Let’s be honest, the whole thing has always been a little weird.
I’m German and learned about this via a friend from the US. When they mentioned it, I thought their teacher was a lunatic. Then they told me that this is normal course of action. Just what in the absolute fuck.
Yes. It’s far more than “a little weird”. It’s how you breed nationalists.
USA hasn’t run into the consequences of nationalism hard enough yet when it backfires.
I am not looking forward to the find out stage of all this fucking around.
Everyone forgets the 90s and Timothy McVeigh so quickly.
I bet some people dont even know that was nationalism.
It depends on where and when in the US. In areas that are Democratic (the more liberal party) it doesn’t really happen much anymore, but in areas that are Republican (the more conservative party) it still happens at the start of every single school day.
And the custom of doing this was started by a salesman trying to sell flags and magazine subscriptions. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Bellamy#Pledge_of_Allegiance
They really make it too easy to draw the parallels:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bellamy_saluteI mean that’s just an unfortunate coincidence given it predated the rise of naziism.
Oh yeah, it definitely is in that sense. The point is that patriotism is hard to discern from facism. That they happened to use the same symbol here is just a good illustration of that. Ultimately, the Hitler Salute also started out as a symbol of patriotism before it all turned to genocide.
It’s state law where I live IIRC. They force you to say it, because of legal precedent, but the school can apparently get in trouble with the state if they don’t say it at the start of the day.
It was always funny when we’d all stand up and only the teachers and maybe three students would say it.
Might want to proofread that second sentence
Thanks lol
it’s an anachronism from the red scare in the 50’s.
Growing up, for a time my folks were way into the evangelical thing and I attended a totally batshit religious school where we recited 3 pledges back-to-back every morning. To the U.S. flag, the Christian flag and the Bible. Then had to recite entire chapters of the Bible we had per force committed to memory that week. Failure to do so was grounds for savage corporal punishment. No other experience in life so inoculated me against authoritarianism and organized religion. It also let me know at that tender age that sadists existed.
My wife used to work for a company that had a morning stand up and daily affirmation. I told her it sounded like she was in a cult. She agreed.
In high school like 15 years ago we not only had the regular pledge, we had to pledge to the Texas state flag. Which you hold out your hand like you are holding something?
“Honor the Texas flag; I pledge allegiance to thee, Texas, one state under God, one and indivisible.”
It’s all hot garbage and unquestioning nationalism. The good bit was, only one teacher ever gave me flack for sitting out the pledge with my little emo ass. And that was my ultra conservative AP US Government teacher. And he was just a nut ball. But when I framed it as my freedom he chilled.
He was still wrong about flat taxes not being regressive!
but how can you pledge allegiance to two separate entities?
scenario A: if texas ever attempted secession then you’d have to break one of your pledges.
scenario B: Texas always remains loyal to the US, which makes the texas pledge superfluous. you pledged allegiance to the US which includes texas.
It’s to incept the idea of secession into little kids head’s. Paint Texas as self sufficient and not dependent at all. Then make em want to leave.
I hate this state, but if all the liberals leave, it will only get worse for the next set of young people born here.
That’s so weird to me. I grew up in an area of Texas that is very red today. We quit both pledges in the 3rd or 4th grade. It’s weird that we did it at all, but that was back when they also taught that freedom of the individual was super important and if you didn’t like what someone else was doing you could always just look away because it wasn’t your fucking business. So they didn’t make us do it at a certain point because it was counter to the other shit they said. That was in the years leading up to Ann Richards being voted as governor so that may inform outsiders of what was happening at the time.
There’s a lot of problematic shit that happened when I was a kid. Don’t get me wrong. But at least they seemed to be headed the right direction at the time with the info we had (that’s a whole other ball of garbage that I’m not picking at today…ask me another time when it’s not 3am). I had forgotten about both pledges as an adult until someone reminded me a few years ago that it was a thing.
Texas has gotten way more idiotic over the last 30 odd years.
Such a creepy thing, getting children to chant in devotion to a state flag in schools.
It’s the sort of thing they probably do in places like NK, or the Third Reich, you don’t expect it to come from a supposedly modern, non imperialist nationalistic nation, ya know? :-(
I’m from the UK, my wife is from Singapore, and our son was born in the US. I really don’t think it’s appropriate to force him to pledge allegiance to the US, because he has strong ties to other countries. It feels like brainwashing.
I don’t think they can force you. There was even a legal case I think.
I’m sure it will be over turned soon. Precident and clear readings of the US constitution don’t matter much nowadays.
And we (the US) do it for soooo many public events for no reason! I was running in a marathon in Arkansas once where the host said that if anyone kneels during the anthem he will come and make them stand up. I just walked out after this and came back when the race started. There is only one reason: jingoism.
The irony is it was ruled based on freedom of religion, primarily.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Virginia_State_Board_of_Education_v._Barnette
They can’t force you, but teachers can decide that your behaviour in class is uncooperative and your answers are bad, so you should get bad grades. Teachers can decide that when you report you have been beaten up by the Nazi gang in school that you are probably making it up as you are always looking for attention and making yourself be special.
I hope you don’t live in one of these 46-47 states.
Stop posting nonsense, its settled law that you can’t force people to say the pledge.
Such a creepy thing, getting children to chant in devotion to a state flag in schools.
Apparently, schools will have to display the ten commandments in classrooms, which means all the kiddies with functional brains get to wonder why chanting to a piece of colored fabric isn’t considered worshipping a false idol.
Also, all the military recruiters will get to awkwardly explain the whole “thou shallt not kill” thing…
all the kiddies with functional brains
It is the job of the education system to root out these potential future threats to social order.
If you take a look at pre 1943 US, you might see some inspirations for Hitler there.
The Bellamy Salute was pretty much the same. The Pledge of Allegiance was done with it. It was changed to the hand over heart style in 1942.
I said it once, I say it again. Why the Flag? I don’t get it. Why not the Constitution? The Flag changed so many Times in US history.
Is there an actual reason or just because the flag is a more visual Token for loyalty?
I think it’s because the people who made the pledge were just trying to sell flags. “A flag in every classroom” or something to that effect. So, once again, the answer is capitalism.
The pledge was just made by flag companies to sell more flags guys
You dont think someone made money off of this?
The visual qualities are exactly the point.
If you wave around the constitution, it’s indistinguishable from some random bits of parchment. Most people can recognize their flag, even when it’s flapping around and next to similar flags. Humans are just very visual creatures.
In either case, the pledge isn’t actually to the object itself but to the country represented by that object.
The problem we have in the US is that Old Glory is commonly used to represent some particular group’s vision of what the US should be rather than a symbol of the country as a whole. When that sort of change is broadly positive, such as when it started to become a symbol of American ingenuity in space, it’s easy for everyone to rally behind. When it starts to symbolize a message like, “We should give the police unrestrained power.” it becomes more divisive.
Bullshit, I instantly could picture the declaration of independence, it is not a crazy symbol to use as noone has 400 year old parchment lieing around anymore.
I think theres an argument over which would be a more appropriate symbol but personally I think the nationalism stuff to be silly when theres not much the US has done to be proud of.
I’m proud of our younger generations. Do they have a flag?
Dunno for US, but in some monarchies, the flag was carried around by representatives who delivered the will of the king/queen/emperor/etc. So seeing the flag was the same as seeing the ruler in person. Symbolism I guess.
Could be 🤔
Maybe I’m gonna find out who started this and if he had any motive at all to pick the Flag 🤔
Why the Flag? I don’t get it. Why not the Constitution?
Yes… why worship a piece of colored fabric and when you can worship a piece of paper with scribbles on it instead?
The constitution is still the constitution, when you read it from a website. It is still the constitution, when it is read out loud. It is the text and interpretation that matters.
So in terms of pledges it is the least troublesome symbol.
Allow me to rephrase, then.
Why worship a piece of colored fabric and when you can worship a piece of paper that literally institutionalizes the practice of slavery instead of abolishing it?
I guess that’s just not “troublesome” enough for the average white liberal, eh?
Oh i absolutely agree that it is bullshit. In principle a constitution however is a reasonable thing for pledges. Politicians, judges, military and the like pledging to uphold and protect their countries constitution is a good thing. (Now whether they actually do that is another question.)
Yeah I get that it is a symbol but like I said, the Flag changed often and I would have guessed that the Constitution would be a better Symbol.
But idk tho, I’m just some prick from Europe ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
In post-communist eastern Europe it was common to reinforce the nationalistic sentiment in schools to try and erase the Soviet/Russian influence in case of a posible future separatist movement from within.
Interesting, can you provide any read on that?
Obviously not.
But here’s an Ukraine read that might be used as an example for or against what I said above. http://litopys.org.ua/polpost/e1a2.htm
Ok, that looks like an interesting read, thanks mate!
I live in Ireland, we had an American teacher visit our school for a year. She taught us the pledge, it stands out as one of the stranger memories of my childhood. That and her repeated “they didn’t want bush any more, they wanted Clinton”. Which should give you some sort of hint of how long ago this was.
She taught you guys the pledge to the US flag or at least made it about the flag of Ireland?
Taught us the US pledge. I don’t remember there actually being a flag in the room, but it was a good 30 years ago
I know what you meant by “state flag” but I want to be cheeky, so here goes:
We didn’t pledge to a state flag but the federal flag. But the state of Maryland has a fabulous flag, and I’m still devoted to its design all these years later.
For whatever reason, in the 70s, in Maryland, I only recall pledging allegiance in the morning at the start of school during first grade. I don’t think we did it past second grade. In any case, I took the opportunity to insert curse words. I would say it like, “I pledge allegiance to the shit, and to the asshole for which it shits.” I didn’t lower my voice either. I just figured that I would never be noticed. Thinking back, I am surmising that my teacher must have noticed at least once but just ignored it.
You sound like a CGP Grey enthusiast https://m.youtube.com/@CGPGrey
Such a creepy thing, getting children to chant in devotion to a state flag in schools.
Even in Russia kids don’t chant in devotion to a state flag in schools. America, please fix your schools.
Removed by mod
A country that truly believes in freedom and democracy shouldn’t require you to take a loyalty oath every day.
This whole thing is such a mind fuck and crazy process for people outside merica. I really thought it was a joke on movies, but realising that they are really all brainwashed since children like this makes a lot more sense when you consider everything.
And we’ve had multiple lawsuits decide exactly that - you do not have to do it.
With this court, all bets are off though.
It’s almost like if you have to keep telling yourself that you live in a free country, you probably don’t.
In most schools, it’s not. But they don’t advertise that.
In most schools it is. 46-47 states have laws requiring it.
West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette, 319 U.S. 624 (1943), is a landmark decision by the United States Supreme Court holding that the First Amendment protects students from being compelled to salute the American flag or say the Pledge of Allegiance in public schools.
They can’t require participation.
It says I live in a state that requires it with no exceptions and that’s simply not true. In HS a lot of students didn’t participate.
It’s been made clear in court that students can’t be forced to make the pledge against their will.
Counterargument:
If no one believes or identifies with a nation, that nation will cease to exist.
The idea that “things don’t exist when we stop believing in them” is something that most of us outgrow at an early age.
Object permanence applies to tangible objects, basically things explained by physics and constituted from energy.
A nation is a construct of collective imagination, much like religion and economics.
National patriotism is a religion which worships dirt.
This guy gets it.
If no one believes or identifies with a nation, that nation will cease to exist.
Don’t threaten me with a good time
See, I’m playing both sides so that I always come out on top.
Memes aside, it’s totally not a form of brainwashing to have young children pledge allegiance to the flag before they’re even old enough to understand the concept of pledges or allegiances!
The “and” is the really wierd part.
If they had worded it as “I pledge allegiance to the flag, to the republic for which it stands” you could think: “Ok, the flag is just a symbol of the country, you’re actually just pledging allegiance to the country.”
But, the “and” makes it clear that it’s to the country and to the flag. How can you have allegiance to a flag? It isn’t even about pledging to respect the flag, it’s “allegiance”. It’s like pledging obedience to the colour blue, or pledging fealty to the sound of applause.
Here’s why:
The Pledge of Allegiance was first published for Columbus Day, on September 8, 1892, in the Boston magazine The Youth’s Companion. It was written by a member of the magazine’s staff, Francis Bellamy. The publication of the Pledge, and its wide redistribution to schools in pamphlet form later that year lead to a recitation by millions of school children, starting a tradition that continues today.
Anyways, soldiers have died to save the flag. Standard bearers were critical officers during battle, and were responsible for holding a unit together, say when charging an enemy line or rallying the troops to defend a trench. Losing the standard could lose the battle and your men.
or pledging fealty to the sound of applause.
There’s a joke in there somewhere about chasing fame and the approval of strangers
I pledge Ally Sheedy to the slag
Of the United Skates of Emilio
And to the repugnant
for Richard Stanz
One naked undergarment
Invisible man
With Liberace and puffed rice for all.Ra-men
For real though, what happens if you don’t say the words?
When I was in school, generally nothing, the teacher might bother you about it, but they for the most part don’t care and would rather move on with the day.
Sometimes kids parents would devise a reason to exclude their kid, but it was effectively optional, though generally encouraged.
Your parents get death threats
Note: No government employee can ever legally demand that a citizen recite the pledge.
