respect or free speech?

I think we need more sex ed. There's so much I didn't learn in school that I had to learn on the street.

You've got that right.

In the 1960s, with the rise of the civil rights movement, i was struck with the horrible irony of the allegation about "with liberty and justice for all."

This is interesting.

I think we're roughly the same age and I recall reciting the pledge as early as kindegarten.

Did you refuse to recite the pledge at that early age?

If so, do you believe you really were able to comprehend a rational objection to reciting the pledge or merely adopting a behavior inculcated by your parents or other adult influences?

I did not attend kindergarten.

Do conservatives understand irony?

we now have ever lasting written proof that Finn hasn't a clue. Irony my ass, he's proven himself a compete idiot.

I liked the way my sixth grade social studies teacher handled it in the 60s. We were a class of 35 students and had a week-long dissection and debate about what we thought each word and line meant and what was the purpose or intent of that line and word in the pledge.

After that exercise, we were each allowed to recite the sections of the pledge that we agreed with and be silent during the sections we disagreed with.

Most of us ended up saying something like:

"I pledge allegiance to the United States of America, indivisible, with liberty and justice for some."

I was a kid in the forties and fifties, before the under God addition. Never had a problem with that pledge. On the other hand, I was an obedient goody goody, and not then aware of the flow of injustice abroad in the land.
I did have trouble with some vows we had to make in high school, most of which I've forgotten (chastity?) , but I remember keeping my mouth shut in a class pledge re the Legion of Decency and movies. No promises re indexed books or movies from me. Although I still haven't read Voltaire, famous indexee. Maybe for my Amazon wish list..

I'm about the same age as EdgarB, but a tad older. The under god business happened when I was in high school, and I'm guessing in later elementary school for EdgarB. When I was in high school I was rather ardently religious and had no qualms that I remember about the addition except I like to think I thought it was unfair to, you know, pagans. I changed my mind and really didn't like the addition some time later.

I missed half of kindergarten and worried someone would eventually find that out..

I like that just fine (in elementary school we said "invisible").

I was never in elementary school, we recited the alphabet and "times" table.

Yeh, but you read plato and aristotle at five or six.

I guess you are implying that reciting the pledge is a result of inculcation by parents or other adult influences.

Probably so, but since I have not voiced support for mandating the pledge, I fail to see the irony in my questions of edgar. Perhaps you can provide a clue.

Did he not state that he never said the pledge as a child?

It didn't occur to me (nor do I know why it should have) that it was understood that he actually meant "as a child old enough to form an independent opinion on the existence of God and the virtue of loyalty oaths."

Certainly his response that he never attended kindegarten doesn't add any clarity.

There are a fair number of posters on this thread who seem to be falling over one another to testify how they refused to say the pledge when they were in school. I really have no problem with a child opting out of the pledge, but I detect (perhaps erroneously) a certain assumption, by these folks, that any child capable of free thought would necessarily opt out.

If edgar, indeed, never recited the pledge as a child, I suspect it was due (at least initially) more to his parents' thoughts than his own, but if I am wrong then it certainly follows that some of the children who did recite the pledge came to the decision based on their own independent thought.

If there is anything wrong with the pledge it is that it is mandated. If one feels there is something inherently wrong with pledging allegiance to one's nation, why should we insist that they partake in a sham? By the same token, if one believes it is a proper thing to do, what harm is there in joining in the recitation?

Please spare me the peer pressure argument. Those days are long gone. If a group of thugs beat up a kid who opts out, the chances are excellent that they would have found another moronic reason to do so.

The whole issue of loyalty oaths is inflated by both sides of the argument, with the sole exception of cases where someone is affirmitively punished for not agreeing to take the oath.

A true subversive isn't going to be found out by his or her refusing to take a loyalty oath. Somehow I can't see an enemy spy, when asked to recite or sign an oath thinking,



I do think though that there are certain sensitive jobs relating to national security for which taking a loyalty oath could be a condition of employment.
(Need to leave out references to God of course).

Of course the oath will not catch spys or subversives but it will reveal people who find loyalty to their country relative or ambiguous. It is wrong to assume that someone who divulges state secrets out of concious is doing the right thing. Maybe they are, yet maybe they are not, but in both cases the secrets have been divulged.

More irony that I don't understand?

Pardon me for a moment. But there was another thread which dealt with a similar subject that I replied to and now it has vanished! I replied to Thomas and now the thread is gone. It was about the pledge of allegiance. I'm afraid there's no free speech here either.

What does this mean? Can you give an example?

Well, I'm sure there was at least one thread about loyalty oaths, and the pledge may have come into that as subtext. Check pledge of allegiance in the white window to the upper right.

"If a group of thugs beat up a kid who opts out, the chances are excellent that they would have found another moronic reason to do so." This from Finn, and if I understand this, I might agree.

I was always aware that the oath meant swearing loyalty to the USA. I had heard often enough in post war and then Korean War America how lucky we are to be Americans in the freeest, most wealthy society ever known. So lucky to be a fat satisfied American. I looked at the holes in my clothing, my single thinly sliced baloney sandwich, thought of the hell that waited at home, and felt no loyalty at all. By the time they added "under God" I knew I could never be other than an atheist. Take it or leave it, that's my story and I am sticking to it.

Someone who conditions their allegiance upon whether or not they personally approve of the government's action.

It is not meant to be disparaging, but I can't fault you if you think it was.

Specifically, someone who will break the law and or violate their oath to leak a story or reveal secrets because their concious tells them too.

Again, just because someone's concious tells them something is right or wrong, doesn't make it so.

I have a lot of respect for people who incorporate their conscience in their decision making.

I don't have a lot of respect for annonymous leakers. It's certainly possible to assume their motivation was an act of concious, but no way to actually know, and taking a stand when there is at least the possibilty of repercussions is a lot more admirable than a nameless person leaking a state secret to the NY Times.

In any case, it makes sense for a governmental agency with very sensitive secrets to refrain from hiring people who do not take their oaths literally. It doesn't make these people bad, just not reliable with secrets.

I have no problem "taking it.''

I think I understand the source of your decision not to recite the pledge, and I sympathize with your apparently unfortunate childhood.

No matter how you reached your decision, I hope you'll agree that it is just as possible that a child who did not interpret the benefit of being American as nothing more than being fat and satisfied, was able to feel positive about reciting the pledge (as opposed to simply mouthing it like some zombie).

This is not to say that you personally have said anything to the contrary, but like I said, I get the impression that the people who opted out or are all for the option believe that it is the inevitable choice of any kid that might think for himself.