Florida school produces waivers to ‘be excused from reciting’ Pledge of Allegiance at school'
100 replies, posted
[QUOTE=Tsyolin;50937676]That's an actual issue of legality though. You can't be punished in the court of law for not saying the pledge. However, if you go on record taking and oath to tell the truth in court you can be held accountable for perjury.[/QUOTE]
Yes, there is that difference. I compared both to each other, despite not being alike in the end, mostly because people seem to look at you funny if you don't do the pledge. Then again, you're more likely to not have to even step into a court, than you are for getting in trouble over a pledge? :v:
In the end, I just think that people take the pledge way too seriously, and thats probably one of the reasons why people have problems with it and don't want it, aside from bringing in actual beliefs, like citing the god part or not.
[QUOTE=Rocâ„¢;50937684]Yes, there is that difference. I compared both to each other, despite not being alike in the end, mostly because people seem to look at you funny if you don't do the pledge. Then again, you're more likely to not have to even step into a court, than you are for getting in trouble over a pledge? :v:[/QUOTE]
It really just seems to come down to a case by case basis. I'm sure some schools really care if students say the pledge or not but the school I went to couldn't really give a shit. I had a few kids that didn't want to say it, but again most people really didn't care. The post 9/11 patriotic fever is over.
[QUOTE=Sobotnik;50935455]same reason it's generally not a good idea to have children stand up and pledge fealty to god in class
america is a secular country and there are multiple religions whereby standing up to pledge allegiance in that may be quite offensive and does nothing for the education of the child or aids them in any way[/QUOTE]
the "under god" bit was only added in the 1950s, before that it wasn't a part. it really should be omitted and go back to the old form, since america has no established religion.
I dont think I wouldve had a problem with the pledge since its so short.
In my school however, we had to do a national and student pledge,sing the school, state and country's anthem every Monday and every morning we have to hear a fucking speech by the school staff that can range from being 30 minutes to an hour long.
Honestly it feels like a complete waste of fucking time that I could've spent on somethig else such as studying, sleeping or even chatting with friends.
I don't understand how anyone can defend something as weird as this, it's really brainwashy and creepy.
[QUOTE=gnampf;50935444][url]http://myfox8.com/2016/08/22/florida-school-sends-home-pledge-of-allegiance-waiver/[/url]
I've seen this going around my facebook feed for a while today, probably because I live in Florida. It's still crazy though. What happened to just not reciting the pledge if you didn't want to say it? I remember a few kids in my school would do that if they were adamantly against it for whatever reason, but they would still stand. It's literally ten seconds out of your morning.[/QUOTE]
Because it's some 1940's communistic indoctrination type shit. Every morning of every day, Stand there and PLEDGE YOUR ALLEGIANCE to this flag UNDER GOD (Which was added in the 50's because MAH JESUS). It's ridiculous to force people to stand there and say that shit in a country that can't go 9 seconds without proclaiming people of all walks of life have the freedom of speech and belief in this country. If you didn't stand and recite it in my schools your ass went to the office
And before Hitler made the salute super taboo, that's how we saluted our flag as well, and that's what the pledge reminds me of. Germany just before WW2
Let's see, 12 years + kindergarten, average 180 days a year, That's 2,340 times I had to say it, or get in trouble if not. And I was born here. Think about the immigrants who don't even believe in God
Doing a pledge in school everyday sounds so fucking wierd to me as a Canadian. I got to appreciate my country as I was growing up, I didn't need someone else to tell me I should pledge my allegiance to it.
[editline]24th August 2016[/editline]
I think people who are defending the pledge just have Stockholm syndrome.
[QUOTE=Tsyolin;50937476]You say that as if us reciting it actually means that we swore allegiance like die hard patriots. Saying the pledge before class every day is not some major form of societal manipulation, especially when most of said people are too young to make any serious decisions for themselves let alone political discourse. The pledge isn't hurting anybody, if people don't want to recite it than that's fine, but don't go saying it turns people into fanatic nationalists.[/QUOTE]
How about we have children pledge their allegiance to Allah and the religion of Islam before class each day because it's completely inconsequential of course.
Sure people can decide not to do it, but I doubt many people would like it if the kids were saying something else.
I think that like there's no religious children, only children with religious parents, no child loves their country. A child only knows their country, it's their entire world, only now can I say I love my country, having been to others countries and having read about and experienced first hand different cultures and ways of life. I'm not saying I'm too well traveled, I've only been to Europe and America.
I guess my point here is that when you take the pledge in America as a little child you're not reciting a passage that reflects what you think, you're being told what to think by authority when you have a young and malleable mind. Which seems to me to be exactly the kind of thing you guys supposedly stand against. If the allegiance had you pledging under Allah the right wing lot would be flipping their shit, which strikes me as a kind of "it's not indoctrination if I agree with it" kind of mentality.
Freedom! Amirite?
[QUOTE=Liem;50936675]Does the US also play the national anthem before school starts?[/QUOTE]
My high school actually had it where the played the national anthem, then the school song, THEN we had to do the pledge. By the end of the high school, I was tired of it all. I never wanted to do any of that shit. I get that the song and pledge is patriotic shit and all, but honestly, we're not the country's little soldiers. Why do I have to pledge anything to this country? One time, i decided fuck it, I don't feel like doing this shit, and the teacher started screaming at me to stand up. I said it's against my beliefs and he sent me to the principal where I got detention. I told them I wouldn't take it and I asked for a formal hearing in front of the school board and it was denied. Fucking school systems don't care about personal beliefs until someone gets outraged and brings it to the press and a huge ordeal is brought up like this.
More on topic though, it's not really a horrible thing to have the going out. As most people know and think, it has become so ingrained into the american society that people do it because they're used to it and believe they're supposed to. This brings it up to the family that their child does have an option whether or not to, and they should be talking to their children and asking if they want to and explaining that it's ok to not want to do it.
All throughout school at the very beginning of class would stand for the national anthem, seemed kinda weird and pointless but all the teachers said it was your duty to honour the freedoms Canadian soldiers protect. What a crock of shit.
[QUOTE=TheTalon;50938806]Because it's some 1940's communistic indoctrination type shit. Every morning of every day, Stand there and PLEDGE YOUR ALLEGIANCE to this flag UNDER GOD [/QUOTE]
Does that actually... mean anything to 21st century Americans? Does 'pledging allegiance' have any significance to kids who likely never use those words in any other context? Do they even understand what 'the Republic' is that they're talking about?
Yeah, it sounds weird and creepy, but I think anything you learn as a young child and simply recite by rote is going to go in one ear and out the other. It's an empty ritual with no real meaning, not culturing a generation of brainwashed patriots. It's the people defending the pledge and who get really angry about people refusing to say it that creep me out.
[quote] What happened to just not reciting the pledge if you didn't want to say it?[/quote]
Nothing. What are they going to do?
[QUOTE=StrawberryClock;50938964]
I think people who are defending the pledge just have Stockholm syndrome.[/QUOTE]
Nothing so dramatic. What looks from the outside as rather cultish was to us just a mundane morning ritual. Even well into highschool the pledge was that thing that you stood up and recited (if you wanted to; never in 12 years did I see a teacher so much as give a sideways glance to someone who didn't) then went back to shooting the shit with your buddies before class began.
[QUOTE=unrezt;50940374]Nothing. What are they going to do?[/QUOTE]
Sounds to me like it depends on the school you go to.
I've heard plenty of stories of kids getting punished in various ways for not doing it, or for not saying the god part.
man some of yall are really melodramatic about this.
[QUOTE=InvaderNouga;50940669]man some of yall are really melodramatic about this.[/QUOTE]
It's telling that the only people saying this OK are Americans.
Things being said over and over makes them familiar and therefore more likely to be accepted as true [i]regardless[/i] of whether they are. People say advertising doesn't affect them, but the billions of dollars spent on it says otherwise and similarly*, people say this doesn't affect them but it would be amazing if reciting a pledge every day didn't make you more likely to, say, argue that forcing children to blindly recite a pledge isn't a form of indoctrination which, you know, challenges the very premise of the pledge.
I don't think this is the most godawful thing to ever happen or that the US is 3 seconds away from Hitler (we'll wait til November to find out how far to the right the US is :v:) but there's a reason many nationalistic governments have forced children and adults to recite pledges to the state and it isn't for fun and games.
*to be clear, the premise is the same. Seeing something repeatedly, added to a hopefully positive memory of experiencing the thing, is effective.
[QUOTE=Tsyolin;50935940]People not from the US might think the pledge was creepy but I think that's pretty misguided, we just did it because they told us to and the moment they stopped making us nobody did it anymore. Not sure I really care if these people want to not do the pledge or not, I never thought of it as anything important.[/QUOTE]
Good point. I haven't done the pledge since high school, and when I did it, it was such a mindless task that it didn't mean anything to me. The meaning of it gets lost because it just becomes an automatic thing when we're little kids. By forcing us to say it from an early age, they basically stripped it of whatever influence it was supposed to have on us.
being patriotic and loving your country is important, in my eyes. it gives you impetus to want to change your country for the better. i don't really care about the pledge, but when i was doing it it was pledging alliegence to the ideal of America and not so much the government.
of course, if you disagree with pledging then that's your thing, i won't judge you.
I understand the thought process of "get kids to repeat nationalistic propaganda so they in turn become nationalistic" but in practice I doubt it had any real effect.
At my school you had to at the very least stand up, you didn't have to say it, but no one gave a shit if you didn't say it (the standing was to be "respectful" of others). Just like I think violent media doesn't make you violent or [URL="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subliminal_stimuli"]subliminal messages[/URL] don't brainwash you, I don't think reciting a pledge everyday has any effect on children other than making them stand up for a minute and stop goofing off before class starts because it's more obvious they're being disruptive if they're not standing still like everyone else.
I wouldn't want to remove the pledge from schools because I think it lets groups of people who otherwise wouldn't associate with each other, to tolerate their differences and work for the public good. That's why the pledge was probably started for 2nd generation immigrants when they were kids, it helped distance them from the intolerance for others that their parents were familiar with in the old country. The fact that it has survived this long can be attributed to growing tolerance of others in each generation since someone's family arrived here.
Like others have said, that the reaction from students was lukewarm at best gives the indication that saying the pledge was not taken as word of God.
In high school, the PA system would start with saying the pledge and then to stay standing during the national anthem.
Hardly anyone took it seriously and pretty much everyone just wanted to finish their homework they forgot from last night.
At the high school I went to, ever since 9/11 after saying the pledge you would listen to the national anthem for about a minute too. Some days they would play a longer version other days a shorter version. Sometimes you had to stand and wait for a few minutes because they were probably searching for a tape to play.
It got pretty annoying after a while, especially when you're barely awake. I don't think much of the pledge itself, so much as the blind nationalism of the older generation which is more corrupting.
[QUOTE=Ninja Gnome;50942906]being patriotic and loving your country is important, in my eyes. it gives you impetus to want to change your country for the better. i don't really care about the pledge, but when i was doing it it was pledging alliegence to the ideal of America and not so much the government.
of course, if you disagree with pledging then that's your thing, i won't judge you.[/QUOTE]
Everyone has a reason to want to improve their country already: the fact that they live in it.
I very infrequently did the pledge of allegiance in high school. My homeroom teachers always understood. I just didn't like the fact that "under God" had to be part of it. The times I would say it, I'd replace that bit with "under Canada" :v:
[editline]25th August 2016[/editline]
It's not that I'm some edgelord who HATES AMERICA FUK DIS COUNTRY I just disagreed with the inclusion of a deity
[QUOTE=Rossy167;50942474]It's telling that the only people saying this OK are Americans.[/QUOTE]
There are only so many ways to try and communicate how in reality saying the pledge is a mundane morning ritual rather than a nationalistic brainwashing.
Even if you think the pledge is "harmless" and it doesn't indoctrinate kids, at best, you're arguing that it's a massive fucking waste of time. Why is it still a thing again? What positive effect does it have?
[QUOTE=Raidyr;50947375]There are only so many ways to try and communicate how in reality saying the pledge is a mundane morning ritual rather than a nationalistic brainwashing.[/QUOTE]
its still a pointlessly retarded and archaic thing to have in the modern world. it doesnt really mean shit if you think it doesnt have an effect on you but whatever
then again i live in a country where conscription is still a thing l m f a o
[QUOTE=this fuckin guy;50947698]Even if you think the pledge is "harmless" and it doesn't indoctrinate kids, at best, you're arguing that it's a massive fucking waste of time.[/QUOTE]
um. that's what they're saying. they're arguing that it is harmless and doesn't indoctrinate kids, and that it is a waste of everybody's time. nobody said it had a positive effect. Do you think you're arguing against somebody?
Yeah I mean my argument hinges on the fact that it doesn't have an effect at all, an argument that I think is far better supported than the allegations that saying the pledge a lot turns Americans into brainwashed patriotic drones.
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