This is a stretch that is beyond ridiculous. I don’t consider myself perfect and I never even came close to implying that.
As I admitted, I can’t really offer a concrete reason. I suppose it is a form of indoctrination in the strictest sense, but(to me) seems innocuous. Partly because, at my school at least, saying it was something that wasn’t enforced or emphasized in any way. It would never have occurred to me (or seemingly anyone else, though I obviously have no way of knowing for sure)to take a stand or refuse to do it because it simply had no meaning, literally. If the words were ever explained to me at that age, it sure didn’t make an impression. So, while I can’t speak to the intentions of the school administrator’s, as a kid I always just interpreted it as a sort of a patriotic ritual that I had a vague sense all Americans just kind of . . . memorized. Like learning your times tables.
Well, you could have tempered your appraisal of Red Skelton with some discretion.
Why?
Most if it was silly glurge. This part though:
was offensive, disgusting and un-American.
Alaska and Hawaii were admitted in 1959, and the Supreme Court decision about prayers in schools was handed down in 1961. I assume Skelton composed this speech shortly after the latter. [Shrug] Well, you’re entitled to your opinion. I have no objection to it, in any case, and I don’t see why you do.
Because there’s no need to invoke a Deity in a Pledge of Allegiance. It’s against the principles of this nations, and Red Skelton’s opinion is simple minded and offensive to many people. Not just atheists don’t want it there. It was put into the Pledge when it wasn’t needed, and now squats there for no reason.
Whether one believes in God or Gods or none, one can still hold that invoking God in government mandated pledge is wrong. Even if you don’t agree with this idea I find it pretty odd for you to say that you can’t imagine someone else feeling this way. Do you at least understand why an atheist would object to it?
…or someone who’s religion guides them to pray privately, or is forbidden by their faith to name their deity out loud, or someone who prays to a different god.
Let me put it this way: Although I am not an atheist, I can understand Theodore Roosevelt’s objection, about 1906, to the addition of the inscription “In God We Trust” to coins. (It did not appear on currency until Eisenhower’s presidency; in 1957.) Roosevelt claimed it was a trivialization; he was not an atheist. Perhaps Eisenhower could have raised the same objection in 1957.
Are we sure they led the pigeons to the flag?
Who knew Red Skelton needed a white knight?
And you have trouble understanding why people have an issue with using Red Skelton’s argument? I’m not following your reasoning. And who cares what Ike could have done? The fact that he didn’t make the argument doesn’t invalidate it.
Your post wasn’t a simple disagreement. You said you didn’t understand why anyone would object to it. Since you appear to understand the point what did you mean by what you wrote?
I mean I see both sides of the argument. But I don’t see any reason to make the kind of negative appraisal Hajario did.
As opposed to saying that I wanted to strangle him with a chain?
Don’t be disingenuous; you know damn well we can’t be sure.
Because it’s invisible.
Cute.
He is, isn’t he. I would love him and pet him and call him George.
But he don’t move no more? :eek:
No one has referenced this short story?
I graduated h.s. in 87. Every morning we were still expected to stand up and say it. Frankly, we mostly ended up doing other things and mumbling. I’m a right hander, but would always be finishing my physics homework with my right. (So I’d put my left hand on my heart.)
The teacher could not have cared less.
Two years earlier in a history class, the teacher (one of the best I’ve ever had) taught us that you can’t be forced to say it. (I want to think it’s b/c of Jehova’s Witnesses?) And this one girl refused to do it in her homeroom and got sent to the office. I think she originally was given detention and then he argued with the principal over it, and she didn’t.
It can mean a lot. Or it can mean nothing. In a school where you barely have time to learn, why waste time on it?