Discuss

[MajGenl.Meade]

[Crackpot]

Must be going senile you didn't recite the pledge as a child.

[Crackpot]

Anyway far easier to blame inconsequntial things than a failure of parenting.

[Burning Petard]

Doesn't remember because there was not the ubiquitous bad news all the time media we now have. There were plenty of shootings outside of school. I went to an independent 1-8 public school in Jackson county Missouri. I remember saying the pledge of allegiance regularly in the second grade only, and that stopped shortly after I asked 'what happened last night? I said it yesterday, what happened last nite that I need to pledge my allegiance again?' This was right after the end of WWII.
I never saw any prayer or bible reading in school. This is supposed to be part of the bible belt.

snailgate

[Bicycle Bill]

Must be going senile you didn't recite the pledge as a child.

And just how in the hell do you figure that?  I'm in my sixties and we started every day (in a Catholic grade school) with prayer and the Pledge of Allegiance (we also had prayers at other times of the day, such as the noon Angelus, but that's beside the point).

The Pledge itself was written by Francis Bellamy in the 1890s and was published in "The Youth's Companion" in 1892.  Here is its original form:

"I pledge allegiance to my Flag and the Republic for which it stands, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."

The words "my Flag" were replaced with the phrase "the Flag of the United States of America" in 1923 (there was also another 'to' added to clarify that we were now pledging allegiance to both the flag and the nation and not just a piece of cloth), so that it now read:

"I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."

Finally, during the Red Scare of the '50s, Congress — at the urging of then-President Dwight D. Eisenhower — shoehorned in the phrase "under God" after the words "one nation", giving us the final form we have been using since 1954:

"I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."

So we have been saying the Pledge of Allegiance since most of us were children, your own personal experiences and/or diagnosis of senility notwithstanding.

Note too that the entire phrase is now "one nation under God".  There is no full stop, no comma, or no semi-colon there, so I believe that this is meant to be delivered all in one breath, without the long pause commonly inserted.  This too slightly modifies the meaning.  "One nation under God" is more comparable to a phrase like "everything under the sun" and should be interpreted as "a nation that exists under the view of a (non-specific) almighty being".  It does not mean that the country is under the direct dominion or oversight of said almighty being or is meant to be run strictly under the tenets of whichever religion one ascribes to the 'God' in question and therefore passes the 'separation of church and state' principle.

-"BB"-

[Crackpot]

Because he was born and raised in England Genius.

[Bicycle Bill]

Because he was born and raised in England Genius.

Well, if you're going to pick nits.....
Don't forget, I'm relatively new here (since November) and haven't yet fully figured out which of us are American —
and which of us wishes they were......

-"BB"-

[Crackpot]

He is an American citizen now. Just not born one.

[Lord Jim]

He is an American citizen now

Only just...

He likes Cricket and Marmite, so clearly not fully American...

[Joe Guy]

Discus

[TPFKA@W]

Must be going senile you didn't recite the pledge as a child.

Your cast was perfect, and you got one, hook, line and stinker.

[RayThom]

I was raised catholic and daily, for 12 years, I would stand with my classmates with my hand over my heart while they sing-songed their way through the Pledge of Allegiance. I always considered it a form of brainwashing and marching in lockstep for my government. I never understood the requirement to do so but complied if only to avoid being ostracized by the nuns and my peers. I never remember reciting bible verses because IIRC the catholic church was still revising the Douay-Rheims version to fit their needs.

Oddly, an immigrant (a foreigner) seeking US citizenship merely needs to say the PoA once in their lifetime, usually after they take the required Oath of Allegiance at their swearing-in. So, a naturalized citizen is only required to say the Pledge once, but a natural born citizen is expected to repeat it from cradle to grave. Whazzup-wid-dat??? To this day, if I am asked to repeat the Pledge I seem to stutter and fumble my way through it. The Pledge may not be meaningless but, for me, the closest thing to it.

God bless America.

[MajGenl.Meade]

A lively bunch, ain't ya?

CP makes the obvious error of assuming that a meme containing statements created by and applicable to person X is in some fashion being applied to himself by person Y merely by the act of posting the meme and inviting discussion. (Note: this would be a reasonable supposition if wesw posted a meme saying "I'm a dick")

Back to the meme itself... naturally it makes the false assumption of "not this...therefore that". However, two symptoms are not equal to cause. Is there even a correlation though, as assumed by Person X?

[Joe Guy]

I don't remember any school shootings when I was a kid. I do remember peeing the bed almost every night and getting the measles once. Maybe I shouldn't have stopped doing that.

[MG McAnick]

I can remember when compulsory prayer was banned in my public school. My 5th grade teacher made a big deal out of it. She said we could still pray silently if we wanted to. I don't remember anyone doing it on a regular basis, but some did (in later grades) in preparation for exams they probably weren't truly prepared for.

The first school shooting I recall was local, 31 years ago last January. It involved a Jr high kid taking a military styled rifle and a handgun to the school. He shot and killed the principal, and wounded two teachers and another student. He was looking for three students, but didn't find them before leaving the school. One of those students is the local district attorney today. Since bullying was said to be the cause of the shooting, I wonder if bullying makes him a better DA. He was out of state when the shooter was looking for him, and at least two others that he didn't find. The shooter was 14, and could only be held on juvenile charges until his 21st birthday. He's been in since for other things, but is out now. I think it would be safe to say that he's still screwed up.

I remember that my older son was very upset by all of it, although he did not attend that school. He was a couple of years younger than the shooter. He was so upset that he got a bad case of hives probably caused nervousness. I took him to the doctor, and he missed the next day of school. Mrs Mc was in Rome (NY unfortunately) on business that week, She said it made the TV news there.

I doubt that praying, doing the flag salute, and having the ten commandments on the wall would have prevented that shooting. An idiot kid is an idiot kid, regardless of what's on the wall or said before class.

[dales]

I don't remember any school shootings when I was a kid.

I remember the Texas shooting from the tower @ UT.

Perhaps he neglected to say the pledge one day out of many?

[Big RR]

I remember when I was very young we didn't have any damn polio vaccine, and we had no school shootings. Coincidence? I think not.

[oldr_n_wsr]

I think walking up-hill to/from school, barefoot in the snow wore us out too much to do any shootings.

[Sue U]

The stupidity of the proposition implicit in the OP is obvious; the fact that so many are ready to believe there is some sort of link between school shootings and reciting the pledge of allegiance/prayer in schools -- or that people spread such horseshit as "food for thought" -- is a testament to the idiocy of people generally.

Here's something that's at least probative of the issue: the dramatic increase in the sheer number of guns in circulation and readily available.





When I was a kid, there weren't nearly so many guns around, either in sheer numbers or on a per capita basis.

You know what results in more shootings, whether "school" or otherwise?

More guns.

Fewer guns = fewer shootings and fewer gun crimes.

It really is that simple.

[MajGenl.Meade]

The stupidity of the proposition implicit in the OP is obvious

I think Sue's is the best answer yet to the question I posed

Is there even a correlation though, as assumed by Person X?

Although, is the increase in the number of guns in itself an adequate explanation for school shootings to the exclusion of anything else? There are a lot more cars on the road now but they aren't showing up in massacres in the classroom....