The Pledge of Allegiance

First of all - I am not anti Pledge of Allegiance. I'm anti making a law that says you MUST say it.

Charlotte, in 2006 in Florida a small student was ridiculed and called "unpatriotic" by a teacher for refusing to say the Pledge. The federal district court in Florida ruled that the 1942 state law requiring students to stand and recite the Pledge of Allegiance violates the First and Fourteenth Amendments of the U.S. Constitution and the school district had to pay the parents $32,000.

In 2009, a Montgomery County, Maryland, teacher berated and had school police remove a 13-year-old girl who refused to say the Pledge of Allegiance in the classroom.

My beef is not with the Pledge, but with the forcing people to say the Pledge!

Suz - - - - geez - I feel like Walker trying to explain myself . . .DON'T MAKE ME RUN TO MY CAR!

Suz - I'm fine with the National Anthem before sporting events although I did get tossed out of a Brewer game once for mooning Tommy Thompson after the Anthem - I guess we were a little too close to the Family section for that Bachelors Party! Probably not the smartest thing to so since he was pretty far away and could never see us.

Perhaps I should explain why I even brought up the Pledge. There is an person who is a DEEP Tea Party dude that berates anybody that is not on his side. He thinks FOX News is centrist. I asked if FOX is centrist who is slanted to the RIGHT! He said THERE WERE NO CONSERVATIVE News organizations. He is constantly berating us liberal socialists because we are killing the Constitution.

WELL - he was ALL FOR making it a law to say the Pledge so I commented that by requiring a student to stand and recite the Pledge of Allegiance violates the First and Fourteenth Amendments of the U.S. Constitution. I have not heard his reply.

That was where I was coming from. Just tossing some gas on a Tea Party fire (they really have problems defining what exactly they stand for).

As for the Pledge - Francis Bellamy (a socialist) wrote the Pledge in 1892. It was designed to be said in less then 15 seconds. When he wrote it he had considered adding "equality and fraternity" to the words but then realized that at that time schools and education, as a whole, were against equality for women and African Americans so he left that part out.

Originally you were suppose to stand and recite the Pledge with a Bellamy salute (hand outstretched toward the flag, palm down) but this looked REALLY close to the Nazi salute so in 1942 the rules changed with the more traditional hand over heart for civilians.

In 1923 the words "my flag" were changed to "the Flag of the United States" because immigrants were being confused, who's flag, the new country? or their birth country? can't be loyal to BOTH!! Pick a side!

A year later "of America" was added. In 1940 the Supreme Court order that all students in public schools be made to take the Pledge. This was a problem for Jehovah's Witnesses who considered the flag salute to be idolatry (the worship of a physical object as a god which is considered a major sin in the Abrahamic religions).

Of course since America is such a kind, forgiving and liberal FREE country, mob violence and intimidation against Jehovah's Witnesses ran rampant.

One year later the Supreme Court reversed the decision because "compulsory unification of opinion" violates the First Amendment.

And that is my Pledge story. Not anti-Pledge at all.

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As for me. WOW - I'm getting pooped. Doing things all day wears ya out. I'm use to sitting on by butt all day. Now I see why my good friend and recently retired coworker dissed her chair and stood all day. I always told her she was the sane one in the group but in reality I was always a little afraid of her and her strange ways!

I washed and mopped the kitchen floor trying to show DJ that it's not ALL bad that I can sit at home eating Frito's all day. I also put hardware on six large canvases, and erected my canopy frame in the basement. I have am Art Fair on March 26th at the Alliet Energy Center.

Caydence came over last night and she has her first "adult" cold. Talk about looking all coldy. Of course she was all happy and smiles. We will have to teach her that colds are miserable and not a time for smiling. Sydney is doing fine and all is well with everyone!

SO - that is it - today I'm matting 8x12s and vacuuming (damn Frito's)

Have a nice . . what day is it again? . . . . . oh yea Wednesday!

HEY - I see my building is on the front page of the Cap Times with headlines "Scott Walker has inspired an exodus of public workers". HEADING FOR THE EXITS!

Rod