<p>What I’ve never understood is why children, whose inclination and opportunity to be disloyal are nil, are so frequently asked to assert their fealty to the nation, while adults are asked to do so only at ball games and rare civic events. I’m perfectly happy to assume that those around me are not traitors–they don’t need to assure me or anyone else otherwise. Children will learn what makes this country special through studying history and their own observations, not by robotic recitations of a loyalty oath.</p>
<p>My favorite Pledge facts: Bellamy wanted to say “with liberty, justice and equality for all” but his editors objected. The original gestures started with hand over heart but ended with right hands outstretched toward the flag. Suddenly in the '40’s this was stopped because it looked eerily like a Nazi salute.</p>
<p>I really get annoyed with people who yell about flag-burners (are there really more than a handful in the last decade?) and kids who refuse the Pledge, but who hang the flag all over their businesses, homes and cars with no regard to what is proper.
Quit flying it in bad weather, at night, tattered, dragging on the ground, etc. Quit draping it around yourself like it was a ponco. If you claim to respect it, do it right.</p>
<p>Good for him! I know a 5th grade kid who doesn’t say the pledge because it involves the phrase “under God”</p>
<p>Kinda warms my heart to see another AR in the likes of fellow AR’s BC, Mike Huckabee, and of course me. </p>
<p>:)</p>
<p>I’ve always considered the pledge to be a statement of aspirations of what this country should strive to achieve. I’ve realized for a long time that history is full of mistatements, flawed revisions and missed opportunities, but I don’t have any ideological objections to the pledge of alligiance. However, I am firm in the belief that people are free to decline to participate in the pledge, because that’s what American liberty and justice are supposed to protect. Like Dragonmom, what really burns my shorts are professed ‘super patriots’ who display the flag in the most casual manner with no regard for its significance. I don’t mind clothes that have a Stars and Stripes theme, but with the actual flag, there should be a bit more reverence. I can’t tell you how many tattered and discarded car antenna flags I saw in the weeks and months after 2001 terrorist attacks. And office buildings all over frequently display dinjy wrinkled flags IN THE RAIN. And we cynically laughed at my job when the company presented U.S. flag lapel pins to nearly every employee (my location alone could easily fill a multiplex cinema) after the attacks. The problem? The flags on the pin were dipicted BACKWARDS! Did the company leaders send the pins back? Nope. That’s demonstrative patriotism for you, folks.</p>
<p>I think the pledge is stupid. It IS like worshipping a flag. It’s weird. And so what with the flag burners? It’s a piece of fabric. They can burn it if they want to. It’s their flag, they’ll do with it what they wish.</p>
<p>I don’t swear blind allegiance to anyone or anything, nor do I put my blind trust in anyone or anything.</p>
<p>Naturally, where did you hear the pledge was just invented to sale flags?</p>
<p>Anyways, I don’t care if someone says the pledge or not. Whatever floats your boat.</p>
<p>Good for him!</p>
<p>My kid told me in first grade that he didn’t agree with the words “under god” in the pledge. I told him that he didn’t have to recite those or any other words and suggested to him that he might say the rest of it if he wished, or simply stand there silently. At the time he chose to recite the rest of it. I don’t know what he does now. I, personally, will not recite it at all. I despise loyalty oaths. (Other than the “under god” part, I actually find the content to reflect admirable aspiration.) I was actually “reminded” to say it by an officious volunteer at the elementary school once. When I calmly told her that I didn’t say it, she was rather flustered but backed off.</p>
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<p>“In 1891, Daniel Sharp Ford, the owner of the Youth’s Companion, hired Bellamy to work with Ford’s nephew James B. Upham in the magazine’s premium department. In 1888, the Youth’s Companion had begun a campaign to sell American flags to public schools as a premium to solicit subscriptions. For Upham and Bellamy, the flag promotion was more than merely a business move; under their influence, the Youth’s Companion became a fervent supporter of the schoolhouse flag movement, which aimed to place a flag above every school in the nation. By 1892, the magazine had sold American flags to approximately 26,000 schools. By this time the market was slowing for flags, but was not yet saturated.”</p>
<p>Bellamy was the author of the pledge. HMMM.</p>
<p>LakeWashington, the car antenna flags annoy me as well. They always look so tattered and grimy and awful.</p>
<p>Kid should be shipped to North Korea. Then he’ll beg to be able to say the pledge in school. </p>
<p>What a jerk.</p>
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<p>If you think that should happen, you’re the one who would like North Korea.</p>
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<p>Not permanently, of course. Think of it as more of a “field trip.”</p>
<p>I know a 5th grade kid who doesn’t say the pledge because it involves the phrase “under God”</p>
<p>He is a traditionalist, that has only been there since 1954</p>
<p>Why is it that fervent flagwavers often seem to have a soft spot for fascist methods?</p>
<p>I’ll say the pledge loudly and enthusiastically - but not the “under God” part. It bugs me that it was shoehorned in there, and I won’t say it on principle.</p>
<p>DS had a teacher in middle school who told the kids they had to stand out of courtesy for others, but she couldn’t force them to say the pledge. I was never really sure if she could ‘make’ the kids stand anymore than she could ‘make’ them say the words. Fortunately, nobody pushed her to find out. She said it’s like at the Olympics, when the gold medal winner’s national anthem is played–everyone stands out of respect. IMHO, nothing wrong with manners and courtesies…</p>
<p>Cuse, you should seek out a more compatible, authoritarian nation. Think Pol Pot or Stalin. Right up your alley.</p>