Refusal to Pledge

02.18.08

*This is the letter I wrote to the school administration on my decision to decline saying the pledge senior year.

For the past three years or so, I’ve been hesitant to recite the pledge of allegiance in school. However, it isn’t because I’m lazy or want to make some kind of scene. It’s simply due to the fact that I do not support the actions and ideals of the Bush administration or the current state of American society, or the blatant reference to God which I find very wrong and offensive to recite drawing on the fact that I do not believe in organized religion. But anyway, why should I be obliged to pledge allegiance to anything? Being obligated to do so violates the first amendment of the United States constitution. The West Virginia State Board v. Barnette ruled in 1943 that students cannot be forced to salute the American flag or recite the pledge of allegiance. And although one may not necessarily be “forced” to do so, it is rather ridiculous that it so enforced in the school. I have a lot of respect and admiration for the basis and ideals that the country was founded upon. I also have respect and admiration for those who do choose to recite the pledge. However, I’d like to know how many other countries choose to indoctrinate their children in such a manner, because its true if you say something enough you’ll eventually begin to believe it and in the pledge of allegiance there’s a lot of contradictories and inaccuracies. Such as the liberty and justice for all part. How can we proclaim that when we alone, brutally wiped out the majority of the Indian population and stole their land, enslaved and killed millions of Africans, brutally invaded little island nations in an imperialistic rampage in the early 20th century (Hawaii, Phillipines), sent thousands of Japanese citizens to containment camps in the 1940’s in the occasional state of old fashioned American paranoia, or the FBI Waco incident of 1993 etc etc. Few other countries have demoralized and harmed their own citizens more than the United States in so many different ways ranging from the ones expressed above to the very essence of modern day corporate America. It doesn’t matter if it was in 1850 or 2008. It happened, and not so long ago, and proclaiming that we are liberty and justice for all is simply a massive contradiction and over glorification of the United States, one I refuse to accept. It may be what we believe but it isn’t always what we practice. I understand we are not a perfect society; there can be no such thing. Me not saying the pledge does not make me Anti- American. The belief that one must recite it to be American is anti American. I am simply against saying the pledge because it represents certain aspects of American life, which I do not deem as part of my beliefs. In theory I believe it, in reality I do not. I find this kind of dull form of patriotism to be an old product of the conservative right and we will find in the future it has no place in the global society. But saying the pledge of allegiance violates my ideals and beliefs and that is why I will not recite it in the near future.