Ha.
We had to say it too. I believe detention–being forced to write the entire definition of ‘run’ from the dictionary multiple times after school–was the punishment. But that was pretty much the punishment for everything.
Meh. My boy discovered on his own at a young age (kindergarten in a hippie Franciscan school) that all he had to do was stand up and move his mouth.
I’m 40, he’s 13…neither of us has ever encountered a teacher/leader/CO who demanded the Pledge be recited on fear of punishment or reprimand. But we live in the People’s Republic of Portland, so I freely admit it’s a biased sample.
The Boy is a Young Marine; they recite the PoA at every drill. He sees it pretty much as Skammer does; affirmation of nationality for the first part, aspirational for the second. And he falls silent for the words “under God.”
I think he groks that there is no harm in participating in a group ritual to the limits of your conscience. If he were to try to make a political statement by refusing to rise or participate at all, I certainly expect there’d be fallout. But then, if he did have a fundamental philosophical objection and really felt that strongly about it, he wouldn’t be in the Young Marines.
The Supreme Court ruled 70 years ago that teachers in public schools can’t force students to recite the pledge. My experience was that some of them (usually older teachers) try sometimes. That still happens.
At least she got her ass handed to her for it.
Begging your pardon, but I’m having trouble making sense of this.
You talk about multiple allegiances, to family, nation, God, as if they are either naturally nested within one another, or operating in separate spheres altogether.
With family and God, that makes sense: presumably you believe that you were called by God into the marriage that you are in, and that your children are a gift from God. At least, that’s how I see it with my own family. And accordingly, God is not going to call me to do anything that’s at odds with the well-being of my family, nor will I ever need to do anything that’s untrue to God as I seek what’s best for my family.
But allegiance to a nation isn’t naturally nested within one’s devotion to God. Yet nations and God aren’t operating in different spheres, because God’s sphere is His creation - everything.
Nations, though, do not share the same attitude towards God’s creation, nor to the people whom God loves (which is to say, every last man, woman, and child on Earth). They have real and imagined security interests, and secrets to protect, and if these interests put some infinitesimal benefit to the nation ahead of the lives of those whom God loves and doesn’t desire to see killed, or if they involve making a mess of a chunk of our planet because influential interests benefit from it, then you can’t make an omelet without breaking some eggs, and all that.
And just from the POV of being an American citizen, this sort of stuff isn’t exactly incidental. Our recent intervention in Iraq, our endless war in Afghanistan, the ‘collateral damage’ of our drone attacks in places like Yemen and Pakistan, our screw-the-poor policies at home…ISTM that at best, your allegiance to your country would have to be as riddled as a Swiss cheese after you took out all the parts that were in conflict with your devotion to God.
Like I said earlier, all Christians do by maintaining allegiance to their nation or failing to abandon the trappings of patriotism is to confuse their fellow Christians.
And why should you have an allegiance to your nation at all? Why do you need an allegiance to anything but to God and those he has called you to join your life with? If you are a citizen of a particular nation, there’s generally no requirement of allegiance to act as a citizen to do what you can to nudge your country towards helping God’s “will be done, on Earth as it is in heaven.” Allegiance to a nation, AFAICT, should be completely superfluous to a Christian.
She got a 5 day paid suspension and diversity training. If she got her ass handed to her, it was on a silver platter with watercress around it.
Yeah, I missed a :rolleyes: there.
It also says she was “removed from student contact and given an alternative school job.” I thought that was permanent but they didn’t make it 100% clear.
They just stuck her in a different classroom. Having said that, I should note that it was an unpaid 5 day suspension, so they did stick it to her after all. :dubious:
That is going in my book of useful comedy.
I see your point, but I think having allegiance to a country does not mean always approving of what your country does, but it does mean having ‘skin in the game’ so to speak. My allegiance to God trumps country when the two are at odds - violence done in the name of the state is but one example. And in those cases, my allegiance to country means that I speak out about its wrongness and exercise my ability to change its course - by voting, by speaking out against the violence, etc. I would not do that if I did not have a particular allegiance to this country; after all I do not regularly bother to crusade against abuses carried out by other nations. Certainly God commands love and goodwill to all humankind, but God has put me specifically in this corner of the globe, and this is the only country over which I have any influence (as meager as it may be).
I suppose I could pledge “affinity” to the flag, but that would invite weird looks.
Anyway, I see the pledge as a civil ritual that promotes community and a sense of belonging. Usually I say it by rote but occasionally I am moved by the imagery – not enormously unlike the religious ritual of reciting the Nicene Creed at church each week.
It should. Patriotism is a nasty, vile emotion; it’s certainly not something a responsible adult teaches to children.
Patriotism is an emotion?
Just for the record, it’s not original. It’s paraphrased from P.G. Wodehouse in Pearls, Girls & Monty Bodkin.
I don’t mind having “allegiance” to the USA. I am put off by publicly pledging it. I won’t do it, and haven’t since I was around 12. The ritual, for me, doesn’t promote community or a sense of belonging. In fact, quite the opposite. It angers me that it’s expected or even tolerated. But maybe that’s just me.
All my school years, I wondered every day why we had to keep saying the pledge. If I pledged to do or not do a thing, then you have my pledge, there is no need for me to make the same pledge the next day.
In any case, I made it through 12 years of saying the pledge most mornings. I started out skipping “one nation under God” and before long I mumbling the whole damned thing. We had to stand up, put our hand over our heart and move our lips else we’d be sent to the principal’s office. So by high school I could resent my teacher and school for forcing this silliness on me every day, my principal for backing them up and I could especially resent my county for forcing me to make a pledge to them under threat the of punishment.
Why don’t you just tell her she doesn’t have to say the pledge at all if she doesn’t want to.
The idiot House of Representatives here in SD has passed a bill to force schools to give students the option of reciting the pledge if they want. Hopefully the Senate will have some more brains and defeat the stupid thing. They can say the pledge all they want just like reading the bible, why does it have to be a state sanctioned thing?
Do they not already have the option of reciting the pledge? 
I think I will modify it slightly for taste. Perhaps, ‘In three courses with an apertif.’
I think they do it in elementary school, but apparently this bill would extend it to all grades. Of course, there is also the option of doing on your own just like you, I or anyone else can. Of course these morons don’t think of that.