When I was in junior high school, teachers were allowed to hit students.
When I graduated from college, workers at my first full-time job had just been restricted from smoking at their desks.
Just because you used to do something doesn't make it right.
I grew up reciting the pledge of allegiance because I was told to. I have to admit, sometimes I really liked reciting it. I felt like I was respecting my country.
But as you learn and you grow, you start to look at the things you were taught and you ask questions. The solid things, the true things - they stand. And the false ones - they fall.
For those of you not in the know, the pledge has 2 serious defects: 1) it violates the separation of church and state, and 2) the more you learn about the pledge, the less there is to like.
At my school, at the fifth grade promotion ceremony, we decided that the Preamble of the Constitution was the way we wanted to honor America. And for that decision, one family out of sixty-six (that's 1.5% for those of you at home keeping score) went to the local nationally syndicated radical right-wing radio host in protest.
Mind you: we're talking about the Preamble of the Constitution - the very recipe for our nation, authored by Governeur Morris, the centerpiece of what it means to be a citizen of this nation. Versus a recitation written for a children's magazine that was revived during the Red Scare of the 1950's, which was ritualized in a bizarrely fascist "sieg heil!" pose.
Just because you were told something was o.k., doesn't make it o.k. Think for yourself. Read history. Remember what it means to be a citizen of this great nation. Do what the patriots did and stand up against tyranny. You won't regret it.
Smackdown. Someone gets indignant about not doing the pledge. Oregonians school them on what it means to be a patriot.
Guess what? Real conservatives aren't that crazy about the pledge. The Cato Institute weighs in on the pledge.
Rely on big media to get it wrong. The headline isn't "School goes old school and to the patriots", it's "School drops Pledge of Allegiance". When you gotta get paid, you gotta get paid.
June 03, 2008
andrew is strung out
12:05 AM
About five years ago, Andrew Ramage, a fellow Portland Youth Philharmonic alumnus, found my website and Strung Out, my musings from my life as an amateur violist, which I posted with the launch of days in 1998.
Andrew has since completed his own saga of life in the PYP which I devoured with interest and delight. You'll find his experiences frequently mirror mine, but also deliver some fresh insights.
Andrew's life in the PYP
