Fun fact: "indivisibility" is the only word in the English language with the same vowel repeated six times and no other vowels. Or maybe it's just the only word with the same vowel six times. You get the idea.
I'm Canadian but may I just say that you are not 'swearing allegiance to a piece of fabric' but rather to what that 'piece of fabric'; as you call it, symbolizes. Personally when I see our Maple Leaf flying whether here in Canada or in other countries in front of our embassy or elsewhere, I am moved & proud to call myself Canadian. Aren't you proud to call yourself American?
When I spent a brief amount in time in American schools, the Pledge of Allegiance never struck me as weird at all.
In India, where I am from, many schools have a prayer, a national pledge, a flag song, and the national anthem sometimes every day!
I think the weirdness only comes from Western Europeans, because I imagine displays of patriotism is common and popular in other countries around the world.
And we see you are from England where eating spotted dick and big saucy bangers is acceptable. Yeah, that's not creepy?? I think it is fair to say every culture has something that foreigners view as "creepy", but most adhere to indoctrinating their peoples with some type of nationalism - God Save the Queen!!.
Semi-forced exacerbated nationalism seems a little more creepy - and dangerous - than questionable food. That being said, English food, when cooked properly, is often delicious. I'm French and I don't mind saying that.
Haha come on now - rightfully criticising forcing children to pledge allegiance to a republic and a religious figure every day and labelling this as "12 year olds" squabbling!!
America - this is creepy (and nothing to do with sausages??? the comments here are weird)
It was just something implemented to encourage a patriotic spirit within the American Youth during the Cold War. Whether or not if it's effective nowadays could be up for debate ;P.
The Pledge of Allegiance has been around longer than that. When the State of West Virginia required all students to recite it in 1940, expelling students who refused to do so and prosecuting their parents, a number of Jehovah's Witnesses, who considered this to be a violation of their faith, because they viewed saluting the flag as worship of an image, sued the State. Their case made it up to the Supreme Court, where Justice Jackson, perhaps the finest writer to ever be named to the Court, upheld their challenge, writing "If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion, or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein." Two justices dissented.
When pledging allegiance to the flag, the flag is a tangible representation of the US.
It is a rallying point.
Patriots see it that way, as do flag burners. Whether the object of praise or scorn, it is the nation that is the object, with the flag being a means of expressing that emotion.
Thank you, I'm glad someone made this point. We are pledging our allegiance to "the Republic for which [the Flag of the United States of America] stands - one nation..." The flag is a symbol and is seen as such by supporters of the U.S. as well as by dissenters.
Nobody in the United States is "forced" to recite this pledge. We are not now, nor have we ever been a police state, despite what some radicals would wish for you to believe. You can bet that if you blatantly and publicly REFUSE to recite the Pledge, there will be some suspicious glances cast in your direction, but it is fundamentally against the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution to require ANY recitation of ANY declaration of allegiance by citizens or immigrants of ANY age. The ONLY exceptions are for immigrants becoming naturalized citizens, who must recite an altogether different OATH of allegiance, and military personnel, who recite a similar oath upon enlistment or commission into the American armed services. Please, please take great care in how you describe American rituals, regardless of how unappealing you may find them. The dissemination of misinformation from all parties really needs to stop.
Your first sentence doesn't match my experience growing up. I attended both public and private schools at different times in my education. In both types of school, at least until high school, kids sometimes got in trouble if they did not recite the pledge. Usually they just got chastised by the teacher. Sometimes there were actual punishments though, like going to the principal's office or detention. It definitely depended on the teacher and class size. I'm sure this has changed a lot since my time at school, so maybe you're just younger and that behavior went away by the time your school days started.
Well, there was, for instance, a state law in Florida requiring students to stand and recite the Pledge that was only overturned in 2006. And whether it's legal or not, there are many examples of schools and teachers requiring it of students anyway, some of which led to lawsuits.
And regardless of whether it's legally required or not, the fact that it's done so frequently and with so much social pressure to comply is indeed creepy, and I'm saying that as a born and raised American citizen.
I always hated standing up and saying this pledge when I was in school, because there's really no point. Thankfully I didn't go to a school where people would probably have been offended if I didn't stand up.
Got 17 from guessing, never heard of this before. I'm English, and we had to recite the Lord's Prayer every morning, even though my school was not Christian
There is one word that the majority of the people forgot about in the past election. That was Republic. We are not a democracy. We are a Democratic Republic.
Actually, in the United States, it is referred to as a republican democracy. The difference may only be semantic (although certainly not if you ask a lawyer), but the noun is "democracy."
You have that backwards. The United States is a Democratic Republic. Thus the electoral college, and allocation of Senators based on state boundaries and not population, as well as voting bodies making the decisions in place of mob rule. Pure Democracy was one of the greatest fears of the founding fathers as it inevitably results in the majority subjugating the minority.
To be clear: a Republic is a form of state, a democracy is a type of government. Britain isn't a Republic, but it's a democracy. Eswatini is neither. France, Germany, and countless others are both.
Does anyone know how uniformly children are still asked to do this in grade school? I know we had to do it everyday when I was in school, but it's been a while. In retrospect, it does seem an odd to ask of young children...
They still ask us to recite the pledge every single day in school, and they also did in when I was in elementary and middle school. However, I rarely stand up and recite it, and I have never encountered any negative consequences for this.
The Bellamy salute? It long predated the Nazis, but of course went out of fashion in the US around the time of World War II. It was officially replaced with the "hand over the heart" in the Flag Code in 1942.
Now tell me making kids recite something like this before school everyday isn't absurd and borderline militaristic/communist. I'm American and almost throw up in my mouth reading this.
It's super needy, insecure toxic relationship behavior. So is the national anthem at sporting events outside of something like the Olympics or World Cup.
The Year of the Boar and Jackie Robinson comes to mind.
“I pledge allegiance to the frog of the United States of America and to the wee public for witches hands one Asian, in the vestibule with little tea and just rice for all.”
Yikes. I'm always very uncomfortable with this kind of strongly suggested state-sponsored "patriotism", especially when children are targeted. Yikes yikes yikes.
They should really take out the "under God". I mean it wasn't even in the original version and was added in later with the creator of the original protesting the change.
I just remember this one super smart kid in my 6th grade class who didnt want to stand and recite and the teacher FLIPPED OUT on him lol. To me the pledge is like the national anthem, a bunch of words that don't actually reflect what America really is - a country that has never really been equal for ALL.
For what it's worth, we had this every Wednesday morning when I was in elementary school (primary school,) and if I recall correctly it was starting in the third grade. Our teacher told us explicitly that if we didn't want to stand up and recite the pledge, we didn't have to. By the fifth grade, more than half of the students just sat down and remained silent as just a few recited it with gusto each week.
This was in the 1990s in California, the San Francisco Bay Area.
Said this sh*t everyday in school until I decided to think for myself (probably 3rd grade), but still thought it was "individual", not "indivisible". Got it eventually though
Makes a lot more sense I guess but still cringe 🤮🤮
I think this quiz would work a lot better with a yellow-box, so that allegiance doesn't give all and that people who try to do it in order are not messed up.
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.
But I have to agree with the comment below, I think swearing allegiance to a piece of fabric is odd at best.
Read what's written.
In India, where I am from, many schools have a prayer, a national pledge, a flag song, and the national anthem sometimes every day!
I think the weirdness only comes from Western Europeans, because I imagine displays of patriotism is common and popular in other countries around the world.
Hot dogs, on the other hand...another disgusting American invention. ;)
America - this is creepy (and nothing to do with sausages??? the comments here are weird)
It is a rallying point.
Patriots see it that way, as do flag burners. Whether the object of praise or scorn, it is the nation that is the object, with the flag being a means of expressing that emotion.
And regardless of whether it's legally required or not, the fact that it's done so frequently and with so much social pressure to comply is indeed creepy, and I'm saying that as a born and raised American citizen.
I encourage you to read Plato's Republic and the analogy within that Socrates uses of a ship captain trying to steer a ship.
“I pledge allegiance to the frog of the United States of America and to the wee public for witches hands one Asian, in the vestibule with little tea and just rice for all.”
This was in the 1990s in California, the San Francisco Bay Area.
Makes a lot more sense I guess but still cringe 🤮🤮
Now I feel icky because the words are pretty scary when you think about them...