School pledge drama

[timesjoke]

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2010/06/29/mass-flag-pledge-resolution/

Student Sean Harrington appears to have won his fight to bring the Pledge of Allegiance back into his Massachusetts high school -- except the principal's proposed solution leaves the daily honor to the nation's flag literally hanging in the hall.

Charles Skidmore, principal of Arlington High School in Arlington, Mass., has offered to allow students to recite the pledge before school begins -- but in the school's foyer and not in the classrooms, as 17-year-old Harrington had hoped.

Kathleen Bodie, Arlington superintendent of schools, told Fox News Radio that “The principal wanted to be very respectful about the pledge and be sensitive to the Supreme Court ruling that students are not forced to say the pledge. He wanted to be sensitive to the diverse group of students we have.”

Bodie said there has been reluctance to put the district's teachers in a position of reciting the pledge, and she acknowledged that some have raised concerns about its inclusion of the words “under God.”

“I don’t know if it’s all about ‘under God,’ but that is certainly an aspect of it,” she said.

She said the pledge is voluntarily recited in the district's elementary and middle schools, but it hasn't been recited at the high school in decades.

It is unclear whether Harrington, who led the fight to bring the pledge back to the school, will be satisfied with the compromise of having it recited in the foyer, and not in class. When he was a freshman, he noticed that there were no American flags in the classrooms, and he enlisted the aid of his fellow students to get them installed. He also began his fight to have students voluntarily recite the pledge.

Harrington recently presented school officials with a petition signed by 700 people, along with letters of support from lawmakers including Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., and Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn. But the request to have the pledge recited failed when the committee's vote ended in a 3-3 tie.

"I was really heartbroken," Harrington told Fox News Radio. "It's hard to think that something so traditional in American society was turned down."

His fight has received quite a bit of support from the community. "When I was going to school, it was an honor and a privilege to pledge allegiance to the flag," Francis De Guglielmo, 55, told the Arlington Patch. He called the ban an "absolute travesty" and a "disgrace."

Harrington, who will be a senior in the fall, told Fox News Radio: "I'm not a person who quits and I don't back down. It's a very righteous cause and needs to be followed through until the end."

Some committee members voiced concerns about forcing people to do something that might violate their beliefs – including religious beliefs. Among the no-votes was committee member Leba Heigham.

"Patriotism is a very personal thing for all of us, but I do not think it is in the school committee's best interest to mandate that any of our employees recite the pledge," she told the Patch.

But Harrington stressed that he was seeking a voluntary recitation.

"If we can't find one teacher who is willing to say the pledge, then the system we have is cracked," he told FOX News Radio, noting that a number of teachers signed his petition.

He said the school's ban on the pledge sent the wrong message. "It tells me that we've basically cast aside what our country is founded on," he said. "It's saying that we don't really care, and it's sad."

More and more examples of how the anti-religion crowd and the socialists are taking away what used to be standard and proud devotion to our Country, they hide behind a clim of the "under God" being offensive but any idiot can just not say those two words and they all know that. God is not really the point of the pledge other than to give credit where it is due because without God, and the many religions and people of faith who believed in God, there would not be a America or personal freedoms to enjoy. No, it is about showing loyalty and promising to support the America that is providing "liberty and justice for all".


But that is the real problem, just like the liberals wanting to have open borders with Mexico, there is no real loyalty anymore, people don't really care about the blood that was spilled to create this Nation and provide the freedoms they now enjoy, in my opinion.

 

[emkay64]

Who cares? Say it..don't say it...meh. It isn't integral so dump it..say it at home with your folks if it's so damn important. Why should you have to pledge fukking allegiance every frikking day anyways? Did you forget the day before? I say once is enough and let's move on.

Drama indeed....

 

[timesjoke]

Spoken like a true Canadian, lol.

The point is America is not Canada, not Germany, not Australia, not Japan, America is not, and was never intended to be any of those places. We have a rich and powerful history and part of our strength was our American identity.


Do you even know what the term "melting pot" stood for Em?


No matter where you came from, when you came to live in America, you melted into our society and "became" an American. We took everyone in, and those people were so greatful for the promises of a great life and freedoms like never seen before created a real desire to be a real part or America. Today people are drifting away from those old ideas, we have "mexican-Americans" and every other kind of blended American you can imagine.


We have lost our identity and are being just as lazy and uncaring as the rest of the world.


And that is why we are finding the hard times like the rest of the world. Europe with their magical "euro" and all the power that was supposed to create is now falling apart, the "euro" is in trouble and world markets are having issues all over the world, cooincidence that America was having big issues first? No way, the world markets follow America more than anything else and bringing in the "dirty loyalties" mindsets of the rest of the world to America will end up hurting everyone.



If even our teachers refuse to pledge allegiance to America, who will they give their allegiance to? Obama? Socialism? Nobody? Every man (or woman) for him/herself?

 

[hugo]

Do you even know what the term "melting pot" stood for Em?


No matter where you came from, when you came to live in America, you melted into our society and "became" an American. We took everyone in, and those people were so greatful for the promises of a great life and freedoms like never seen before created a real desire to be a real part or America. Today people are drifting away from those old ideas, we have "mexican-Americans" and every other kind of blended American you can imagine.

That "melting pot" included segregated schools, restrooms, restaurants, etc. There were no hyphenated Americans. Us Anglos were Americans. The rest were ******s, spics, chinks, wops, etc.

A few facts, as opposed to the fantasies of an America that never existed:

Scholars compare the rate at which new Americans today master English to the trajectory for previous waves of immigrants, notably those who came from Europe in the late 19th and early 20th century.

"I would say the language acquisition of modern immigrants is faster today than it was 100 or 150 years ago, partly because of the media," said Jon Gjerde, a historian at UC Berkeley who studies 19th century Scandinavian immigration. "We had a proliferation of non-English media among European immigrants in the 19th and early 20th century, so their main media were in their native language."

Of course, TJ would not wantcha takin' that meltin' pot idea too far and have ya end up with biracial children.

 

[timesjoke]

That "melting pot" included segregated schools, restrooms, restaurants, etc. There were no hyphenated Americans. Us Anglos were Americans. The rest were ******s, spics, chinks, wops, etc.

As opposed to today where those terms are never used? Really hugo?

Your seem so uneducated sometimes hugo, you just blurt out anything that comes to your imagination that you think goes against soemone you want to argue with or put down but you refuse to even try to grasp the bigger framework of society and the things that motivate and drive certain funtctions/behaviors of that society.


Let me give you a tiny clue, although I doubt your capable of really understanding it:

Slavery and such were already things many people thought were okay for 'early' America but as more and more people came to America and adding to the "melting pot", the numbers of people who thought slavery was a stain on the American identity grew. In all reality even without the Civil War, slavery was slowly evolving and the supply of new slaves were lowering so each owner had to start taking better care of his slaves, most owners set up small slave viliges on their lands and even let them grow thier own foods and keep the extra they produced to trade with. Most historians agree that slavery would have mostly ended on it's own eventually. The bitterness and anger that can be traces even to people today has little to do with race hate and is actually a transferred hate brought foward from the time of the civil war itself. Southern people saw the civil war when they looked at a black man, and the blacks became a symbol of the fight that was lost for what they saw as States rights. In all honesty, the Civil War was the first step of the "all powerful" federal Government we know today.

So it was the "melting pot" that helped create a better future for America with more and more people comming here to embrace their "new life" and new Nation.

A few facts, as opposed to the fantasies of an America that never existed:

Scholars compare the rate at which new Americans today master English to the trajectory for previous waves of immigrants, notably those who came from Europe in the late 19th and early 20th century.

"I would say the language acquisition of modern immigrants is faster today than it was 100 or 150 years ago, partly because of the media," said Jon Gjerde, a historian at UC Berkeley who studies 19th century Scandinavian immigration. "We had a proliferation of non-English media among European immigrants in the 19th and early 20th century, so their main media were in their native language."

What learning the language has to do with being loyal to your new Country or not I have no idea.

Of course modern schools have nothing to do with learning english right hugo?

Almost every big city has english language classes these days for free hugo, do you think that helps just a little too? Funny as hell, really.

Of course, TJ would not wantcha takin' that meltin' pot idea too far and have ya end up with biracial children.

More lies, you don't have the truth in you hugo.

My only concern is with parents who rut then refuse to take responsibility for their actions, this is done by all races and ages of child bearing adults in America and the results to that uncaring behaviors are many but include 1.4 million abortions every year, single parents who are too busy trying to live to really raise their kids so the Government ends up having to deal with them, and yes, some kids grow up with problems shoved onto them by their parents that they have no control over but still causes them massive harm such as being mixed and not fitting into the social groups of their area.

If two "adults" make a child, it is my belief that they are responsible for caring for that child, call me names if you must hugo but I still believe in personal responsibilities for direct actions. If a mixed couple decided to create a child, then they should take steps to account for the special needs of that child.

If you can't even understand my point is concerning the harms and special situations the mixed children are forced to deal with then I don't really know how to explain it to you, it is a pretty simple concept in my mind.

 

[RegisteredAndEducated]

I agree that the pledge is a very important part of American culture and should be taught to American children at school.

 

[snafu]

It was never easy for any of the ethnicities to enjoy the freedoms of America in the beginning unless you had money. That went for blacks as well. We had free blacks here too as well as indentured servants from other nations. We all know America was far from perfect but then again neither was any other country at that time. The thing is that the seed of freedom was planted and America became the freest, strongest and proudest country on the planet.

 

[snafu]

Going back to the topic I find it a crying shame that we've come to this but the hard fact is that we have people that do not want to say "under God" or be patriotic. Like flag burining I find it ofensive but it comes with the freedoms we are indowed to enjoy.

 

[hugo]

If you are an atheist simply pause while everyone else says under God. Then finish the pledge and go back to eating children and being a communist.

 

[timesjoke]

It was never easy for any of the ethnicities to enjoy the freedoms of America in the beginning unless you had money. That went for blacks as well. We had free blacks here too as well as indentured servants from other nations. We all know America was far from perfect but then again neither was any other country at that time. The thing is that the seed of freedom was planted and America became the freest, strongest and proudest country on the planet.

And one of the things that made success possible was everyone working together to build this Nation. The pledge is simply a promise to be loyal to the Country that made this life possible.


I don't hate anyone, not even socialists or atheists (many times the same thing) but I do wonder why they feel compelled to destroy everything that made America strong.

 

[timesjoke]

There is no room in this country for hyphenated Americanism. When I refer to hyphenated Americans, I do not refer to naturalized Americans. Some of the very best Americans I have ever known were naturalized Americans, Americans born abroad. But a hyphenated American is not an American at all.
This is just as true of the man who puts "native" before the hyphen as of the man who puts German or Irish or English or French before the hyphen. Americanism is a matter of the spirit and of the soul. Our allegiance must be purely to the United States. We must unsparingly condemn any man who holds any other allegiance.
But if he is heartily and singly loyal to this Republic, then no matter where he was born, he is just as good an American as any one else.
The one absolutely certain way of bringing this nation to ruin, of preventing all possibility of its continuing to be a nation at all, would be to permit it to become a tangle of squabbling nationalities, an intricate knot of German-Americans, Irish-Americans, English- Americans, French-Americans, Scandinavian- Americans, or Italian-Americans, each preserving its separate nationality, each at heart feeling more sympathy with Europeans of that nationality than with the other citizens of the American Republic.
The men who do not become Americans and nothing else are hyphenated Americans; and there ought to be no room for them in this country. The man who calls himself an American citizen and who yet shows by his actions that he is primarily the citizen of a foreign land, plays a thoroughly mischievous part in the life of our body politic. He has no place here; and the sooner he returns to the land to which he feels his real heart-allegiance, the better it will be for every good American.


Teddy Roosevelt, Addressing the Knights of Columbus in New York City 12 October 1915.

 

[hugo]

Do ya actually spend time with blacks or hispanics? I have never heard any of them refer to themselves or another of their ethnic group as an African-American or Mexican-American. It is a stupid charge racists use. The fact is it is racists that prevented an indivisible nation.

 

[Anna Perenna]

Who cares? Say it..don't say it...meh. It isn't integral so dump it..say it at home with your folks if it's so damn important. Why should you have to pledge fukking allegiance every frikking day anyways? Did you forget the day before? I say once is enough and let's move on.

Drama indeed....

Good point, Em. I gave you positive rep, but unfortunately you can't see it because some fearful douche burger from the stone age negative-repped you for your simple, true post.

Making kids pledge allegiance daily isn't anything better than indoctrination.

 

[ImWithStupid]

Who cares? Say it..don't say it...meh. It isn't integral so dump it..say it at home with your folks if it's so damn important. Why should you have to pledge fukking allegiance every frikking day anyways? Did you forget the day before? I say once is enough and let's move on.

Drama indeed....

Good point, Em. I gave you positive rep, but unfortunately you can't see it because some fearful douche burger from the stone age negative-repped you for your simple, true post.

Making kids pledge allegiance daily isn't anything better than indoctrination.

Says one foreign-type person to another foreign-type person talking all foreignese and stuff. B)

 

[hugo]

Who cares? Say it..don't say it...meh. It isn't integral so dump it..say it at home with your folks if it's so damn important. Why should you have to pledge fukking allegiance every frikking day anyways? Did you forget the day before? I say once is enough and let's move on.

Drama indeed....

Good point, Em. I gave you positive rep, but unfortunately you can't see it because some fearful douche burger from the stone age negative-repped you for your simple, true post.

Making kids pledge allegiance daily isn't anything better than indoctrination.

Says one foreign-type person to another foreign-type person talking all foreignese and stuff. B)

Does not both Canada and Australia have weapons of mass destruction?

 

[emkay64]

My link

Interesting read. Not saying it's right...but interesting nonetheless.

 

[ImWithStupid]

My link

Interesting read. Not saying it's right...but interesting nonetheless.

The NAZIs took a lot of ideas from early 20th century progressives in the US. Propaganda tactics, eugenics, etc...

Similar to the progressives that are now in control of Congress and the White House.