One of the defenses put forth for leaving the reference to God in the current Pledge of Allegiance is that no one is required to participate even when schools are required to lead classes in a daily recitation by state law. When it’s pointed out that kids who decide not to participate may be coerced or humiliated by others for a supposed lack of patriotism the response is to brush such concerns aside as not being likely. Yet news reports of just this sort of thing happening continue to pop up. The latest involves an eighth-grader at Silverbrook Middle School in Wisconsin named Rachel Morris who found herself being questioned first by her teacher and then the school principal when she refused to stand for the Pledge at the start of the school day.
When she refused to stand on the first day her teacher repeatedly questioned her as to why after class was over. Rachel explained that she didn’t have to provide a reason. After refusing to stand on the second day she was summoned to the Principals office.
Principal Cindy Guell said she called Rachel to her office on the second day partly to discuss the pledge but also to make sure everything was going OK for her. This is Rachel’s first year in the district.
“She said it was against her religion to say the pledge. I said, That’s fine.’ I told her that basically, we stand anyway as a way to honor our nation.”
Guell said Rachel was never told she had to stand. However, Guell acknowledged that, at her instruction, a statement was read over the intercom Wednesday and Thursday before the pledge that said, “The reason we stand is to honor our country.”
The statement was intended to clarify the issue for students, not to needle Rachel, Guell said.
Said Rachel: “It was embarrassing because people kept looking at me like I didn’t honor my country.”
The Madison-based Freedom From Religion Foundation, which intervened at the family’s request, said the school officials’ actions amount to intimidation.
“They were putting psychological and authoritarian pressure on her to conform,” said foundation spokeswoman Annie Laurie Gaylor.
While it’s true that the Principal never specifically said Rachel had to stand, the implication in the statement she did make and the announcement read before the pledge made it clear that she fully expected Rachel to do so regardless of whether Rachel had to or not.
“She said that even if you don’t recite the pledge, you can at least stand to show respect for your country,” Rachel said. “She said I should just stand and try it.”
Guell said Rachel may have misinterpreted concern for her well-being as an attempt to change her behavior. “I personally feel really bad that she feels this way.”
Guell may have had good intentions, but whether she realizes it or not she was applying pressure on Rachel to conform as was the teacher. What the hell is wrong with just letting her sit quietly in her seat without question if she doesn’t wish to participate? Why bother “clarifying” anything to the rest of the students unless you’re trying to draw attention to the person who isn’t conforming? Whatever reasons Rachel may have for not participating are hers to reveal or not reveal as she should choose and if she isn’t required to participate then she shouldn’t be required to explain why she chooses not to. It’s none of your damned business why she doesn’t want to participate.
I’m sorry. I didn’t realize I was -implying-. Let me provide the sorely lacking clarification.
Andrew, like so many other Americans on both the right and left hand side of the political spectrum, is participating in and perpetuating a pseudo-deification of soldiers. Clear enough?
Because I’m -human-, like them. And I’m probably in close to the same socio-economic class as most of them. And my wife is a military brat, and my father-in-law and both brothers-in-law are military men, and my grandfather is ex-military, and my Uncle was a medic in Vietnam. And so on, and so on. Two of my good buddies, one from high school, one from college, became Marines. So yes, I think I -do- know what their interests are. And I think LJ’s explanation is probably pretty accurate. You fight so that the guy next to you, the guy that you talk to, and eat with, and share a foxhole with, doesn’t give you that ‘what the fuck’ look as he’s trying to push his entrails back into his stomach.
And that’s probably a pretty good explanation for why soldiers fight. And it -is- noble, in its way.
BUT IT’S NOT THE REASON FOR WAR. WAR DOES NOT EXIST TO ADVANCE THE CAUSE OF SOLIDARITY BETWEEN MEN.
No, that’s what team bowling and wilderness retreats are for.
Don’t get me wrong. I get all choked up at the end of ‘Saving Private Ryan.’ But I also got all choked up at the end of “Stand and deliver.” I admire heroism and self sacrifice in all its forms. But noone ever claims that not standing for the pledge is an insult to teachers, or bus drivers, or the firemen who rushed into a falling building on 9/11. No, the flag isn’t -theirs-, that flag belongs to soldiers.
Why?
So that the people whose interests -are- advanced by war can wrap themselves in the most potent symbol of sacrifice [with the exception of the cross], thus silencing anyone who would oppose them. Because to oppose the war profiteers is to be unpatriotic. To oppose them is to ‘spit on returning soldiers’ to ‘insult the flag’ to ‘show a lack of reverence to those who died for yooooo.’
But with a few notable exceptions, most of those soldiers didn’t die for me. They died for the parasites who would wrap themselves in dead soldiers to conceal their own base motives.
As long as we deify soldiers, as long as we continue to buy into the story that their deaths are in the noble defense of valued ideals, as long as we see them as the bold and tragic heroes standing in the face of Mordor’s fury. . .
As long as we do that, we shelter and feed the very people who are responsible for those soldiers’ deaths.
Sorry. Can’t do it. Won’t. And if that makes me an ‘asshole’ and ‘irresponsible with the facts,’ then mea culpa.