Taking a Stand - or Not
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| Mon, 10-02-2006 - 12:07am |
Over the summer I had the subject of particpation in the pledge of allegiance was on my mind, and I had told my kids that I may not want them to say the pledge once school starts.
I explained what a pledge was and what the word allegiance meant and we talked about that a bit and I told them I would let them know before school started.
The week before school started one of my sons had his first football game. Before the game began, the announcer asked us all to rise for the pledge of allegiance. It has been my practice for years now to not be present when the national anthem is played or the pledge is recited at events, however this time I chose to just keep my seat.
I was sitting in the third row, and I didn't look back or around to see if anyone was taking notice of my non-participation, but I got a touch of the butterflies in my stomach thinking that other parents were likely taking notice and making a mental note not to let their kids come over to my house to play in the future.
On the way home after the game I told my kids about how it had made me feel to keep my seat, and I didn't feel it was right for me to put that kind of pressure on them, so I wouldn't require them to keep their seats at school during the pledge. They really didn't have much of a response.
At the end of the first week of school one of my sons told me "hey dad, I forgot to tell you. - I haven't been saying the pledge at school. I've been sitting down." I was shocked, and proud. I asked if any of his classmates had given him any grief. He said no one had, and in fact two of his friends had followed his lead and sat down after they saw him not standing.
The following week he told me there was one girl that was giving him some grief and had told him she was going to tell the teacher, but that didn't concern him. He knew his rights, he knew the reasons he had for not participating, and he was very confident of himself. He wasn't giving in. Then last week he came home from school and told me I needed to make a phone call to the school because his teacher had made him stand for the pledge. He stood there as I made the call to the principal. It was a short conversation. He heard me speak pleasantly to the principal as I simply said his teacher had made him stand for the pledge, I said thanks and hung up the phone. He wanted to know what the principals response had been, and I told him she had said that saying the pledge was optional and she would inform his teacher of that. He seemed pleased. The following day his teacher explained that she wasn't aware that saying the pledge was optional, and apologized to him.
This has all been a great learning experience for my kids and for myself. I know I'll never duck out when they play the national anthem again, or worry if people are looking at me when I don't stand for the pledge. It seems kind of odd, but my son has set the example for me, and I couldn't be more proud

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--->And honestly, would you prefer this war be fought on our own soil? Or are you really naive enough to convince yourself, even after 9-11, that it could never come to that?
do you follow the news? did you read the national intelligence estimate that said the war in iraq is creating terrorist?
the founders of this nation warned us not to become involved in the affairs of other nations. on the 11th of september 2001 we paid the price for not heeding that warning.
most people only know of bin laden what they have learned from our government. I was aware of bin laden three years before the attacks, and I think if you will research his comments before the attacks you will see that you are being lied to about the reasons we were attacked. it was all about the foreign policy. under secretary of state paul wolfowitz acknowledged as much when we removed our troops from saudi arabia, in saying that the reason we did so was to not give the terrorist a reason to attack us. To bad we didn't listen to bin laden in '98 when he warned us to get our troops out of saudi arabia or every american would be a target at home and abroad. it's all about the foreign policy. we have no right to interfere in the conflicts of other nations, and to do so puts the lives of americans in jeapordy. if the primary purpose of our government is to protect the life and liberty of americans it would best do that by not giving others a reason to attack us.
recently deomcratic leader nancy pelosi called hugo chavez a thug for refering to bush as the devil in a speech before the u.n.. the same day she made her commments it was reported that pakistani president musharaff said the u.s. had threatend to bomb pakistan back to the stone age if pakistan refused to be an ally in the "war on terror". now who is the real thug?
i talk to my kids about stuff like them to not merely parrot my beliefs but to evaluate the situation for themselves. Ask your kids what habeus corpus was and explain to them that bush and the congress have eliminated this fundamental legal right that americans have embraced since the signing of the magna carta and see what they think about it. That's what I do. I don't tell them how they must think, but I do provide them with information that most people don't provide their kids, and that the schools for sure do not provide them.
as far as being un-american goes....that's something that doesn't bother me. i'm not a nationalist.
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Okay, I had to laugh at that one, john. I still have mixed feelings over even TELLING your DS' of your the fact you feel no allegiance, no loyalty whatseover to your homeland, and of your ambivalence toward the country that has admittedly, provided your a comfortable lifestyle. Even if it is nothing more than financial, it is still a huge benefit to living in this country, as opposed to other ones ... even those in Europe.
john, I lived in the Middle East for five years and have travelled extensively throughout the world. I enjoyed every moment and don't regret a dime of the money we spent doing so. But at the end of the day, no other country I've been to beats out the U.S.A. and you can count on that as a fact. Why do you think citizens of other countries are lining up for passports and visas and are risking life and limb to get here? I have a SIL who was born and raised in the Phillipines and was working as a domestic in Hong Kong when she advertised herself in a directory for 'Asian Women Available for Marriage to American Citizens'. Things like this don't happen because America is a sucky place to live or be from, that's for sure.
In just about everywhere we've gone, people from other countries name America as the place they are aspiring to get to and become citizens of ... they know right down to the city and street, where they'd like to live.
I'm sure that life seems far more glamorous or that you'd have more freedoms in Europe --in fact, having been I'd agree that it does SEEM so. But you can be sure that every citizen of every other country will have complaints about their government, their educational system, health care ... you name it. I think you'll find the same or very similar issues anywhere you go.
When I was in my early 20's, I had the experience of working with a young Iranian woman who came to the US for her college education. She managed to stay on here with a work visa and was a management trainee in the bank I worked in. In spite of the fact she spent most of her life in IRAN, she found cause to criticize the United States and its' 'capitalistic' government. I guess she thought the Ayatollah was a better leader? I think she should have gone back home to Iran for a dose of reality. But you know what she did instead? Got a visa to go live and work in Australia. You just can't make some people happy.
what i detest is the nationalism and the foreign poicy practices primarily. i'm not buying into any of that.
my first priority is my family, and i'm not going to move them off to another country without the financial means to provide for them there, unless the draft is brought back, but looking at the poll numbers i don't think that is likely to happen.
I do watch the "news" and I believe that the world wide media is to blame for alot of our problems. Whether or not you want to believe it, John, you are being "fed the party line" only you have chosen to follow not your government but the all knowing, all compassing and very powerful entity called the "media". Go and worship at the altar.
Amen to that mom_dragonfly.
Translation: I'm not making as much money as I thought I would, and I'm resentful.
In my own experience, those who find most cause to critize our capitalistic society are just jealous, or worse, lazy. My mom has a number of friends who would love a socialist government that would take care of them because they just don't like to work, and never did. I guess they figure that those who like it should do it and take care of those who don't. I say we already do that: we call it taxes. The redistribution of wealth is one of the most unfair things that happens in our society, but I accept it because it's still hands down the best country in the world. If I didn't so, I would move. No amount of money could keep me living in a country that I hate.
Julie, I had no idea you lived in the Middle East for 5 years! I would love to pick your brain about that sometime.
mom---->I do watch the "news" and I believe that the world wide media is to blame for alot of our problems.
i agree that the media is to balme for many of our problems, especially the media here in the u.s. that has too close of a relationship with the government it should be acting as a check on.
did you see colbert's performance at the washington correspondence dinner. he nailed it. perhaps if our press wasn't so cozy with the government and actually did investigative journalism instead of merely putting out press releases as news we would be better informed voters.
myself, i don't watch the news. haven't for several years now. i do watch interview shows like meet the press, this week, and 60mins. but for the most part i get my news from dozens of sources both national and international. then i do my own research, reading transcripts, searching archives, reading court documents etc.,....which brings me back to the question you did not answer. did you read the portion of the national intelligence estimate that bush declassified last week?
back to the topic of saying the pledge. the supreme court ruled long ago that one can not be forced to participate, in any way, in the saying of the pledge or the national anthem.
every student in every school has the right not to participate.
would you be opposed to your school being required to make students aware of this right?
most schools have a student hand book that spells out students rights and responsibilites but i would wager none tell students they have the right to keep their seat during the pledge or national anthem. this seems wrong to me.
deb--->Are the reasons for him not participating, his own or what he has learned from you?
that is kind of like asking if his reasons for being a good student, or being honest, or being polite, are his own or what he has learned from me? teachers and parents tell me he is all thost things.
the way i see it, it's a combination of both.
in our house my children are taught that words have meaning. they are taught not to lie. we talked about what a pledge was, and what allegiance is. and we talked about how the pledge of allegiance came to be apart of this society. we talked about my reasons for not saying the pledge, and his mom contibuted her perspective as one who does say the pledge. I did not tell him to keeop his seat, in fact i told him i did not expect him to keep his seat and would not ask that of him. So it seems to me it had his own reasons, but obviously his reasons have been influenced by what he had learned at home - isn't that the way it is with all things?
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