pledge of allegiance

It might be a good idea to pick your battles. Especially if you plan on being politically active in the future, being somewhat conciliatory on the pledge will help your reputation. If you sit everytime, the average non-thinking american will say "He doesn't appreciate his freedoms/hates america/is a communist/whatever stupid stuff they can come up with."

 

Here's a rewritten version of the Pledge.

I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United Corporations of America,

and to the Republicans for which it stands.

One nation under debt, easily divisable,

with liberty and justice for oil.

 

Maybe schools will start requiring kids to put those 'support our troops' yellow stickers on their lunch boxes. Has that become a trend yet?

.

 

how about

 

i went through the exact same thing back in high school...

when i first stopped standing, my teacher at the time thought it was awesome and never made it an issue, but the next year i had a teacher who thought it was the worst thing ever. he would talk to me about standing, i never would, and he eventually called in the principal. they'd say, "it's not a big deal, just do it!" and then would proceed to make it a big deal.

so i showed the principal a pile of court cases, specifically one about mary-kate durkee (i think that was her name?). you can't make a student participate in word or act, and furthermore you can't force the student to leave the room during the pledge. the principal told me -- you're gonna love this -- that the schools code of conduct was of a higher authority than the constitution!

he threatened me with suspension and went and called my mom, who backed me up. then he and my teacher decided that i should just leave the room for the pledge. i told them that doing that would be a disruption and that they couldn't make me... but i went out in the hall anyway just to shut everyone up. i was right that it would be a disruption, because people would sometimes join me for the wrong reasons and talk on their cell phones, or use it as an excuse when they were late.

it's just sad that a lot of people don't understand and have to take it to some extreme level, thinking you don't appriciate your freedom or telling you to move to russia or some other ignorant crap. anyway, the point: your rights allow you to sit, and the ones who try to take that away are the ones who hate and fear freedom. standing up for your rights is much more patriotic than standing up for the pledge.

 

as a parent, i say a student who chooses to protest our government policies by refusing to stand for the pledge should not be forced to stand. and i don't think it's an ill-chosen battle. most high school students can't vote yet don't have enough economic power to effectively boycott, and frequently have their few freedoms limited by disapproving adults and school policy. what a teen does or does not do in high school will not have much impact on their adult life in terms of action; high school just really isn't as important as it's made out to be. however, what they learn of their liberties and their right to defend those liberties, and of non-violent personal empowerment, will have an impact that lasts.

i say the kid should be allowed to use his right to protest.

 

And for the most part they would be right. I'll appreciate my freedoms a bit more when my government leaders properly allow me (and all of you) to freely exercise our constitutional rights.

I don't hate my country, I strongly dislike what it has become: A belligerant, racist, hate-mongering, anti-anything-not-Christian group of bigots centered on toys and tangibles.

I'm a socialist, not a communist. Communism doesn't work without mayhem.

EVERYONE says stupid things about me because my clock stopped at 14.

And on top of all that, I sleep very well at night with a clear conscience.

If a few people do it, it's a passing fad. If a lot of people do something it's a movement that WILL be taken seriously. If you spend your youth worrying about your political future, you won't have a past. This is one time when you can stand and be counted by sitting and being silent.

 

it's not the country most people have the problem with, it's the outdated, distorted, corrupt, and out-of-touch government.

lashing out at a student, or anyone, for using the freedoms this country was founded on, in order to question those forces that would challenge those freedoms, is what is truly "unpatriotic", not the other way around.

 

surely you arent going to call someone who uses their right to free speech 'unpatriotic'..cause that would be 'unpatriotic'.

Someone has a right to sit down during the pledge, another person has the right to call them an idiot.

A person's freedom to not standup during the pledge protects them from being arrested or the such, it doesnt protect them from verbal censure.

 

What gives you the right to complain about the first amendment? (grin)

 

i dont stand for the pledge either, it's not just not supporting the war, but this country was founded upon greed, lies, and murder. they cannot legally make you stand for the pledge at school, thats that, so if a teacher tells you that you have to, you dont.

 

You forget theft! Can't forget theft! Or is that included in the greed thingy?

 

Woohoo! Go guardian_tnaos! I think it's great that you're doing this; I think that making school children say the pledge before they even understand what it means is total brainwashing. You could just stand, but that is the easy way, and it defeats the purpose of everything you've worked for.

SLammon420 said the following:
".it is disrespctful to say "i'm not gonna stand and honor this country because i have free speech rights" because this country gave you those rights!", but what's the point of having rights if it's unpatriotic to use them!

Someone else said that you can't be "forced to be decent and respectful", or some such thing. I don't think you're being disrespectful in voicing an opinion. It's more than a lot of people are doing.

There are a great load of other posters who went into PatriotMode and began talking about how America is a great country. Everyone is entitled to his or her own opinion, so if you disagree with them, I say keep up the good fight!

Good luck!

 

I don't believe in pledges, oaths, vows, promises and the like, and would also have to refuse to support this one. That people seek to santify their own faulted works and the hollow symbols thereof make them that much less worthy of allegiance.

 

The Pledge is perfectly fine... If your a rich conservative who supports W's Administration blindly without a drop of opinion for yourself. For anyone else it is illegal and immoral. Forcing kids to say the pledge is going what America stands for in the first place. I wrote a rant about this in my blog 2 days ago. http://spaces.msn.com/members/cybervisionx

 

who is forced to?

god, i hate people who cant facts straight.

 

i dont see how a school rules could supercede the supreme court