The Pennsylvania State Senate unanimously passed a bill this week that would mandate all private and public schools in the state to begin each school day with the Pledge of Allegiance or the national anthem. According to a Nov. 15 CNN.com story, the parents or guardians of any students who refrain from the daily recitation would be notified.
In this era of neo-McCarthyism, patriotic pandering has reached a new high. In an environment where loyalty to the state is called into question for the most trivial "offenses," classrooms are becoming the tool of the patriot police.
Coercing students into reciting the Pledge of Allegiance - and disregarding their constitutional right not to - is unacceptable. It is not fair, nor should it be legal, that students, mandated by law to be in school for their entire primary and most of their secondary education, be made to pledge allegiance to anything.
Young students whose parents might ask them to refrain from saying the Pledge could be ostracized, despite the fact that they might not even know what they are doing or refusing to do. Older students who make the choice of their own volition not to participate in pre-class patriotism will be subject to telephone calls or letters home explaining their failure to join in the ritual. This absurdity is a waste of both parents' and teachers' time and wrongfully punishes the student for what should be a citizen's right.
The meaning and history behind the pledge is lost on elementary school children, who are merely reciting words they have memorized. The Pledge of Allegiance does not gain meaning until the history of the United States is learned and understood, which does usually not begin until around the fifth grade - if then. A pledge that requires coercion to be taken is not a pledge of loyalty to one's country, but instead an empty oath.
Today, the perceived enemy is not the evil Soviet empire as it was seen 50 years ago. Instead, terrorist subversion is the enemy, and as even citizens plot against America, paranoia is rampant. Patriotism - gallant and enthusiastic - has become the order of the day for public officials frightened of being labeled "soft of terrorism." The reasonable American does not need to spout the Pledge of Allegiance to prove loyalty to his or her country. It is dangerous and unnecessary, however, to intrude into classrooms for the sake of propagating the public patriotism myth.
Photo: Courtesy of Laron Fomby
