More politics
Mar. 24th, 2004 11:03 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
conuly
Some of you may remember my longass post about how the Pledge is stupid and the American's Creed is better. If not, you can no doubt find it in my memories (I'm at 200 now! Go me!)
http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/000630.html
I love this person. Seriously.
If any further evidence is needed that the purpose of the Pledge of Allegiance is to inculcate mindless loyalty to the state, it can be found in the fact that many children clearly do not understand what they are saying. This can be seen in the eggcorns that they construct. My mother tells me that as a little girl she believed that there was a thing called a legiance that she was pledging to the flag. She didn't know what it was. In today's column in the New York Times, entitled Of God and the Flag, William Safire reports that as a little boy he thought that the Pledge began "I led the pigeons to the flag". In a roundabout way, I think he understood it all too well.
THAT'S EXACTLY MY POINT! Or one of them, anyway. It's wrong, dead wrong, to teach children to say big words they don't even understand, especially if you're expecting them to promise something. If they don't understand it, why should they say it? You're making them lie, even if they'd mean the sentiment. So, of course, by the time they understand what it means, they're just numbly reciting pitterpatterbabble. Stupid, really. If you're going to say something and not mean it, it might as well be something personal, like "I love you" or "I'm allergic to mushrooms".
http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/000630.html
I love this person. Seriously.
If any further evidence is needed that the purpose of the Pledge of Allegiance is to inculcate mindless loyalty to the state, it can be found in the fact that many children clearly do not understand what they are saying. This can be seen in the eggcorns that they construct. My mother tells me that as a little girl she believed that there was a thing called a legiance that she was pledging to the flag. She didn't know what it was. In today's column in the New York Times, entitled Of God and the Flag, William Safire reports that as a little boy he thought that the Pledge began "I led the pigeons to the flag". In a roundabout way, I think he understood it all too well.
THAT'S EXACTLY MY POINT! Or one of them, anyway. It's wrong, dead wrong, to teach children to say big words they don't even understand, especially if you're expecting them to promise something. If they don't understand it, why should they say it? You're making them lie, even if they'd mean the sentiment. So, of course, by the time they understand what it means, they're just numbly reciting pitterpatterbabble. Stupid, really. If you're going to say something and not mean it, it might as well be something personal, like "I love you" or "I'm allergic to mushrooms".
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no subject
Date: 2004-03-24 04:24 pm (UTC)I pledge alliegence to thee, Texas, one and indivisible.
I haven't actually said the pledge in three years, American or Texan. There was one kid in my class last year who wouldn't even stand.
no subject
Date: 2004-03-24 05:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-03-24 06:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-03-24 07:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-03-25 04:11 pm (UTC)-Kimothy
no subject
Date: 2004-03-24 09:52 pm (UTC)I just started leaving out the "under God" part. A mild form of protest, to be sure, but it makes me feel better.
no subject
Date: 2004-03-25 08:30 am (UTC)"Indivincible"? Wow...that's almost on the level of a Bushism.
I just started leaving out the "under God" part. A mild form of protest, to be sure, but it makes me feel better.
Yep...same here. Why not? That's how the pledge stood before the 1950s...
no subject
Date: 2004-03-25 06:38 pm (UTC)Exactly!
no subject
Date: 2004-04-09 07:23 pm (UTC)Birdy! *points to icon* I need a new one.
Whenever I start actually saying the pledge, which we don't in my history class; he teaches right thru' it, I skip the under God part too.