It wasn't until I was introduced to the notion of symbols and began to understand them from intellect, that I caught the drift of the pledge. For myself, I would rather it had said, "I pledge allegiance to the Constitution of the United States of America...", but symbols are writ large as shorthand in every culture and nit pickers are annoying, ain't they?
Truth to tell, childish as it might sound, I do pledge my allegiance to the Constitution. And why wouldn't I, I was born here, after all.
WizardMarks, Central
Anderson & Turpin wrote:
In contrast to most of the posters to this List, I'm happy with 80-90% of what came out of St Paul this year. It was a heckuva session. But one stinker that made it through the process was the Pledge of Allegiance bill. They want to force another generation of kids to go through this dumb ritual. But I believe the Mpls School Board can keep this out of our schools. That should be an annual ritual of the Board.
I recited this thing every school day for most of my childhood. The only thing I learned from it is that promises aren't something you plan to do, they are something you mouth every morning as part of the day's sacraments. You don't even need to understand the promise; the important thing is to repeat it as often as possible. And there is no way any kid could "understand" the Pledge, because it is mostly meaningless babble. I'll quickly go over the words, to demonstrate that it doesn't make sense.
"I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America,..."
What the heck does this mean? Am I promising to do whatever the flag tells me to do?
"...and to the republic for which it stands,..."
This makes a little more sense, but is extremely general. Does this mean I have to do whatever someone from the US government tells me to do? Or just obey all the laws passed? Does committing civil disobedience break this promise? Or does it just mean I won't conspire with a foreign government against the US govt? I bet every person asked would interpret it differently, so what's the point of such a "unifying" ritual?
"...one nation, under God,..."
It is ironic that a promise of loyalty to the US includes a clause that is so blatantly unconstitutional.
"...indivisible,..."
First of all, what kid understands the word, or what it's about? I think a teacher actually tried to explain the word to us when I was a kid, but I had no true cognition of it until I later studied the Civil War. Besides, this is supposed to be part of a pledge. What am I pledging here? Not to secede from the union?
"...with liberty and justice for all."
My question is what is with liberty and justice? This clause makes no grammatical sense -- it's just tacked onto the end because it sounds noble. I like liberty and justice as much as the next guy, but could you tell me what I'm promising here?
If the School Board needs a substitute to protect themselves from accusations of being unpatriotic, then they could have a song every morning like "America the Beautiful" or "This Land is Your Land." Anyway, a song is more effective at instilling a sense of belonging than an incomprehensible oath. And unlike an oath, a song doesn't need to make sense -- it just needs to have a nice melody.
Mark V Anderson Bancroft
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TEMPORARY REMINDER: 1. Don't feed the troll! Ignore obvious flame-bait. 2. If you don't like what's being discussed here, don't complain - change the subject (Mpls-specific, of course.)
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Minneapolis Issues Forum - A City-focused Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Unsubscribe, Digest, and more: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
