Last week, in response to a coercive state law slipped into the state budget (despite everyone’s promises to keep policy issues out of it) requiring every school in the state to offer either the pledge of allegiance or the national anthem every school day, the Madison School Board passed a sensible policy designed to protect the rights of Madison children, instructing schools to implement the law by playing an instrumental version of the anthem. In response to a shitstorm of protest by the flag fetishists, last night/this morning the board voted to reverse itself.
Great lesson you’re teaching our kids, people. Stand up for what’s right until it becomes politically inconvenient, then reverse yourself and pretend like you didn’t understand what was going on in the first place. Thanks to all of you; you are truly profiles in courage.
The only reason I won’t go along with the recall effort that several of you are now facing is that if it’s successful you will undoubtedly be replaced by the sort of reactionary fucks you caved to last night.
And a special shout out too, to the dipshit flagists who think the way to instill true patriotism is mindless oath repetition, and a historical shout out to the nimrods in Congress who amended the text of the pledge in 1954 to add the words “under God” where they don’t belong, kicking off close to five decades of controversy and shit storms.
Why is reciting the Pledge of Allegiance necessarily “mindless repetition”? I agree that coercion is not the best way to instill love of country, but I don’t think love of country is a bad thing, anymore than loving one’s family and friends is a bad thing. I say the Pledge with great feeling and gratitude that I get to live here.
Besides, the Supreme Court already ruled back in 1943 that saying the Pledge or singing the national anthem may not be made mandatory, so this will, if it gets far enough, be struck down by the Supremes.
blah blah blah! My name is Otto, i hate the government. blah blah blah! did i mention i hate the government? blah blah blah! i hate all government! blah blah blah! I’m going to start as many threads as i can to insult the government to make up for my low self-esteem! blah blah blah! cuz i hates them!! blah blah blah!
(i’ll give you the shadow of the doubt and hope that your way of dealing with a crisis is to insult people, but you are coming off as a jerk.)
I have to reiterate that making the Pledge or Anthem madatory absolutely violates the spirit of freedom and personal liberty that makes America such a great country.
No, Mr. Tarkas, you are coming off as a jerk. (Friedo will leave the judgment of someone whose primary argument is to repeatedly use the word “blah” as an exercise to the reader.)
Forcing someone to do anything, that violates his rights to expression and/or freedom, even if it is “patriotic,” is inherrantly immoral and un-American.
did i say lets force these people to recite stuff? No!
was i saying that Otto spends all his time badmouthing the government, and it is getting tiresome? Yes!
should i use smaller words next time? I guess so.
how about bla instead of blah?
I think if I had a child attending one of that district’s schools, I would send the following letter to school with the child:
[ul]Teachers and Principal of {insert name of school} school:
Greetings! In response to the school district’s completely unconstitutional mandate requiring my child to recite a pledge, I have given my child permission to, at her choice, either (a) remain seated quietly in the room during the unconstitutional exercise, or (b) leave the room until the unconstitutional exercise is completed.
If you interefere, in any way, with my child’s exercise of her constitutionally protected rights, I will sue the individual interfering and the school district.
Sincerely,
Monty
cc: President of school board, Local Newspapers, Local television station, ACLU[/ul]
well, the way Monty would handle it is perfectly fine. Obviously, less mature forces on both sides of the issue have been doing dirty deeds there. I went to school in an area with a lot of Jehovah’s Witnesses, and they were never forced to stand up and say the pledge. There is an easy solution to this problem if people with common sense have a say.
I think you’re missing part of the political situation here. It is the state legislature, not the school district, that mandated a patriotic whatever every day in the public schools. The school board tried to fight back by allowing only an instrumental version of the national anthem to be used to fulfill that requirement. That’s when they got in political hot water for banning the pledge.
Now that the board has reversed their decision, the individual schools may choose between the instrumental anthem and the pledge.
This certainly isn’t a case of the school board trying to force all the kids to recite the pledge, and your (justified, imho) anger would be better directed at the state legislature.
For what its worth, I have a very close acquaintance who is a teacher in Madison. At least in her school, if a student wanted to sit out the pledge or whatever, it would be no problem.
Thanks; however, since the school and the school board are the ones carrying out the unconstitutional law, I think I can safely sue them for doing something they ought to know better than to do.
Plus, I’m given to understand one can’t sue the legislature. So taking the school board to court’s the way to go!
i don’t understand where you peeople are getting that students are being forced to recite the pledge – i’ve read this thread over and over, and i don’t see it.
the op said that the state legislature requires schools to offer either the anthem or the pledge. how does that constitute forcing students to do anything???
i think the school should offer either the pledge or the anthem. personally i prefer the pledge (shorter, and i’m more accustomed to it having recited it every day for 13 years), but the anthem is nice, too.
does that mean that children should be forced to recite the pledge? no. but why the hell are we getting upset about schools being told they must give children the opportunity to do so???
What an awesome power I have, to be able to reach across the voids of time and cyberspace to force you to open threads dealing with government bodies that I start. I promise in future I shall try to use it wisely.
BTW, in case you missed the sign over the swinging door, this is the BBQ Pit. Rants, anti-government or otherwise, belong here.
Fifth
I have seen nothing indicating that the original resolution was passed in the spirit of “fighting back.” The board took its first action in response to complaints and concerns from parents and teachers in the system that children would feel pressured to participate or that those who did not participate would be harassed by their classmates.
gobear
I haven’t been around too many four year-olds lately, but my feeling is that not very many of them are going to have sufficient cognitive development to understand the words of the pledge, let alone the complex concepts behind it. But they’ll hear the words every day for years anyway, and probably join in for many of those years before they have a chance to figure out for themselves whether they want to participate of their own volition.
And note, I’m not criticizing anyone who wants to say the pledge. I’m all for anyone who wants to saying it as often as they’d like. I especially encourage those parents who stormed the school board meeting last night to say it every ay along with their kids, in their own home. Wouldn’t that be a lot more meaningful for the parents and the children than listening to it at school?