#29491: coturnix — 06/23  at  08:23 AM
I took your advice and swalloved all the food before I read it. Thank you for the warning. I just ADORE the kid!

#29493: — 06/23  at  08:32 AM
I think Jonah Goldberg's brain might explode from the inner contradictions this will cause him. What's a conservative nerd to think?

#29496: — 06/23  at  08:39 AM
WOW! It would have been a belly laugh for me, also. Only, I wouldn't have apologized. I mean, for cryin' out loud, a suspension? For playing Captain Kirk or Jean Luc Picard? Teach American freedom through enforced compliance. I have always felt it is what the flag stands for that is truly important. The staff of this school shows that they don't appreciate the blessings of liberty. In fact, it scares the crap out of them.

#29498: — 06/23  at  08:46 AM
For playing Captain Kirk or Jean Luc Picard?

What about Sisko or Janeway? TEACH THE CONTROVERSY.

#29501: — 06/23  at  08:50 AM
You liked to choke?

#29504: — 06/23  at  08:56 AM
They will tell you that the pledge is OK because it's voluntary. Really, no one HAS to recite it.

But try changing the words. They'll suspend your 8-year old ***.

Try sitting out the pledge. They'll call a special, expensive election to recall you from office.

#29507: PZ Myers — 06/23  at  09:08 AM
No, no: "I like to choked". Six years in Philly, and sometimes the brassy grammar still spills out.

And yeah, it's funny in that I liked the kid, but if it happened to one of mine, I'd be snarling and pissing all over the humorless bureaucrat's office.

#29509: — 06/23  at  09:14 AM
Let's not forget Archer and Pike, too.

That is just delightful. However to really get a good Trek satire see Futurama's "Where No Fan Has Gone Before".

Scott
-Your basic hardcore Trekker.

#29510: — 06/23  at  09:25 AM
Anyone ever read Matt Groening's 'Life in Hell' cartoons? Before he hit it big with his 'Simpsons' creation ... One of my all time favorite cartoons of any type, has his Bart Simpson prototype reciting a parody pledge throughout the cartoon. " ... one nation, underpants, with liberty and jugs of wine for owls." The last three panels are priceless. n-2: Teacher standing over 'Bart', glaring. n-1: 'Bart', nervously grinning, says, "It's a free country!" n: 'Bart', bound and gagged in a corner of the classroom ... I wonder if I can find these online anywhere, this one deserves to be resurrected today.

#29511: — 06/23  at  09:26 AM
Did you notice that the suspension was later reduced to a "warning?" A warning for what, I wonder?

#29515: — 06/23  at  09:55 AM
Do they make kids recite these stupid pledges in other 'Democratic' and 'Freedom Loving' countries? I for one think hate that the public school system is an indoctrination machine while 95% of home schooling materials are Pinkoski like, nursery school level, pseudo-educational teaching aids.

I've got a few years before my son has to go to school, but my fear and disgust regarding his options make me very wary... How have the rest of you kept your children sane?

#29516: PZ Myers — 06/23  at  09:55 AM
I found some of the "Life in Hell" cartoons -- it's scary how prescient they are.

#29517: — 06/23  at  09:58 AM
Scott, I'm tempted to dig my Life is Hell books out tonight and scan that cartoon for you. I'll see if I've got time between getting home from work and going to the flicks....

#29518: — 06/23  at  10:00 AM
Shoot, PZ beat me to it. Did I have the page open that long?

#29521: Alon Levy — 06/23  at  10:06 AM
"It isn't the government's job to mandate patriotism. To me, mandating a pledge of allegiance to a government is something Saddam Hussein would do."

#29522: Bryson Brown — 06/23  at  10:09 AM
I spent my first sabbatical leave at the Centre for Philosophy of Science in Pittsburgh. While we were there, my son attended a public school. He told his regular teacher that, as a Canadian, he wouldn't be reciting the pledge of allegiance-- he would just stand while the other kids went through the ritual. But one day when his teacher was away, the substitute noticed that he wasn't reciting (and didn't have his hand over his heart, either)! She came up to him and confronted him, demanding that he join in. He told her he was a Canadian and would not. She replied that she didn't care what he was, he was in her classroom and he was going to recite. She grabbed his hand and placed it on his chest and started the process over. He stood and moved his lips. We told the principal and his teacher & they assured us it wouldn't happen again. I've always felt a little guilty that we didn't make more of a fuss-- he stood up for himself so calmly and politely, he deserved more backup than we gave him. But the point stands-- there is a lot of pathological, over-reaching, 'we will stuff it down your throat if we have to' patriotism in the U.S. Really a shame and a travesty to anyone who understands what the constitution and the bill of rights really stand for.

#29523: — 06/23  at  10:13 AM
I couldn't find the cartoon, but I did find the full text of the Pledge parody in the one I remember ...
"I pledge allegience to the flag of the United
States of a Merry Cow; and to the Republicans, for
which they scam, one nacho, underpants, with
liberty and jugs of wine for owls."

#29530: — 06/23  at  10:42 AM
I've always preferred Bart Simpson's version: "Hey America, you're so fine. You're so fine you blow my mind. America." Followed by a good underarm fart.

#29562: — 06/23  at  02:34 PM
Life in Hell is dull as dishwater these days, but I treasure my collection of "Binky's Guide to Love" that I cut out from my local alt-weekly.

I like 8's mom too. She's feisty, eh? "It's Ms." hahaha.

#29564: Ken Cope — 06/23  at  02:46 PM
Here are updates from the comments section of the original blog post cut and pasted here:

I didn't let 8 write the pledge 50 times. I didn't even let him write it once. I am going to school with him this morning and I will take it up with the teacher and principal, and if that doesn't illicit a good response, I will take it up with the superintendent and then the school board. He recited his own pledge because he meant it. He wasn't being disruptive or trying to be funny. He does not deserve this punishment. I will be nice, because that's my nature, but I am not going to back down. I don't think they know I can be an unmoveable force.

Ok, he got off with a warning, no written pledges, and I told him NOT to recite the 'real' pledge if he doesn't feel those words in his heart. I told him to recite his special pledge silently, and it would work the same way. I also found out that a PARENT RATTED ON HIM and this is how he was called to the principal's office. A PARENT! argh. Somedays I wish I was a different species. Live long and prosper, indeed.

I'm trying to remember if it was the JFK assassination that got me paying attention to politics as a third grader. It might've been not trusting LBJ on Viet Nam (as I knew I didn't like anything from Texas, especially my fundy parents); but that was the year I stopped saying the pledge. By fifth grade I stopped standing up for the pledge. It wasn't until the summer between 6th and 7th that I heard Frank Zappa's Return of the Son of Monster Magnet through headphones and was forever hooked, or I would have been right there with Binky and his pledge to United Mutations.

It isn't surprising that this happened in the footprint of Camp Pendleton, most likely behind the Orange Curtain, The Nation State of Disneyland, home of the John Birch Society. A real nice place to raise yer kids up...

#29582: coturnix — 06/23  at  05:28 PM
I grew up in a communist country and we never recited anything, or raised flags or anything like that. The whole concept of the Pledge was alien to me when I arrived in the US. I recited the pledge twice so far, omitting the "under God" phrase both times. I am glad nobody noticed when I did it the first time around - it was my first day of being an American.

#29585: Nullifidian — 06/23  at  05:50 PM
I like Danae's Pledge.

#29612: — 06/23  at  09:46 PM
Australian schools don't have a pledge, but once a week they would roll out the flag and play God Save the Queen while we stood in the sun and laid in the groundwork for a good crop of melanomas in the future. At one point we got a speech about how thousands of people had died for this flag. I wondered why they brought the nasty thing into the school instead of burying it in a pit somewhere where it couldn't kill anyone else.

Having eight year old children recite any kind of pledge seems very odd to me. How can you get someone to recite a pledge before they even understand what they are saying? Doesn't that seem a bit unethical?

#29628: Socar — 06/24  at  12:22 AM
I actually got the belt once, for refusing to join in a prayer at school. Well, not JUST for refusing to pray. It went more like this:

Horrible Teacher: Why aren't you praying?
Me (not knowing when to shut up): Mother said Jesus never existed, and if he did, he was just an insane man.
Horrible Teacher: Why, you...!

Mother was furious when she saw my bruised palms, though--first at me, because she thought I must've misbehaved, and then at the teacher, once she found out why I had 'em. The headmistress was spoken to, and it never happened again. Not for that reason, any road.

#29633: — 06/24  at  02:49 AM
If you sing as tunelessly as I do, you might be able to get away with intoning the original words to the national anthem:

To Anacreon in heaven where he sat in full glee,
A few sons of harmony sent a petition,
That he their inspirer and patron would be,
When this answer arrived from the jolly old Grecian:
Voice, fiddle aud flute, no longer be mute,
I'll lend you my name and inspire you to boot!
And besides I'll instruct you like me to entwine
The myrtle of Venus and Bacchus's vine.

For some reason, the music, as currently played, gets very dramatic at "to entwine".