Did you know that Texas has its own pledge? One which it has apparently corrupted with that non-denominational god named God? A part of me just wants to scream my bloody head off. It’s not just the god thing. It’s the whole idea of mandatory pledges. I can see requesting older children, namely teenagers to participate as they should be able to understand what they’re pledging.
Younger children shouldn’t even be asked. Sure it can be cute, but they don’t know what they’re saying. They’re just repeating what they’ve been told not what they actually think. The concepts involved are beyond them.
Speaking strictly for mine, a pledge is what she’ll say she’ll do as long as one of us is within ear or eyesight. For example, she pledges that she will not chase the cats with the duster and she doesn’t – at least not for about an hour after she’s caught chasing the cats with the duster.
I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation
under Godindivisible, with justice and liberty for all.
How many young children can even begin to grasp what’s being said here? And that Texas pledge? Could someone please demote this state? Get a gander at this silliness:
“Honor the Texas flag; I pledge allegiance to thee, Texas, one state under God, one and indivisible.”
Nearly a quarter of children in Texas live below the poverty line. Nearly a quarter of all Texans are without health care. Texas actually passed a law that booted 184,361 children out of the CHIP program and made applying for enrollment a hassle by cutting the term of enrollment from 12 months to six months. And it has the frigging audacity to insist that these same children pledge allegiance to it?
And as I sit here and stew about that, I’m completely confounded about what to do with my child and the pledges. She’s pretty rambunctious at home, but school is another thing. Even though she enjoys it, she’s pretty quiet and reserved and I clearly remember the response of Christian children towards other kids when it got around that they weren’t the “right” kind of Christian, especially those who didn’t say that damned pledge while the alleged adults pretended to be helpless. A kid of an atheist who doesn’t like mandatory pledges, without or without a religious statement, in a state that seems pretty damned convinced it is Heaven and that super patriotism is its birthright? It makes my chest clinch just thinking about it.
And of course, there’s the whole “we’re the real victims” whines that must be taken seriously lest one be accused of being a mean ole bigot who’s out to nail shut the doors of their pretty little churches. Christians in these parts have a right to bedevil the dickens out of everyone and anyone who doesn’t agree hates them.
Did I mention wanting to scream my bloody head off? I so need to get out of the south. I swear it’s going to drive me bloody insane if I don’t.
Comments on this entry are closed.