Sieg Heil

[Berzerker]

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entr...dge-of-allegiance_us_5baba04ce4b082030e773395

The Texas attorney general has jumped into a Houston area lawsuit to defend a state law that requires schoolchildren to participate in the Pledge of Allegiance unless a parent or guardian opts them out.

State Attorney General Ken Paxton announced Tuesday that his office has moved to intervene in the suit brought on behalf of former Windfern High School student India Landry last year.

Landry, then 17, accused the Cypress Fairbanks Independent School District and several of its officials of violating her First Amendment rights when they suspended her for refusing to stand during the pledge.

Amid nationwide protests over race relations and police brutality in America, Landry, who is black, said she took issue with this line in the pledge: “With liberty and justice for all.”

Paxton argued in his statement that requiring the pledge to be recited at school fosters “respect for our flag and a patriotic love of our country.” He said, “School children cannot unilaterally refuse to participate in the pledge.”

The Republican attorney general noted that the state law allows students to opt out of the pledge if they submit written permission from a parent or guardian. He said leaving that decision up to parents respects their rights.

In Landry’s case, she was ordered to leave her school on a Monday, with the principal threatening to have the police remove her if her mother didn’t arrive within five minutes, according to the lawsuit.

Landry returned to school with her mother on the following Friday. That’s when Kallinen said her mother offered the principal written permission for her daughter to sit during the pledge, but that permission was allegedly declined.

Landry’s mother was told, “It doesn’t matter ― everyone at this school stands for the Pledge of Allegiance,” Kallinen said.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Virginia_State_Board_of_Education_v._Barnette

Objections to the salute as "being too much like Hitler's" were raised by a variety of organizations, including the Parent and Teachers Association, the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts, the Red Cross, and the General Federation of Women's Clubs. Some modification appears to have been made in deference to these objections, but no concession was made to Jehovah's Witnesses. What was required after the modification was a "stiff-arm" salute, the saluter to keep the right hand raised with palm turned up while the following is repeated: "I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands; one Nation indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."[nb 1]

Students pledging to the flag with the Bellamy salute, March 1941.

Failure to comply was considered "insubordination" and dealt with by expulsion. Readmission was denied by statute until the student complied. This expulsion, in turn, automatically exposed the child and their parents to criminal prosecution; the expelled child was considered "unlawfully absent" and could be proceeded against as a delinquent, and their parents or guardians could be fined as much as $50 and jailed up to thirty days.

The Texas AG said its up to the parent, the parent gave the kid permission and the school said too bad. So where's the Texas AG now? Taking the side of the school. So pledge your allegiance to the symbol of liberty or else!

I dont even think it should be up to the parent, the 1st Amendment protects minors too, you know. What if the parent tells their kid to pledge allegiance and the kid says, no thank you? Jehovah's Witnesses are my heroes...except when they show up at my door to tell me about Jesus.
When they do I really try to resist engaging them in a religious debate, so I smile and listen and pretend to peruse their pamphlet.

I think its funny organizations supported compelling compliance with the pledge but objected to the salute because it looked too much like seig heil... Talk about a mental disconnect.

Moderator Action: I corrected the spelling of the title for you. ~ Arakhor

 

[Dachs]

Yes, this is all gross.

Where I teach, standing for and reciting the pledge are exceedingly optional for all involved. I would say that most students stand, and a bare majority of them recite words, but they're under no threat of compulsion to do so.

Students don't need parent permission or anything to avoid participation, and the thought of having to get parent permission to avoid the pledge disgusts me. (The thought of keeping track of which students can and cannot sit also disgusts me. That's not in my job description.) Besides, if I were watching students for participation, I wouldn't be making my own overly ostentatious public display of American nationalism.

I imagine teachers would be disciplined for trying to compel students to participate, but I haven't seen it happen here.

I hope that legal challenges to this disciplinary action stand up and that the student faces no further ill effects from exercising constitutional rights. She's already had to deal with far too much nonsense because of this.

Spoiler irrelevancy :

I am now a salt mine because you misspelled Sieg.

 

[JollyRoger]

What if a kid is praying during the pledge? Can he or she kneel?

 

[FriendlyFire]

What if a kid is praying during the pledge? Can he or she kneel?

Only if he/she is praying to a portrait of Trump
We sang the national anthem in school maybe one or twice per year normally on Anzac day or sports day and that was that.

Americans are hyper patriotic / borderline jingoism with this entire pledge thing, kneeling during anthem and editing school text to suit a political agenda. Meanwhile your education system is falling behind, with budget cuts, increasing student debt and unregulated for profit colleges. Just do away with this flag pledging like other western countries and focus your energy on more pressing issues

 

[Valka D'Ur]

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entr...dge-of-allegiance_us_5baba04ce4b082030e773395







https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Virginia_State_Board_of_Education_v._Barnette



The Texas AG said its up to the parent, the parent gave the kid permission and the school said too bad. So where's the Texas AG now? Taking the side of the school. So pledge your allegiance to the symbol of liberty or else!

I dont even think it should be up to the parent, the 1st Amendment protects minors too, you know. What if the parent tells their kid to pledge allegiance and the kid says, no thank you? Jehovah's Witnesses are my heroes...except when they show up at my door to tell me about Jesus.
When they do I really try to resist engaging them in a religious debate, so I smile and listen and pretend to peruse their pamphlet.

I think its funny organizations supported compelling compliance with the pledge but objected to the salute because it looked too much like seig heil... Talk about a mental disconnect.

This is just mind-croggling. No kid could be compelled to do such a thing in Canada, at least not since the Charter was enacted in 1982 (obviously I'm referring to Canadian equivalents such as standing for and/or singing O Canada).

Calling the cops on a kid for failure to engage in flag-worship or for being deemed insufficiently patriotic is obscene.

 

[Berzerker]

you know, I wasn't sure how to spell sieg heil so I googled it and still got it wrong

DOH!

I typed in seig heil and sieg heil popped up several times and I didn't notice google had corrected my spelling

 

[Timsup2nothin]

you know, I wasn't sure how to spell sieg heil so I googled it and still got it wrong

DOH!

I typed in seig heil and sieg heil popped up several times and I didn't notice google had corrected my spelling

No Brownshirts of America merit badge for you!

 

[Zkribbler]

In the Philippines, I could be arrested for failing to sing the national anthem "with gusto" before the showing of a motion picture. I don't know the words.
Someday the Kingston Trio will sing a song about my plight.

 

[HoloDoc]

Only if he/she is praying to a portrait of Trump
We sang the national anthem in school maybe one or twice per year normally on Anzac day or sports day and that was that.

Americans are hyper patriotic / borderline jingoism with this entire pledge thing, kneeling during anthem and editing school text to suit a political agenda. Meanwhile your education system is falling behind, with budget cuts, increasing student debt and unregulated for profit colleges. Just do away with this flag pledging like other western countries and focus your energy on more pressing issues

We had to recite a school pledge and sing the national anthem at the start of morning assembly. That was every morning when I started. We had a ridiculous old man as principal, who actually spanked me once; for refusing to recite the ridiculous pledge. He was so right wing he could fist-bump Mussolini, and he retired due to cancer. The attempt to rename the school hall after him was thwarted when literally hundreds of former students complained about him being a racist prick. Growing up in a small country town, it takes a hell of a lot of racism for that to stick. The morning assemblies ended when his tenure did.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

you know, I wasn't sure how to spell sieg heil so I googled it and still got it wrong

DOH!

I typed in seig heil and sieg heil popped up several times and I didn't notice google had corrected my spelling

You're allowed to correct it, y'know...

 

[yung.carl.jung]

what's wrong with the pledge is not that it looks like the nazi pledge, there were many pledges before and there will be many pledges after that involve a stiff arm. it's similiar to the swastika, really. thousands of different meanings to thousands of different people spread across time and space. what really caught my eye about this news story is that refusing to pledge is met with instant dismissal, not with some minor repercussion (even though clearly there should be no repercussions!).

 

[Zkribbler]

Paxton argued in his statement that requiring the pledge to be recited at school fosters “respect for our flag and a patriotic love of our country.”

Forcing kids to, against their will, to profess a respect they do no feel, will (a) foster respect or (b) foster resentment.

PS: Allegiance should not be pledged to a piece of cloth which can be waved around by any jingoistic, wannabe tyrant but to the Constitution, to the Constitution, and above all, to the Constitution.

 

[Ryika]

This thread is such a disappointment. How dare you use such a click-bait title to make me go all excited and then offer nothing but another thread about the American flag?

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Forcing kids to, against their will, to profess a respect they do no feel, will (a) foster respect or (b) foster resentment.

PS: Allegiance should not be pledged to a piece of cloth which can be waved around by any jingoistic, wannabe tyrant but to the Constitution, to the Constitution, and above all, to the Constitution.

As long as you realize that constitutions need to be amended occasionally. There's so much that was meant for the world of 200+ years ago that doesn't fit the present, and it's causing a lot of misery in that country.

 

[warpus]

The pledge is a pretty weird thing. When I first learned about it (a couple years after moving to Canada) I was like.. "We just escaped from people who think like this"

 

[cardgame]

How stupid do you have to be to be a school administrator or, worse, an AG, and not know that this was already decided by the Supreme Court half a century ago?

 

[Berzerker]

I dont think they care, what the court has ruled can be over turned... and I cant say I disagree with the idea, I want the courts to reverse decisions I dont like. But some times the Constitution says what it says and thats that

 

[Yeekim]

Ridiculous.
We got rid of stuff like that with the end of USSR.

 

[AdrienIer]

I remember having to stand (and being pressured into knowing the words and speaking them) when I arrived in the US in 01. It was sooooo weird.

Edit : oh and putting my hand on my heart too. That might have been the weirdest part. You can't force it to be heartfelt

 

[cardgame]

I dont think they care, what the court has ruled can be over turned... and I cant say I disagree with the idea, I want the courts to reverse decisions I dont like. But some times the Constitution says what it says and thats that

But there has to be at least a legal pretext to overturn it, even a flimsy one. They have nothing.