Standing for the flag....

[controversy]

What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? New Jersey

I am a highschool senior, and I have always stood for the pledge of allegiance. I stopped reciting it for personal reasons but continued to stand just to show "respect" for it. Recently at school, I arrived to homeroom, not having much sleep lately I put my head down and slept through the pledge. I was then asked (very rudely) by a classmate why I did not stand. I told him I was very tired and just didnt. He proceeded to demean me and call me unpatriotic. I retatliated by asking "Who the @#%& are you to tell me what I have to do?" Soon enough a verbal argument en(?)sued which resulted in him threatening me, "If You dont Stand tomorrow, then Ill beat the crap out of you!" The next day I chose to sit, to show him that he can't scare me. Of course a fight started. After 2 hours in the office, I simply showed the Principal our student handbook, which has all the rules a student must follow inside. It states that I do not have to particpate in the pledge but must respectfully remain silent during. This of course got me out of a weeks suspension. But I would love to know if standing is actually required from students? I have no problem doing it, Im no oxymoron anarchist that thinks Im cool. I just want to know, Do I have to?

 

[seniorjudge]

If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein.

— Justice Robert Jackson in West Virginia Board of Education v. Barnette (1943)

 

[HomeGuru]

What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? New Jersey

I am a highschool senior, and I have always stood for the pledge of allegiance. I stopped reciting it for personal reasons but continued to stand just to show "respect" for it. Recently at school, I arrived to homeroom, not having much sleep lately I put my head down and slept through the pledge. I was then asked (very rudely) by a classmate why I did not stand. I told him I was very tired and just didnt. He proceeded to demean me and call me unpatriotic. I retatliated by asking "Who the @#%& are you to tell me what I have to do?" Soon enough a verbal argument en(?)sued which resulted in him threatening me, "If You dont Stand tomorrow, then Ill beat the crap out of you!" The next day I chose to sit, to show him that he can't scare me. Of course a fight started. After 2 hours in the office, I simply showed the Principal our student handbook, which has all the rules a student must follow inside. It states that I do not have to particpate in the pledge but must respectfully remain silent during. This of course got me out of a weeks suspension. But I would love to know if standing is actually required from students? I have no problem doing it, Im no oxymoron anarchist that thinks Im cool. I just want to know, Do I have to?

**A: do you go to a public school or a private one?

 

[xylene]

You can get suspended for fighting.

I urge you to contact the ACLU however.

 

[Rexlan]

Sounds like the parents need the beating as a starter and then send them home.

It is interesting that this kid can have such high values already to object to a simple display of patriotism. Get a visa and go someplace else where you will be happy ….

 

[seniorjudge]

Sounds like the parents need the beating as a starter and then send them home.

It is interesting that this kid can have such high values already to object to a simple display of patriotism. Get a visa and go someplace else where you will be happy ….

What are you...some kind of Commie?

 

[HomeGuru]

Sounds like the parents need the beating as a starter and then send them home.

It is interesting that this kid can have such high values already to object to a simple display of patriotism. Get a visa and go someplace else where you will be happy ….

**A: hahaha, too funny.

 

[dolebot]

Is the next step students forcing others to profess belief in the Lord Jesus Christ?

No, you dont' have to stand for it, no law says you have to, but if its a private school they can make up their own laws, the worst that can happen is that you can't go to that private school anymore.

You could be suspended for fighting however.

I object to pledging allegiance as well - its the inclusion of "with liberty" that gets me. I don't like lying to myself.

 

[Rexlan]

Is the next step students forcing others to profess belief in the Lord Jesus Christ?

No, you dont' have to stand for it, no law says you have to, but if its a private school they can make up their own laws, the worst that can happen is that you can't go to that private school anymore.

You could be suspended for fighting however.

I object to pledging allegiance as well - its the inclusion of "with liberty" that gets me. I don't like lying to myself.

Has you Visa expired yet ... If not we can probably arrange to have some of that nasty liberty taken away.

 

[Indiana Filer]

Is the next step students forcing others to profess belief in the Lord Jesus Christ?

No, you dont' have to stand for it, no law says you have to, but if its a private school they can make up their own laws, the worst that can happen is that you can't go to that private school anymore.

You could be suspended for fighting however.

I object to pledging allegiance as well - its the inclusion of "with liberty" that gets me. I don't like lying to myself.

As for me, I substitute the phrase "Under Canada" for the portion of the pledge that I find against my beliefs.

 

[Ohiogal]

Sounds like the parents need the beating as a starter and then send them home.

It is interesting that this kid can have such high values already to object to a simple display of patriotism. Get a visa and go someplace else where you will be happy ….

You have absolutely NO understanding of this country do you? For starters, the Constitution?

 

[Ohiogal]

As for me, I substitute the phrase "Under Canada" for the portion of the pledge that I find against my beliefs.

Watch or Rexlan may start accusing you of being a devil worshiper or threatening to have you deported to Canada.


The original pledge doesn't have the phrase Under God in it by the way.

 

[Ohiogal]

Written by a Socialist Baptist minister

The Pledge of Allegiance
A Short History
by Dr. John W. Baer
Copyright 1992 by Dr. John W. Baer






Francis Bellamy (1855 - 1931), a Baptist minister, wrote the original Pledge in August 1892. He was a Christian Socialist. In his Pledge, he is expressing the ideas of his first cousin, Edward Bellamy, author of the American socialist utopian novels, Looking Backward (1888) and Equality (1897).

Francis Bellamy in his sermons and lectures and Edward Bellamy in his novels and articles described in detail how the middle class could create a planned economy with political, social and economic equality for all. The government would run a peace time economy similar to our present military industrial complex.

The Pledge was published in the September 8th issue of The Youth's Companion, the leading family magazine and the Reader's Digest of its day. Its owner and editor, Daniel Ford, had hired Francis in 1891 as his assistant when Francis was pressured into leaving his baptist church in Boston because of his socialist sermons. As a member of his congregation, Ford had enjoyed Francis's sermons. Ford later founded the liberal and often controversial Ford Hall Forum, located in downtown Boston.

In 1892 Francis Bellamy was also a chairman of a committee of state superintendents of education in the National Education Association. As its chairman, he prepared the program for the public schools' quadricentennial celebration for Columbus Day in 1892. He structured this public school program around a flag raising ceremony and a flag salute - his 'Pledge of Allegiance.'

His original Pledge read as follows: 'I pledge allegiance to my Flag and (to*) the Republic for which it stands, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.' He considered placing the word, 'equality,' in his Pledge, but knew that the state superintendents of education on his committee were against equality for women and African Americans. [ * 'to' added in October, 1892. ]

Dr. Mortimer Adler, American philosopher and last living founder of the Great Books program at Saint John's College, has analyzed these ideas in his book, The Six Great Ideas. He argues that the three great ideas of the American political tradition are 'equality, liberty and justice for all.' 'Justice' mediates between the often conflicting goals of 'liberty' and 'equality.'

In 1923 and 1924 the National Flag Conference, under the 'leadership of the American Legion and the Daughters of the American Revolution, changed the Pledge's words, 'my Flag,' to 'the Flag of the United States of America.' Bellamy disliked this change, but his protest was ignored.

In 1954, Congress after a campaign by the Knights of Columbus, added the words, 'under God,' to the Pledge. The Pledge was now both a patriotic oath and a public prayer.

Bellamy's granddaughter said he also would have resented this second change. He had been pressured into leaving his church in 1891 because of his socialist sermons. In his retirement in Florida, he stopped attending church because he disliked the racial bigotry he found there.

What follows is Bellamy's own account of some of the thoughts that went through his mind in August, 1892, as he picked the words of his Pledge:

It began as an intensive communing with salient points of our national history, from the Declaration of Independence onwards; with the makings of the Constitution...with the meaning of the Civil War; with the aspiration of the people...

The true reason for allegiance to the Flag is the 'republic for which it stands.' ...And what does that vast thing, the Republic mean? It is the concise political word for the Nation - the One Nation which the Civil War was fought to prove. To make that One Nation idea clear, we must specify that it is indivisible, as Webster and Lincoln used to repeat in their great speeches. And its future?

Just here arose the temptation of the historic slogan of the French Revolution which meant so much to Jefferson and his friends, 'Liberty, equality, fraternity.' No, that would be too fanciful, too many thousands of years off in realization. But we as a nation do stand square on the doctrine of liberty and justice for all...

If the Pledge's historical pattern repeats, its words will be modified during this decade. Below are two possible changes.

Some prolife advocates recite the following slightly revised Pledge: 'I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all, born and unborn.'

A few liberals recite a slightly revised version of Bellamy's original Pledge: 'I pledge allegiance to my Flag, and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, indivisible, with equality, liberty and justice for all.'