trying to get one over on the teacher, always pushing the envelope and always doing so for self gratification and to make themselves look good in the eyes of others.
He has not won a great victory here. He has used his freedom of speech and his rights to snub a national symbol for personal gain, which, in my opinion, indicates that he respects little aside from himself and what directly pertains to him.
Because I’m an American and because I respect the Flag which is the symbol of our nation, which I happen to consider the best in the world – even though others will dispute me on that – I consider his declining to even rise out of simple respect for this icon to be a deliberate snub, which indirectly comes right back to me.
He has the right to do this, but that does not make him right, nor does it make him some form of free thinking hero, standing out from the common masses. I recall hippies in the 60s and 70s using his form of logic before, and others using it before them. All they did was piss people off and were forgotten in the end.
I respect the flag because of what it stands for and while I can probably sit down and cite you more nasty things about America than you can dream of, I can also rattle off twice as many good items.
He states that the nation, in his opinion, is divided, so that cuts out, ‘one nation, indivisible.’ Let someone attack us and see how fast we unify. BTW, our ‘fragmentation’ is our unification because we have the right to be so. It becomes one of our greatest strengths. So, in essence, he is wrong even there, because in our ‘division’ we are ‘indivisible.’ We agree to disagree.
Typical kid argument. Stretching the truth in order to get it to benefit one’s alternative motives. Lawyers do it all the time. (No, he did not steal that car, because the keys were in it, which indicates culpability on the part of the owner, so the owner is in part responsible for tempting this fine young man here into committing a crime.)
He is saying that he doesn’t want to go through the trouble of standing out of respect for the flag and what it means because by ‘forcing’ him to do so, the educator is negating his civil liberties to not do so, and he is neglecting to think that at the same time, he is insulting the ‘men who laid down their lives’ to give him this right by refusing to honor them via standing for the Flag.
And, being that you’re a mind-reader, we should just assume that you are correct and that he has been lying to us all along when he explained why he really did this.
On the other hand, I think I’ll believe just about anybody over you at this point.
I am enlisting the help of people to help emphasize the word “God” in the sickening phrase “In God We Trust” on all of the currency bills nationwide (US). I like to put a subtle and simple slash with a pen through the letter ‘o’ in God to symbolize the empty set (I don’t like defacing government property, only my little portion of it). Like the pledge of allegiance, the phrase in question was also added to US currency in the same time period by the same president (Teddy Roosevelt once tried to remove it from some coins, but met too much resistence).
And you’d be dead wrong. They don’t give up american rights because they go to a private school. This is a lousy excuse to get students to do what you say.
Oh, you mean like calling people who disagree with you “commies,” or claiming that prisons are full of people who won’t stand for the Pledge of Allegiance, or claiming that people who won’t say the Pledge hate America? I would hate to think that a great thinker like you would resort to such transparently illogical tactics. Perish the thought!
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Twentyeight *
Mercutio
Would you mind explaining how this is not applicable? You say that if I do not stand for the pledge I am disrespecting the flag and I asked what would disrespect it more. How is this not applicable? I could understand if I asked you if the sky was yellow on the east coast from the hours of 2am to 4am because that has nothing to do with what we are talking about.
If you have noticed on this thread and any other one of my threads outside of the Pit, I make it a point never to insult someone. I have not insulted you or made assumptions about how you act or what your motives for your actions are. So you can get a better understanding of who I am I will lay it down simply for you.
Mercutio in a Can:
Does not follow the crowd.
Does not look for acceptance and praise from anyone.
Does not feel that he needs to make himself seem above others to get his jollies.
Does not make assumptions.
I did not come bragging to the board, sir/ma’am. I placed this in MPSIMS and I wrote it in such a manor that I did not put myself as the victor of some battle. I very respectfully showed my teacher my beliefs and facts to support them and she allowed me to follow my beliefs. They do not cause a distraction, so no one cares. If I were to write about how my teacher was a pompus bitch and how I was the great victor over moral rights and how everyone should line up to kiss my ass, it would be a different story.
I conducted myself in a polite manor and I kept the matter between me and her. I was not grinning wildly in the corner as I stood on my desk to recieve applause. The day I look to recieve applause for excercising my rights is they day I will move out of the country.
How dare anyone use their rights. In your opinion I do not respect myself, thats your opinion, you are entitled to it and I would have no right trying to take that away from you.
I do not like to praise icons. I never will. I never sung along to M-I-C-K-E-Y M-O-U-S-E. I never prayed to the cross. But then again, I never prayed to any religion. That is simply my choice and why anyones legal choice, that brings no harm or hate toward any person or group of people, that they practice within themselves would offend you is beyond me.
If you do recall before I stated that I also stated a big disclaimer saying that those were facts as well as my views and opinions. We would unify because we would be forced to. Unify or die does not leave many options open, except maybe fleeing to another country. And I already gave reasons why I think this country is not one whole people who love each other.
I did not strecth the truth, I merely stated my opinion on why I found taking away my civil liberties is wrong. The very fact that you put my civil liberties in the same group as stealing a car offends me, but hey, you know what? Those are your rights.
It is not a matter of “I don’t wanna use the energy to get up”, it is a matter of me not wanting to go against my beliefs and my principles; Something I would not wish on my worst enemy.
What is more insulting than me using my civil liberties is having to prove to someone that doing so is ok.
As a private institution, we are allowed to require students to do any number of things, including pledge. (Perhaps I worded it incorrectly; sorry.) The kid still has the right to protest, of course, but he could be forced to leave the school if that right were exercised. There would be no court battles over this, as a set of rules were agreed to when the student and/or his parents made the decision to attend the school. Similarly, there can be no “freedom of expression” in clothing, as there is a dress code. Of course a student has an American right to, for example, not wear a tie, but as it goes against school policy, exercising this right can and will result in some sort of disciplinary action.
The only reason our flag is worth saluting, and our pledge worth repeating out loud, is that they represent a political ideal in which people like Mercutio may stand up, in the same place where people salute flag and recite the pledge, and flip a bird to the flag while reciting an affirmation of their political dislike for the flag and their disavowal of the pledge and what it stands for.
A public school, in particular, is an environment in which the school, by introducing the plege and inviting student participation, has necessarily opened the issue to debate.
Mercutio is being entirely reasonable and understated in merely refusing to rise and participate in the pledge.\