Should we revert back to the original Pledge of Allegiance?

[JohnLocke]

Poll question: Should we revert back to the original Pledge of Allegiance?

"I pledge allegiance to my Flag and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."
-- The original Pledge of Allegiance.

On edit: link trouble.

[ithacan]

1. other: get rid of the pledge altogether

there is no place for prayers in public schools, including prayers to flags and countries.

[mike1963]

9. Agreed. Get rid of it. We don't need no steeking loyalty oaths.

:grr:

[Goldmund]

14. Yes, absolutely agree

[mlawson]

22. Absolutely! We do not need it!

I remember having to say it every morning, Grades 2 thru 12. It was SO MUCH a mechanical thing, that we weren't even aware we were reciting it, most of the time.

But it is a mandatory LOYALTY OATH, and has no place in public schools, IMO.

[Syncronaut Seven]

23. One more vote here!

.

[Mixxster]

2. Yes

but I sure don't see it happening.

[LibDemAlways]

3. Fine by me, although

I defend the right of any person who chooses not to recite the pledge at all.

[Another Bill C.]

4. The Pledge was written by a socialist

and, ironically, a racist.

[JohnLocke]

5. He wasn't a racist.

In fact, he wanted to put "equality" in the pledge, but his boss was opposed to civil rights.

[Another Bill C.]

17. Example

http://history.vineyard.net/pdgech4.htm
"Like his cousin, Edward, Francis revealed his biases against the southern Europeans in his editorials. He attacked open immigration. In an August 28, 1897, editorial he said the following:

"The hard inescapable fact is that men are not born equal. Neither are they born free, but all in bonds to their ancestors and their environments...

"The success of government by the people will depend upon the stuff that people are made of. The people must realize their responsibility to themselves. They must guard, more jealously even than their liberties, the quality of their blood.

"A democracy like ours cannot afford to throw itself open to the world. Where every man is a lawmaker, every dull-witted or fanatical immigrant admitted to our citizenship is a bane to the commonwealth. Where all classes of society merge insensibly into one another every alien immigrant of inferior race may bring corruption to the stock.

"There are races, more or less akin to our own, whom we may admit freely, and get nothing but advantage from the infusion of their wholesome blood. But there are other races which we cannot assimilate without a lowering of our racial standard, which should be as sacred to us as the sanctity of our homes."

[JohnLocke]

20. Hmm... interesting.

[TahitiNut]

6. (and) Should children be coerced into making loyalty oaths?

In my own upbringing, I'm now very conscious of the indoctrination effect. I was quite the authoritarian inductee -- loved uniforms and marching and saluting and guns and all manner of being a 'good little 'bot'. It beat "going it alone," I felt, and was equated to being "accepted.". I'm now very leery of the Fritz Lang influence on our thinking. It took a long time.

I wouldn't mind the teachers and staff beginning the day with a flag-raising ceremony and voluntary recitation of the pledge ... with students standing respectfully ... but I mind any coercion of people below the age of consent. If they can't sign a contract, I don't think they should be asked/coerced to make oaths.

[FatSlob]

13. Nice Dive Flag...

just got my Q card a few months ago!

[kayell]

7. Other, I'm not fond of loyalty pledges

but if we do go back to the original I'd like the version that would have included the word Equality.

"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. >"

I absolutely despise the version that inserted God into government in the McCarthey era.


Added: It would be better IMO if the pledge said "striving for liberty, justice and equality for all." This would emphasize that these important parts of our nation are goals, requiring work to maintain, and that we should always be working to further those goals. One part of the indoctrination in the current pledge is the brainwashing to believe that liberty and justice are already achieved completely in this country.

[Maeve]

8. I have no use for loyalty oaths being used in school

[Hippo_Tron]

10. Other, everybody should say the pledge how they want to

And if schools want to have official reciting of the pledge, I think kids should be allowed to mock it in whatever way they want without getting in trouble.

[AliceWonderland]

11. Get rid of it

I find loyalty oaths to the state creepy and ominous. A pledge of loyalty to the state is antithetical to the central tenets of American political philosophy.

[CHestonsucks]

12. Indeed we should and

take "so help me God" out of the Oath of Office. Take the damn bibles out of the courtrooms while we're at it. And put yellow tape around the entire bible belt; call it the No Brain Zone.

[JohnLocke]

19. It's not in the Oath of Office.

It's a tradition started by Washington, said after the swearing-in.

[baldguy]

15. Keep it, but it should be revised...

I love this guy:
http://homepage.mac.com/leperous/PhotoAlbum1.html

[TahitiNut]

16. Perhaps all government employees (incl military) should be required ...

... to recite a Pledge every day.

"I pledge allegiance to the People of the United States of America, and to the Flag which represents our nation, with liberty, equality, and justice for all."

[Jeebo]

18. "Under God" isn't the only phrase I object to...

I voted "No" because I don't think we should revert to the original pledge; I think we should scrap the whole thing altogether. I count six points in the pledge (or seven if you count "liberty and justice" as two points). Of those six points, I agree with only two and disagree with four. So the issue with me is not the "under God" part, but the question of whether we should be indoctrinating school children on a daily basis with official government propaganda that probably most of those children and their parents don't entirely agree with.

POINT 1: "I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America..." I strongly DISAGREE because I will not "pledge allegiance" to ANY piece of multi-colored cloth, nor to any other icon or idol or inanimate object. Neither will I genuflect before it, bow to it, make obeisance to it or otherwise worship it.

POINT 2: "...and to the republic for which it stands..." I AGREE with this point because I am American and I am loyal and patriotic. Although after three years of the Bush regime, I am embarrassed to be an American.

POINT 3: "...one nation..." This is the other point that I AGREE with. It unquestionably is one nation, except for one little thing which I will explain in Point 5.

POINT 4: "...under God..." I strongly DISAGREE with this. I believe in the principle of separation of church and state, and this part of the pledge CLEARLY violates that principle.

POINT 5: "...indivisible..." This is a constitutional issue that has never been settled by the courts, which are the only venue that truly can settle it. No, it wasn't settled by the Civil War; all that happened then is that the states that stayed in the Union forced the secessionist states back into the Union literally at gunpoint. Abraham Lincoln at the start of the war was terrified that the courts would address this issue; he actually threatened to arrest the Supreme Court justices to keep them from ruling on it. After the war, Jefferson Davis spent two years in a federal prison awaiting trial on treason charges before the charges were finally dropped and he was released. Why didn't they prosecute him? Because they were afraid that the courts would rule on the secession issue in FAVOR of the secessionist states, recognizing Davis as the president of a foreign country who was therefore not guilty of treason. So until the courts address this issue, the claim in the pledge that the United States is "indivisible" is pure government propaganda.

POINT 6: ...with liberty and justice for all." I wish I could agree with this point, but I just can't, because it's so obviously not true. IDEALLY, this country is one that promotes the goals of "liberty and justice for all," but in actual practice, we're FAR short of that noble goal.

I wonder how many of those who claim to "support" the pledge would agree with ALL SIX of these points, if they were pressed to really THINK about what each of these points means?

Ron

[radwriter0555]

21. "Pledging" one's ALLEGIANCE to a FLAG, a piece of CLOTH smacks

of nazi-ism and nationalism at its finest to me.

We're the only country on the planet that does such an odd thing.

Why bother having it at all?

[LiberalFighter]

24. I take back my vote for the original pledge

and vote against having a pledge period!!!