# Making it mandatory to say the Pledge of Allegiance **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 30, 2002, 12:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/making-it-mandatory-to-say-the-pledge-of-allegiance/111466 "2002-05-30T00:04:57Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![king\_of\_spain](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/7cd45c/32.png) [@king\_of\_spain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/king_of_spain)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2002, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/making-it-mandatory-to-say-the-pledge-of-allegiance/111466/81 "2002-06-04T17:05:29Z")
> [@](#): > > “and to the Republic for which it stands” It’s allegiance to a nation, not a piece of cloth. No, it’s allegiance to both. That’s what the “and” means. ---
**Author:** ![El\_Zagna](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/d2c977/32.png) [@El\_Zagna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/El_Zagna)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2002, 5:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/making-it-mandatory-to-say-the-pledge-of-allegiance/111466/82 "2002-06-04T17:15:22Z")
**december** There have been a number of eloquent arguments presented here and elsewhere on these boards against a required POA, but you have reduced them to a bunch of one line straw men. I for one would like to hear you present a cogent and compelling argument _for_ a mandatory POA. ---
**Author:** ![december](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/838e76/32.png) [@december](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/december)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2002, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/making-it-mandatory-to-say-the-pledge-of-allegiance/111466/83 "2002-06-04T17:30:32Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by bnorton \*I for one would like to hear you present a cogent and compelling argument _for_ a mandatory POA. This is not a hot-button issue for me. Reciting the POA is a symbolic act; resisting a mandatory POA is also a symbolic act. I’ve seen plenty of Americans function well without having recited the POA and others function well who grew up reciting the POA. ---
**Author:** ![blowero](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/41988e/32.png) [@blowero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blowero)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2002, 6:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/making-it-mandatory-to-say-the-pledge-of-allegiance/111466/84 "2002-06-04T18:00:06Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Omnivore \* > And you are saying, … what? That this is good that kids mangle the pledge No, I think **bnorton** was saying that kids do not say the pledge out of pride, but simply because they are made to. S/he also pointed out that there was never a time when kids were proud to say it - e.g. this “magic generation” never existed. I didn’t see anyhing in there about it being “good” that the pledge gets mangled. > [@](#): > > So, removing the Pledge is a good thing? There are a lot of strawmen in here: > [@](#): > > Have you no pride in your nation? Can you demonstrate how it is impossible to have pride in your nation without mandatory POA? Can you expain why “pride in your nation” is a virtue? > [@](#): > > Have you no respect for those soldiers who have gone on before you to make sure that you can freely run your mouths and eat hamburgers and fries? How are not saying the pledge and respecting soldiers mutually exclusive? > [@](#): > > Is it such a big thing? Here you seem to be making an assumption that people just don’t want to bother with it - that it’s too much effort. But nobody has made that argument. The objection is that it’s useless and/or silly and/or counter-productive, not that it’s too much effort. It’s like if a teacher made the class tap “shave and a haircut” on the top of their desks five times every day, and a parent complained, so the teacher said: “Why, is that such a big thing for them to do?” > [@](#): > > What is next? Telling your kids that if they do not want to go to school, that they do not have to, regardless of the law of the land? :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2002, 12:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/making-it-mandatory-to-say-the-pledge-of-allegiance/111466/85 "2002-06-05T00:45:19Z")
Not saying the pledge when it is required is giving more allegiance this country than saying it would. When I was in HS, I didn’t take World History as a Sophomore, it’s a sophomore class, due to changing schools and the year it’s required. Junior year at the first school sophomore at the second, so when I took it as a Senior, it was my first period class, I never stood for the pledge, and this girl was shocked to find out that you don’t have to. This is a SOPHOMORE in HS. The fact that Sophomore’s have such a limited understanding of what this country is based upon, shows exactly how fucked up public education truly is. If Thomas Jefferson heard of such nonsense he’d probably start tearing his hair out. Erek ---
**Author:** ![Omnivore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/e47774/32.png) [@Omnivore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omnivore)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2002, 4:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/making-it-mandatory-to-say-the-pledge-of-allegiance/111466/86 "2002-06-05T04:35:47Z")
I grew up in a generation where the pledge was said and I did experience pride at times when saying it as a child. I also grew up where when the American Flag passed by, men stood up and took off their hats out of respect. During parades, when the flag passed, men also took off their hats and stood straight out of respect. Boy Scouts saluted and so did veterans. If the flag touched the ground or get soiled, you took it to a quiet spot and burned it. Burning an American Flag in protest in public would have gotten you several punches in the face by several men observing it. All out of respect. I think currently we are teaching the kids less respect for anything and more ‘I-got-mine-screw-you’ type of attitude, where the self is important and respect is a thing of the past. As for by rote repeating of the pledge, they teach many things by rote. Ask the Catholics. Again, by knocking down the pledge, we are further teaching kids that they do not have to do anything they do not want to do, which is not good for society, as we have begun to find out now. Our violent crime rate is up above that in gangster years. Our kids are getting in trouble more violently and in greater numbers than in any previous generation. We might have the right to not say it, but is it right to enforce disrespect of the symbol of the nation? When I was in school, had you refused to say the Pledge, you would be drummed in disgrace to the Principals office and punished and your parents would have been called in. Now some of you will say that your parents would have supported your decision, but back then, not too long after WW2, people were still fiercely patriotic in many ways. I think this lackadaisical attitude towards the pledge and all symbols of our nation indicate that people today have things far too easy, thanks to the efforts of those who fought for and supported the flag. Before, even though you did not have to say the pledge, it was felt that you should, out of respect. Now you can do any damn thing you want in school and the rest of the world laughs as we churn out idiots, unable to compete with foreign scholars. They can certainly tell you their wants and rights, though they may not read above a 6th grade level and do math above the 4th grade. ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2002, 5:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/making-it-mandatory-to-say-the-pledge-of-allegiance/111466/87 "2002-06-05T05:48:04Z")
Omni: As Violent Crime is at an all time low in this country I’ll disregard your entire post as the ramblings of someone who’s time has passed. Erek ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2002, 5:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/making-it-mandatory-to-say-the-pledge-of-allegiance/111466/88 "2002-06-05T05:49:28Z")
Omni: Sorry I tend to get offended by people who’d trade the constitution for the flag. Erek ---
**Author:** ![Phoenix\_Dragon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/65b543/32.png) [@Phoenix\_Dragon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Phoenix_Dragon)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2002, 6:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/making-it-mandatory-to-say-the-pledge-of-allegiance/111466/89 "2002-06-05T06:21:04Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Omnivore \* > \*\*Burning an American Flag in protest in public would have gotten you several punches in the face by several men observing it. > > All out of respect.\*\* Oh boy, that sounds like such a wonderfull time, back then. Assaulting other citizens out of respect. Did they beat the piss out of people who questioned the government, too? Out of respect, of course. > [@](#): > > **When I was in school, had you refused to say the Pledge, you would be drummed in disgrace to the Principals office and punished and your parents would have been called in.** Oooh, punished for exercising one’s right to free speach, even. Yeah, so much better. > [@](#): > > **I think this lackadaisical attitude towards the pledge and all symbols of our nation indicate that people today have things far too easy, thanks to the efforts of those who fought for and supported the flag.** So we should honor those people by eliminating, throwing away, a bit of those freedoms they fought for? People complained about the leaders of Russia and the KGB enforcing “patriotism” is the USSR. And Hitler, rallying his nation behind propaganda and patriotism to blind them from the lies and horrors. And Castro, impressing Cuba’s “greatness” on all the children untill they believe it to be infallibly true. “But we’re America, we’re the greatest country in the world, formed under the ideals of freedom for all; Now shut up and say what we told you to say before I beat your face in.” ---
**Author:** ![Omnivore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/e47774/32.png) [@Omnivore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omnivore)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2002, 6:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/making-it-mandatory-to-say-the-pledge-of-allegiance/111466/90 "2002-06-05T06:27:58Z")
Crime is not at an all time low in this nation. It is at a low for the last 30 or 40 years. In comparison to the 50s and 60s, it is very high. In the 60s, we used to leave home with the doors unlocked, park at the plaza with the car windows open and if we left the keys in the car, no one stole it. Some women even left there purses in the unlocked cars. Police were not needed on school grounds and violent crime was so in my town as to be almost nonexistent. Kids did not kill each other and the suicide rate was very low. You could walk through town alone after midnight unmolested. Car jackings were unheard of. The biggest crimes were fist fights and drunk driving, with a little petty theft tossed in. There was no graffiti. No need for car alarms. No need for house alarms. The few gangs we had were more annoying than dangerous. Doris Day and Peter Niven were in the movie ‘Don’t Eat the Daisies’. Your information is corrupt. As for the rest of it, I am from the old school and I do not think it is right. ---
**Author:** ![irishgirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/8edcca/32.png) [@irishgirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/irishgirl)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2002, 9:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/making-it-mandatory-to-say-the-pledge-of-allegiance/111466/91 "2002-06-05T09:28:32Z")
i don’t know. i mean, i really don’t. NO country on earth has succeeded in obtaining liberty and justice for all. “my country, right or wrong” is stupidity rather than patriotism, and swearing an OATH to uphold that idea? other democracies manage to have just as much patriotism and national pride without the need for an oath or a ritual. let the kids sit, stand, chant, stay silent, whatever they want. it’s a free country isn’t it? ---
**Author:** ![Dangerosa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Dangerosa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dangerosa)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2002, 11:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/making-it-mandatory-to-say-the-pledge-of-allegiance/111466/92 "2002-06-05T11:41:05Z")
> [@](#): > > As for by rote repeating of the pledge, they teach many things by rote. Ask the Catholics. Did me and so many other Catholics so much good, too, since I’m now a UU Agnostic (and know lots of “former Catholics”). Maybe if I’d learned by patriotism by rote, I’d now be Swedish. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2002, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/making-it-mandatory-to-say-the-pledge-of-allegiance/111466/93 "2002-06-05T21:50:54Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Omnivore \* > Burning an American Flag in protest in public would have gotten you several punches in the face by several men observing it. > > All out of respect. I guess respecting the Flag trumps respecting the First Amendment. > [@](#): > > I think currently we are teaching the kids less respect for anything and more ‘I-got-mine-screw-you’ type of attitude, where the self is important and respect is a thing of the past. You’re fairly new here. But even by now, you should be aware that ‘I think’ isn’t a cite. > [@](#): > > As for by rote repeating of the pledge, they teach many things by rote. Ask the Catholics. Go ahead, ask 'em. Plenty of Catholics - and ex-Catholics - on this board. IMHO’s the forum for polls, if you feel like taking a go at it. But I’ll bet that even those who’ve stayed in the faith will be at best lukewarm on the subject of rote learning. > [@](#): > > Again, by knocking down the pledge, we are further teaching kids that they do not have to do anything they do not want to do, which is not good for society, as we have begun to find out now. No, we are teaching them that they do not have to subscribe to creeds they do not accept. > [@](#): > > Our kids are getting in trouble more violently and in greater numbers than in any previous generation. Cite? > [@](#): > > We might have the right to not say it, but is it right to enforce disrespect of the symbol of the nation? You didn’t say whatever it was you meant to say. Disrespecting the flag isn’t mandatory anywhere. > [@](#): > > When I was in school, had you refused to say the Pledge, you would be drummed in disgrace to the Principals office and punished and your parents would have been called in. **Phoenix Dragon** has beaten me to the punch here. > [@](#): > > Now some of you will say that your parents would have supported your decision, but back then, not too long after WW2, people were still fiercely patriotic in many ways. I think you’ll find that many posters here are fiercely patriotic _right now._ That would include a fair-sized contingent who have served, or are currently serving, in the U.S. military. Few of them - if any; I can’t think of any - would argue that the Pledge should be mandatory. > [@](#): > > I think this lackadaisical attitude towards the pledge and all symbols of our nation indicate that people today have things far too easy Far too easy _for what??_ Sure, we’ve got it a lot easier than past generations did. So does much of the world; that’s called _progress_. But exactly what does this make America, or Americans, unsuited for? What can’t we do, due to our softness, that other generations could? > [@](#): > > thanks to the efforts of those who fought for and supported the flag. Before, even though you did not have to say the pledge, it was felt that you should, out of respect. Boy howdy, was _that_ ever wrong. The Pledge of Allegiance - _read the words_. It’s a **Pledge** of **Allegiance**. Nobody should be **making** such a pledge _out of respect_. They should make that pledge **if and only if they mean to pledge their allegiance to this flag and this Republic.** Which is why it’s dumb for kids to say it, btw. The Pledge is not child’s play; those are serious words. It’s a commitment that the United States of America will have first call on one’s loyalty and service. It would be good rite-of-passage stuff. But it’s _not_ kid stuff. > [@](#): > > Now you can do any damn thing you want in school and the rest of the world laughs as we churn out idiots, unable to compete with foreign scholars. They can certainly tell you their wants and rights, though they may not read above a 6th grade level and do math above the 4th grade. Is this actually _based_ on anything? I know about _A Nation At Risk_. I know about the long series of studies that show that American students can’t compete with South Korean school cafeteria food on standardized tests. But _A Nation At Risk_ came out in 1983. The kids who graduated from our allegedly piss-poor high schools that year are now in their late 30s. They and their successors are the key cohorts of our work force; if they weren’t up to snuff, our economy would have been in the doldrums for a decade now. Except that during the past decade, our economy has sprinted several miles ahead of the rest of the world. Our kids are not only _as_ well prepared as kids in Germany and Japan, in France and South Korea; in some crucial way that the tests aren’t measuring, they’re _better_. I personally think it’s that they’re better at _questioning_, at original thought, at taking initiative, which is what you need in a fast-moving world. But I admit that’s only my personal opinion, based on fifteen years as a college TA/instructor/professor, and four years in a government agency where many of my co-workers were barely out of college themselves. But our educational system is doing something _right_, thankyewverymuch. And maybe - just maybe - the right to question the Pledge is part of that. ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2002, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/making-it-mandatory-to-say-the-pledge-of-allegiance/111466/94 "2002-06-05T22:05:44Z")
Omni: You forgot that in the 50s you were able to lynch a nigger without having to worry about going to trial for it as well as being able to bring people to trial for being a communist. Yeah the 50s were great. I think the 50s were about the lowest point in that century. I’ll take not being able to leave a purse in my car with the keys in the ignition over McCarthyism and Segregation any day. Erek ---
**Author:** ![december](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/838e76/32.png) [@december](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/december)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2002, 10:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/making-it-mandatory-to-say-the-pledge-of-allegiance/111466/95 "2002-06-05T22:47:56Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by mswas \* > Omni: You forgot that in the 50s you were able to lynch a nigger without having to worry about going to trial for it as well as being able to bring people to trial for being a communist. I think you’ve got your dates wrong about the lynching. Suggest you re-check your sources. In the 30’s, yes. In the 40’s, less. Not in the 50’s. [/QUOTE] ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2002, 10:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/making-it-mandatory-to-say-the-pledge-of-allegiance/111466/96 "2002-06-05T22:49:14Z")
I hope mswas doesn’t mind my point this out: he’s no racist. His usage of the “n word” above is to point out exactly how undesirable an era the 50s were if you just didn’t happen to be one of the people the era considered best. Now, how about y’all who are aching to force folks to recite something they (a) don’t believe, (b) don’t accept, or © don’t understand think of how you’re considering those who don’t recite the words to an essentially meaningless pledge. I’m with you 100% on this, Erek. ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2002, 11:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/making-it-mandatory-to-say-the-pledge-of-allegiance/111466/97 "2002-06-05T23:11:50Z")
Thanks for backing me up on that Monty, I was hoping people would get it, but the reassurance will get rid of some of the chaff. December, well I don’t have a cite, so I guess I’m going to have to aquiesce on that, however Segregation was alive and well, so shocking example aside, I think my point still stands. I guess one of my problems with the 50s is about how everyone talks about how it was a time of such great utopian peace and prosperity as if we weren’t in the Korean war and McCarthyism and Segregation didn’t exist. I guess the reason I hold it up as such a dispicable example is because it is so false. Everything I see from the 50s nostalgia smacks of falsehood. In the 40s no one seems to claim it was this ideal to aspire to, in the 30s we were in the depression. No one looks to those times as being this perfect ideal, what made them great were the things accomplished, not this perfect ideal that didn’t actually ever exist. And if what Omnivore says is true about all the things that people would have done to violate your rights to teach you respect, that just makes the 50s an even more despicable age. I have not once heard a non-white suburban say that the 50s were a time of greatness. Erek ---
**Author:** ![The\_Ryan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7feea3/32.png) [@The\_Ryan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Ryan)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2002, 12:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/making-it-mandatory-to-say-the-pledge-of-allegiance/111466/98 "2002-06-06T00:26:44Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Omnivore \* > Crime is not at an all time low in this nation. It is at a low for the last 30 or 40 years. In comparison to the 50s and 60s, it is very high. In the 60s, we used to leave home with the doors unlocked, park at the plaza with the car windows open and if we left the keys in the car, no one stole it. Some women even left there purses in the unlocked cars. Police were not needed on school grounds and violent crime was so in my town as to be almost nonexistent. Kids did not kill each other and the suicide rate was very low. You could walk through town alone after midnight unmolested. Car jackings were unheard of. The biggest crimes were fist fights and drunk driving, with a little petty theft tossed in. There was no graffiti. No need for car alarms. No need for house alarms. The few gangs we had were more annoying than dangerous. Doris Day and Peter Niven were in the movie ‘Don’t Eat the Daisies’. And all of this is because of the POA? > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by december \* > I think you’ve got your dates wrong about the lynching. Suggest you re-check your sources. In the 30’s, yes. In the 40’s, less. Not in the 50’s. Right. In the 30’s you could lynch people without going to trial. In the 50’s, though, you had to go through a scam trial to make it look like there was actually justice (as if a white jury would actually convict). ---
**Author:** ![pldennison](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/9fc29f/32.png) [@pldennison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pldennison)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2002, 12:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/making-it-mandatory-to-say-the-pledge-of-allegiance/111466/99 "2002-06-06T00:39:07Z")
> [@](#): > > In comparison to the 50s and 60s, it is very high. In the 60s, we used to leave home with the doors unlocked, park at the plaza with the car windows open and if we left the keys in the car, no one stole it. Some women even left there purses in the unlocked cars. Police were not needed on school grounds and violent crime was so in my town as to be almost nonexistent. Kids did not kill each other and the suicide rate was very low. You could walk through town alone after midnight unmolested. Car jackings were unheard of. The biggest crimes were fist fights and drunk driving, with a little petty theft tossed in. There was no graffiti. No need for car alarms. No need for house alarms. :rolleyes: Oh, and in case you missed it, :rolleyes: Apparently, Omni, you grew up on television. Must have been pleasant. You still in touch with the Beav? Meanwhile, my father grew up in Brooklyn, New York in the 1950s and went to high school (before dropping out to join the Army) in 1962 and 1963 there. His experience, as it happens, is the exact opposite of every single thing you say in the quoted paragraph above. His particular high school, in fact, saw rapes, beatings and killings. He found out many years later that his English teacher was an undercover reporter researching a book. I’ll have to ask him about the title of that book. You might find it illuminating. After joining the Army and completing basic at Ft. Dix, he was stationed in Painesville, Ohio in 1964-65. Painesville was and is a pretty small town, notable then only for having a Nike missile installation. Still, his experience as a young G.I., and my mother’s growing up in that same town, were nothing like what you describe above. I’ll grant that you might be viewing your own childhood through the rose-tinted glass of nostalgia, but really, this idealized version of the 50s and 60s has simply got to go. And yes, my father, a 28-year Army veteran with more Vietnam combat experience than you’d care to hear about, does not support mandatory POA recitation. FWIW. ---
**Author:** ![aurelian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f4b2a3/32.png) [@aurelian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aurelian)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2002, 7:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/making-it-mandatory-to-say-the-pledge-of-allegiance/111466/100 "2002-06-09T07:30:41Z")
I was raised as a Jehovah’s Witness (and now happily agnostic). I attended two different school systems, and daily use of the Pledge waned as high school went on. Since Witnesses don’t say the Pledge (because their allegiance goes to God, and not to a country or nation) \ Jesus said that his kingdom was no part of this world; hence, Witnesses don’t vote, or hold political offices (even in k-12 schools, like ‘class president’), either. (Caveat: this was their policy as of my last attendance, which was several years ago; I know they have made alterations to their blood policy, so this may have changed as well.) So, when I started school, I knew I wasn’t supposed to say it. I also remember that in elementary school, the class often sang 'My Country, ‘Tis of Thee,’ which I could not sing, either. I thought that I wasn’t supposed to stand, either (although I later found out that you could stand or sit). In any case, my unusual perspective gave me some time to people watch, and as I used to say, the students usually stared at me more than they did the flag. Most barely held their hands over their hearts, mumbling every other word. Even as a Witness, with a stand against the Pledge, I didn’t completely understand what it meant (vocabulary problems, as other posters have mentioned). IMHO, the greater meaning that Pledge supporters perceive was completely absent in my classes. \*\*Quote from: \*\* [http://www.thedailypage.com/features/docfeed/archive/2001/48/](http://www.thedailypage.com/features/docfeed/archive/2001/48/) “Last year, Wisconsin passed a Madison School District officials have yet to ponder the implications of a newly passed state budget provision that will require all public and private schools in Wisconsin to lead students in either in the National Anthem or the Pledge of Allegiance each school day.” Essentially, no Pledge, no money. Several parents called into complain, and that’s when the troubles began. The school board voted not to make the Pledge mandatory, and one of Madison’s dailies carried the splashy headline along the lines of ‘Madison bans pledge’, and all hell broke loose (ironically enough, the paper later admitted such an interpretation was completely unfounded). Hundreds showed up at the next school board meeting, drowning out those who did not want a mandatory pledge with chants of ‘USA! USA!’, and offering them tickets to leave the country since they hated it so much. (I found some links to the relevant articles, but they require payment for the entire article.) There was even a New Yorker article which berated Madisonians for concerning themselves with something so trivial with the 9-11 attacks so fresh. I don’t know the current status of the WI law; from what I knew, I found it baffling because of the aforementioned Supreme Court case. In the end, while Pledge supporters might like to think that it is possible for some students to recite, others to abstain, I would like to point out that I was often teased and stared at for not saying the Pledge. Being overtly different is not easy, and despite my (then) faith, I just didn’t want to be different. I used to knock on people’s doors, trying to show them the ‘Truth’… now I love my freedom to think and decide for myself. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/making-it-mandatory-to-say-the-pledge-of-allegiance/111466.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/making-it-mandatory-to-say-the-pledge-of-allegiance/111466.md?page=6)