Unpopular Opinion
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Coming from a country that doesn't have this sort of thing it's really weird as an outside observer. Students have to swear allegiance to the flag every morning too which is the sort of thing I would imagine happens in north Korea or dictator states.
They don't have to. It would be unconstitutional if they did. What happens sometimes unfortunately, for teachers to sort of discourage not taking part, or potentially punish the student for an "unrelated" reason. The school I went to only did the pledge once a year though.
I was suspended from school multiple times for refusing to pledge allegiance when I was in high school in the states.
Then you would have had legal recourse to sue and no one told you your rights.
https://constitutioncenter.org/blog/west-virginia-v.-barnette-the-freedom-to-not-pledge-allegiance
No one tells children their rights and this country basically operates on the idea that they don’t have rights other than don’t be raped or made to work.
That said, kids get punished for not doing the pledge every day by power tripping teachers, they have for decades and will for decades more
It was a class rule that we had to recite the pledge. I was suspended for not following the rules of the class, not for not reciting the pledge. But this was the early 90s and I was more worried about not being beat by my mother than I was about my rights.
Except a law that forces you to do something you have a constitutional right not to do isn’t valid and wouldn’t stand up in court, so still wrongly suspended and you would have had a case either way. But, not much to be done about it now, so probably a moot point anyway.
You do though because the teacher will punish kids who don’t do it. Is there an official law or rule? No, but that doesn’t stop power tripping teachers and admin from punishing kids that don’t toe the absolute obedience line
That flag worship thing always seemed like a weird cult thing to me. I suppose Americans might not see it that way since they grew up with it.
if everyone is doing it, it's not a cult ;-)
But may still be a cult thing.
I mean, sure. But it's a thin line between a religion and a cult :)
The context of the origin of the US' pledge of allegiance is it came shortly after the end of their Civil War when there was still a lot o political tension. A desire was born to instill national loyalty in children.
However, today as mentioned by another commenter, students cannot be legally compelled to recite the pledge, nor punished for not reciting the pledge as decided by the Supreme Court in 1943 using the first amendment as the base.
I mean, i'm swiss and we did a thing called "Geistige Selbstverteidigung", mental self-defense, with mythos of Wilhelm Tell & focus on independence in WW2. But we don't anymore. Why do you still do?
Probably comes from a combination of belief in American exceptionalism, tradition, and either popular opinion remains with reciting the pledge or a lack desire to change.
States are managed individually for the most part and only 47/50 still require reciting the pledge (with some exceptions). Without a call for change from the people, it would be political suicide for any lawmaker to come out for a change like this. Opponents could use this decision as a claim of lack of patriotism.
Wait til you learn about the Texas Pledge!