Pledge of Allegiance in SoCal schools? (Santa Monica, Independence: elementary schools, military, move)

[NewsScoop]

Are schools in LA/beyond saying the Pledge of Allegiance every day?
For the ones that are, are students participating?

[Cloudwalker]

It's said every day in the Santa Monica schools. Students can choose to either stand quietly or recite it, but most seem to participate.

[jm1982]

Originally Posted by Cloudwalker

It's said every day in the Santa Monica schools. Students can choose to either stand quietly or recite it, but most seem to participate.

Can they take a knee?

[Kings Gambit]

Originally Posted by NewsScoop

Are schools in LA/beyond saying the Pledge of Allegiance every day?
For the ones that are, are students participating?

I get the feeling this is a troll-ish phishing type thread created by an existing user who made up a new account just to ask this question. But I'll take the bait and respond.

Most elementary schools that I and my kids have been associated with, they recite the pledge every Monday during the morning assembly. All students are encouraged to participate but due to personal and/or family/religious beliefs they are not REQUIRED (i.e., mandatory) to do participate. But they ARE all REQUIRED to stand still and remove their hats which they all do.

[Exitus Acta Probat]

Originally Posted by Cloudwalker

It's said every day in the Santa Monica schools. Students can choose to either stand quietly or recite it, but most seem to participate.

WHAT?! What the **** is this stand quietly crap?! When I was a kid you pledged your allegience to this country or you got the **** out!

[Kings Gambit]

Originally Posted by Exitus Acta Probat

WHAT?! What the **** is this stand quietly crap?! When I was a kid you pledged your allegience to this country or you got the **** out!

Yeah right dude.

You must be the guy who created the new profile just to start this thread.

[quixotic59]

Originally Posted by Exitus Acta Probat

WHAT?! What the **** is this stand quietly crap?! When I was a kid you pledged your allegience to this country or you got the **** out!

When I was a kid (granted, quite a few decades past) you pledged allegiance to a flag that represented a country of honor.

While life was not perfect, we did not have to deal with the staggering amount of:

1) Greed obsessed Wall Street and Big Bank crooks fleecing hard working Americans on a daily basis.

2) An overwhelming majority of crooked, unprincipled, lobbyist-owned politicians.

3) The unbridled military invention for profit that Eisenhower warned us about (for those who have forgotten, or never learned, their history that would be the "military-industrial complex")

4) Unbridled drug abuse (and I'm not referring to recreational marijuana).

5) Insufficient medical care for the majority (Hey kids, did you know doctors used to make "house calls" and parents could actually afford to pay for it.)

6) Certified morons holding political office.

The list goes on.

Soooo, when we pledged we did so with pride, not the shame we cloak ourselves in today due to rampant ignorance, greed, self-absorption, lack of self respect, etc.

As a former educator, I had a hard time trying to answer all the questions I got from students about all the questionable behavior they heard about our elected leaders on social media (since they never watched the news, read the papers or studied current events). Their stunning lack of knowledge of history (thank you "education reformers") due to the reduction of studies of history in our schools made establishing historical context almost impossible.

So when they chose to stand quietly and not recite the pledge, at least they showed respect for those who observed that ritual. Which is more than I can say for many of our modern American adult citizens.

For those who actually know anything about American history, respectful silence, or even "taking a knee" represents exactly the kind of respectful civil behavior our forefathers envisioned when they crafted the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.

[Exitus Acta Probat]

Originally Posted by quixotic59

When I was a kid (granted, quite a few decades past) you pledged allegiance to a flag that represented a country of honor.

While life was not perfect, we did not have to deal with the staggering amount of:

1) Greed obsessed Wall Street and Big Bank crooks fleecing hard working Americans on a daily basis.

2) An overwhelming majority of crooked, unprincipled, lobbyist-owned politicians.

3) The unbridled military invention for profit that Eisenhower warned us about (for those who have forgotten, or never learned, their history that would be the "military-industrial complex")

4) Unbridled drug abuse (and I'm not referring to recreational marijuana).

5) Insufficient medical care for the majority (Hey kids, did you know doctors used to make "house calls" and parents could actually afford to pay for it.)

6) Certified morons holding political office.

The list goes on.

Soooo, when we pledged we did so with pride, not the shame we cloak ourselves in today due to rampant ignorance, greed, self-absorption, lack of self respect, etc.

As a former educator, I had a hard time trying to answer all the questions I got from students about all the questionable behavior they heard about our elected leaders on social media (since they never watched the news, read the papers or studied current events). Their stunning lack of knowledge of history (thank you "education reformers") due to the reduction of studies of history in our schools made establishing historical context almost impossible.

So when they chose to stand quietly and not recite the pledge, at least they showed respect for those who observed that ritual. Which is more than I can say for many of our modern American adult citizens.

For those who actually know anything about American history, respectful silence, or even "taking a knee" represents exactly the kind of respectful civil behavior our forefathers envisioned when they crafted the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.

The pledge one takes isn't to any of those enumerated items.

"I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."

Nobody is being asked to pledge allegiance to Wall Street, lobbyists, etc.

[quixotic59]

Originally Posted by Exitus Acta Probat

The pledge one takes isn't to any of those enumerated items.

"I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."

Nobody is being asked to pledge allegiance to Wall Street, lobbyists, etc.

If you are going to ask people to respect and pledge to a SYMBOL, you have to acknowledge what it SYMBOLIZES.

Students should not be asked to blindly recite the Pledge of Allegiance, or sing the Star Spangled Banner, without truly understanding what they mean and represent. Doing that creates a citizenry that does not understand the basic principles of their own country and government.

That leads to ridiculous situations like people electing unqualified buffoons from reality television for president.

Blind obedience is EXACTLY what the founding fathers of this country were fighting against.

[expatCA]

Originally Posted by quixotic59

If you are going to ask people to respect and pledge to a SYMBOL, you have to acknowledge what it SYMBOLIZES.

Students should not be asked to blindly recite the Pledge of Allegiance, or sing the Star Spangled Banner, without truly understanding what they mean and represent. Doing that creates a citizenry that does not understand the basic principles of their own country and government.

That leads to ridiculous situations like people electing unqualified buffoons from reality television for president.

Blind obedience is EXACTLY what the founding fathers of this country were fighting against.

No one is or should be required to say the pledge, it is a choice and the Supreme Court has ruled that such is the Law. Showing respect is proper, pledging allegiance should not be forced on children as it is an adult decision.