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I Pledge Allegiance... · Why We Do What We Do

0:03
You're listening to Why we Do What we Do. Welcome to Why We Do
0:16
What We Do. I am your patriotic host, Abraham, and I am
0:20
your dissenting host, Shane. We are a psychology podcast. I want to
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like to talk about all the things that humans and animals do, and maybe
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someday we'll even talk about what plants do. Today we're talking about something that
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humans do, but only in a very small part of the world mostly.
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Yeah, it's really interesting. And this is something that was so pervasive and
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I feel not pervasive, that's not the word, but like it was something
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that was so ingrained in my daily routine coming up as a child that I
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think it's it's something that I never you almost like it's so ever present you
0:51
don't think about why you do that thing. So I'm excited to talk about
0:55
this today. Yeah, before we get into our topic, I'll say really
0:58
quickly that if you like the show, if you like the support us.
1:00
You can pick up some merchant a merg store and join us over on Patreon.
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Tell a friend we'll leave us a rating and review, subscribe, create
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a Why we Do what We Do flag that you that pledge allegiance to every
1:11
day. I'll talk about more in detail about the ways you can support us
1:12
at the end of this discussion today. But today, this episode is going
1:18
to be published on a particular day that many people will recognize for a day
1:23
of celebration, maybe a week of celebration, maybe even a month of celebration.
1:27
Yeah. So today is Paranormal Day, which I really like. If
1:32
you get a chance, you should watch the movie Para Norman, which is
1:34
a lot of fun. That is a fun movie, definitely. It is
1:38
also National Garden Meditation Day, so you can find a nice garden too.
1:42
We'll do some mindfulness meditation practice in I think that's good. It's National Two
1:47
Different Colored Shoes Day, which I mean I guess technically, if your shoes
1:49
are not one solid color, aren't they two different colored? At least I
1:53
think that could be one interpretation of that for sure. It's also Write a
1:59
Review Day. This could be helping businesses or customers or both if you leave
2:04
a review about an establishment that you have patronized. I have written exactly one
2:08
bad review of my life, and it's because the hotel room that I stayed
2:13
in was splattered with blood. No, my god, yeah, it was.
2:19
It was it was I don't know what it was, but that was
2:21
that was the only bad review. So I would say for write review Day,
2:24
maybe write a good review. Maybe do that be kind. Yeah,
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I prefer to write good reviews. Yeah. Yeah, my silence is my
2:30
damning review. Yeah. Yeah, it's like, oh, I'm not going
2:34
to say anything. It's National Lumpy Rug Day, which you know, I
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guess sure, National Lawyer Well Being Week, so for the mental health of
2:46
lawyers who have a job to do and sometimes occasionally that job is to tell
2:51
people occasionally. It's also go diaper Free Week, so you know, have
2:57
fun with that. And for those of you selebrating, it is National Barbecue
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Month. Let's say a lot of barbecue, but hopefully you enjoy it.
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Yeah, I'm gonna go ahead and pull out my barbecue satan and enjoy this.
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It's also National Bike Month, so go go ride. I think that's
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fun. And it is Asian American and Pacific Island or Heritage Month, which
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I think is a great one to recognize for those celebrating. And I'll also
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say that it's sort of unofficially I think Star Wars Appreciation Month. And tomorrow,
3:27
the day after this publishes and maybe when our listener is currently listening is
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May the fourth, which obviously May the fourth be with you Star Wars Day,
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Yeah, and then the day after is Revenge of the Fifth that's right.
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Yeah. So for those celebrating happy almost Star Wars Day today, yeah,
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I like it Star Wars Month. Unofficially it's the best. I love
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it. But we are actually talking about something that I think was really interesting
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to me. I'll sort of give the context of how I decided it would
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be a useful your size to learn about and talk about what we're talking about
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today. And if you're listening to us from the United States, you will
4:06
likely recognize the sound of many people are reciting an oath of faith to their
4:11
governments one nation, so as you could hear from that lovely recording, the
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pledge of allegiance very commonly said in the United States, and it goes like
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this, which what it's written out, it actually looks like the cadence is
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off from how you will have heard it and probably said it, so just
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reading it straight, it goes like this, I pledge allegiance to the flag
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of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands.
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One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all all.
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That's usually said with a very paste cadence. Right, Which do you sort
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of heard in that clip that we played? Absolutely this phrase, this oath
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is something that US public school children and elective officials will recite thousands of times
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over their lives. Abraham here did it from memory before the episode, and
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four this episode, I treat like he tried to get me to do it,
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and I missed one word. I was so close, but I had
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realized that I had given up saying the pledge in like maybe seventh or eighth
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grade. It's been many, many years. Yeah, thats a felonious offense
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in your neck of the woods. It's a whole thing here. I mean,
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but you know, we also have like the gator oath and swamp boats
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that we have to do. So it's like hard to remember all of them.
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Sometimes, so many pledge, so many oaths of allegiance to various destructive
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entities, you know. Anyway, it got us thinking that it's kind of
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uncommon for democracies to institutionalize some oath of fealty from its constituents, or is
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it. Well, I wanted to know how common is the pledge of allegiance
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around the world, and how did it get started in the United States?
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And if it is in other countries around the world, what kind of characteristics
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might those countries share that would say this is a country that's likely to have
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its citizens routinely say a pledge of allegiance to that country. I do appreciate
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the way that this question is worded, how common is the pledge of allegiance
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around the world, thinking like that other people think that the fourth of July
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is celebrated everywhere too, right, But yeah, I think I think it's
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worth asking, like, is there an oath of allegiance or a pledge of
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allegiance within those specific countries that they look at? And you're going to find,
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I think some surprising things about this. As we were going through the
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notes, I think there's some stuff that's kind of like, maybe not what
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you would expect about this exactly. So let's dig into this, and a
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lot of this is going to be the history the background of where this came
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from, because I think that it's pretty interesting if you look into it.
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So let's of course define our terms. What is a pledge of allegiance?
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I found a couple of different sources, but they mostly seem to agree that
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a pledge of allegiance, or an oath of allegiance, as it's more formally
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known, is an and I'm gonna quote here oath whereby a citizen acknowledges a
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duty of allegiance and swears loyalty towards the new host country or monarch end quote.
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And that's from Csglobal Partners dot com. Now, although this is a
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generic definition, it is largely known because of the US fervent performance of this
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oath and a heavy politicization and rhetoric around this. So this is something though,
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I think when we start talking about this, this becomes a loaded thing
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because I remember this being such an important part of our days coming up in
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public schools. Yeah, and you just see it everywhere. It's so ubiquitous
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that, just as you said, many people might not even stop to think
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about, is it normal to like pledge allegiance to a flag? Do they
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do this in every country? Does it sound like ours? And it is
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a somewhat uniquely American thing, not entirely, but the extent to which we
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implement it is way beyond what you'll see in most other places, so as
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some events unfold in time. Here in nineteen eighty eight in the United States,
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the then President Ronald Reagan, a Republican, was ending his second and
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final term as the President of the United States and as Vice President. George
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HW. Bush or George Bush Senior, was running to fill the seat of
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president in nineteen eighty eight. Now at the time, his Democratic opponent was
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Michael Ducaccus of Massachusetts, who Bush publicly successfully criticized because Ducaccus had vetoed a
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bill that would have required public school teachers but not private school teachers, to
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recite the Pledge of Allegiance, which Ducoccus vetoed on the grounds that had violated
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First Amendment free speech, which we're gonna unpack some of that as well.
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I think that's going to be an important one to discuss. Yes. Now,
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Ironically, during all of this, Bush Senior did not actually seem to
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know the words to the Pledge of Allegiance himself, but his campaign manager made
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him memorize them so that he would be able to use this attack and then
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demonstrate that he he could say the Pledge of Allegiance. But I think that
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he first called out du Caucus as a political move and then didn't actually know
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the Pledge of Allegiance himself. Yeah, I could see that being a really
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easy kind of target, right, something that people would understand, saying that
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this person doesn't want your kids to say the Pledge of Allegiance and people going
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oh no and not liking that specific thing. I could see. I could
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see it's a very easy rallying point. Yeah. And to be clear,
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we're talking about Bush is the one who did not the conservative, the Republican
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was the one who did not seem to know the Pledge of Allegiance. At
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the time, du Caucus was defending the lack of requiring a pledge as a
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free speech issue. And this is actually long after this had already been talked
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about as a free speech issue, which we'll get to in a little bit
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right now. In twenty nineteen, a sixth grader in Florida, because of
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course it's Florida. Like you couldn't pull any other any other examples, you
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had to pull Florida. I mean, I think it's just easy. It's
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low hanging fruit. I mean, if you're doing I guess, if you're
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doing research for a podcast and you need something kind of off the cuff.
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Then, Yeah, I guess Florida is the place to go. Now,
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the sixth grader in Florida decided not to say the pledge of allegiance. The
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substitute teacher at the time asked a student to find another place to live,
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which seems like a very irrational response to that. The student apparently said something
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that the substitute took as a threat, and the student, again a sixth
10:18
grader, was arrested. So it's snowballed in some probably unnecessary problems. Yeah,
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the conditions under which you put somebody in handcuffs, not repeating an oath
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of feel to the country, to a country or a flag, does not
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seem like the appropriate one. Now. As I said in the news report,
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they suggested that the substitute claimed that he was threatened. Another report that
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I found a different news report, said that the police specifically arrested him for
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I think causing a disturbance or meeting disruptive something like that. I think it
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was causing a disturbance, which also does not feel like the kind of thing
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one should be put in handcuffs for, like taking away someone's freedom. No,
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to that extent seems like and like actually arresting them, put processing them
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through law for something that they didn't say, it seems like, or even
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even just honestly causing a disturbance like that seems like such a pathetically low offense
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to get so but hurt about, right, I really, I mean it's
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Florida, So I'm not surprised. My daughter had a similar experience, like
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not too long ago, where the substitute teacher lectured her on respect because she
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refused to stand up for the pledge. Like she just was like, I'm
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not doing this. It was right after a Roe V. Wade had come
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out, and my daughter gets really passionate about social justice issues, and she
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was like, why would I say the pledge right now? What? I
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am unhappy with the state of the country. So she did do that,
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and the substitute did give her and the entire class of lecture about respect and
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respecting the flag in the country and all that. Yeah, I can understand
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that, and I'm glad she was not arrested, because that is ridiculous to
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they putting kids in handcuffs for yeah, yeah, not saying the thing or
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even again, like most of the stuff just seems like it's not an arrest
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worthy offense anyway. Moving on, in the United States, during the twenty
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twenty election, the bipartisan city Council of Saint Louis Park, Minnesota, unanimously
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voted to cease reciting the Pledge of Allegiance at the start of every single one
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of its meetings. That was the thing that they passed. Interesting, now,
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if you heard that, do you think you would characterize a city council
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or moving the Pledge of Allegiance from their meetings only and no other part of
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any other state dealings at all, or city dealings for that matter, Would
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you regard that as a siege against the Pledge of Allegiance? Maybe if you're
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stupider than a covered pile of rocks. Now enter the former president in floridamand
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template Donald Trump, who, in response to the city council decision, tweeted,
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quote, the Pledge of Allegiance to our great country in Saint Louis Park,
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Minnesota is under siege end quote. So conclusion, covered pile of rocks
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much smarter than that tweet. Going back a little bit time in two thousand
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and eight, when the then governor of Alaska, Sarah Palin, was asked
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whether under God as part of the Pledge of Allegiance was offensive, she responded,
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quote, if it was good enough for our founding fathers, then it
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is good enough for me. End quote. So point being, from all
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of those examples, it's clear that the Pledge is a highly politically charged phenomenon,
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with heavy support from the conservative right wing politicians and other sort of conservative
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talking heads. And if you thought you were going to make it through the
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day without having to listen to a single ad, I'm sorry to disappoint you,
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because here they are. We've been talking about the history of the controversy
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around the Pledge of Allegiance a little bit in the United States, mostly just
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highlighting some examples of things that people have said and done in their fervent support
13:56
of the Pledge of Allegiance. So let's continue our history here. So it
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might be of great interest then that the American flags were actually pretty uncommon in
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public schools, but some enterprising liberal businessmen James Upham and Daniel Ford, decided
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to start selling American flags to American schools, and we're extremely successful in doing
14:13
so. Could you imagine building your empire on selling flags to schools? Kind
14:18
of I guess I don't know how I would sleep at night, but you
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know, sure. And so these two they put together a national program to
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celebrate Columbus Day, and they solicited help from the National Education Association to support
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their Boston based National Family Magazine in this endeavor. So it was kind of
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this coordinated effort of we're gonna get a bunch of flags out there through our
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magazine, We're going to sort of direct how the ceremony will go and everyone,
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you know, all these school kids across the country are going to recognize
14:50
Columbus. And it seems like this is largely to sell stuff, was their
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plan, right, So the magazine hired Francis spell Me not to be confused
15:00
with Bill Bellamy, the MTV VJ. Francis Bellamy is a radical Christian socialist
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famous for such speeches and sermons as quote the socialism of the primitive Church and
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quote Jesus the Socialist, who supported the idea of nationalized everything under one government,
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namely the economy, taxation, and a national education system. So that's
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Francis Bellamy. Yeah, Jesus the Socialist. I like that. Yeah,
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I thought that was really fun. So for the eighteen ninety two Columbus Day
15:31
program that they were all orchestrating. Bellamy wrote the Pledge of Allegiance. This
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is one hundred and five years after the Constitution was written. FYI, he
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may not have actually been the person who authored the pledge. There's some controversy
15:43
about that, and we'll talk about that more a little bit later in this
15:48
discussion, but for now, all of those sources that I found, except
15:54
for a couple, were very convinced that it was Francis Bellamy. So we'll
15:58
use him as our main talking point and then we'll talk about the controversy later.
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As part of the program, the pledge was to be accompanied by a
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stiff right handed salute, and so we're gonna read his instructions and the accompanying
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pledge at the time. So this is what was published in the magazine for
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people to do during this Columbus Day celebration. All right, So here are
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the instructions. At a signal from the principle, the pupils in ordered ranks,
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hands to the side face the flag. Another signal is given. Every
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pupil gives the flag the military salute right hand lifted palm downward to align with
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the forehead enclose to it. Standing. Thus all repeat together slowly, I
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pledge allegiance to my flag and the Republic for which it stands, one nation,
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indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. At the words to my
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flag, the right hand is extended gracefully, palm upward toward the flag,
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and remains in this gesture until the end of the affirmation, whereupon all hands
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immediately dropped to the side. So those astute listeners may have noticed that that
17:03
version of the pledge was shorter than the one that we heard at the beginning,
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and that is because some things about the pledge changed. But let's continue
17:11
through our timeline here. This was eighteen ninety two. That was that was
17:15
published, and that that was the sort of thing that the celebration that they
17:18
did. In nineteen twenty two, the ku klux Klan also simply abbreviated as
17:23
the KKK, had become a political power and organ and had adopted the pledge
17:29
of allegiance for themselves. So they were they thought this was a good idea
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too. Yeah, and you know anything that they think is a good idea,
17:36
yeah, don't be on that side. Now, Wait, there's a
17:38
question, what if an immigrant is pledging allegiance and things that the part when
17:42
they say my flag is in reference to their homeland, that will not do
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so. In nineteen twenty three, the part that said my flag was replaced
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with the flag of the United States of America. Absolutely. During World War
17:56
Two, that salute that they did where they held their stiff arm outright with
18:00
their palm up was considered too similar to the Nazi salute because it was just
18:06
one eighty degree flip away from being the Nazi salute, and was changed to
18:11
placing the hand over the heart during the pledge instead, to which I can
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kind of imagine the KKK probably responded irately as an alteration of history, because
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you know, they love Nazis and knew that they shouldn't say so out loud
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at the time. That's my guess anyway. Yeah, Yeah, they're probably
18:27
like very disappointed in that decision. Yeah, like they were going, oh,
18:32
come on, man, like that. I imagine a lot of them
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did that. In nineteen fifty four, under urgings of the Knights of Columbus
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and in the context of the Red Scare of Communism, Dwight D. Eis
18:44
now Or asked Congress to add under God to the pledge, which they of
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course did. As a side note, The Knights of Columbus is an international
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all male Catholic fraternal service order largely involved in communal support for its members,
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a large amount of philanthropic activities, and of course political maneuvering as you would
19:00
imagine Knights of Columbus would do or any sort of night would do. Now,
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for those of you keeping track, this is one hundred and sixty seven
19:07
years after the Constitution was written. Even the great grandchildren, but the founding
19:12
fathers are long dead, so this is there are like no ties to this
19:18
at this point in time. So there you have it. A socialist wrote
19:22
the pledge during Jim Crow after reconstruction for a magazine as part of a marketing
19:26
strategy disguised as a Columbus Day celebration over one hundred years after the founding of
19:32
our country. That is the pledge of allegiance in the United States in a
19:34
nutshell. Yeah yeah. Also, big fans of the original pledge the KKK,
19:40
so remember that too, Yes, and other very very super conservative groups
19:47
as well. That's actually part of why the my flag fan got changed was
19:49
at the urging of one of those something called like one hundred percent American was
19:53
their campaign or something like that. That sounds about right, So they are
19:56
the big fan of changing that. Okay, So now the question becomes So
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we gave the history of the pledge of Allegiance and the United States, but
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one of the things that we billboarded at the top of this is the question
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how common is this and other countries? So we looked around to find are
20:14
there other countries that also require some kind of oath or pledge of allegiance to
20:18
their flag or their country or their leader or whatever. Right, So we
20:22
found at least twenty four other countries that require an oath or pledge of allegiance,
20:26
but only when becoming a citizen or being sworn in the public office,
20:30
particularly by a judge. So it's not built into like a specific education system
20:33
as part of like an everyday routine. Yeah. So for those oaths,
20:38
just as a quick summary, as I said, there's twenty four of them,
20:41
so I'm not going to go through them all. They all have very
20:44
similar characteristics for the most part. The longest by far is the United States,
20:48
which includes much more than just that pledge that we read. It has
20:52
all this to do with becoming a citizen in like duty and obligation. The
20:56
shortest pledge is Israel's, which is, I declare I will be a loyal
21:02
national of the State of Israel, end quote. And that's their whole pledge,
21:04
very succinct right. And my favorites was Belgium's, which was quote,
21:10
I declare my desire to acquire the Belgian nationality and to submit myself to the
21:14
Constitution, the laws of Belgium, and to the Convention of the Protection of
21:18
Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms end quote. I was like, there was only
21:22
one pledge that had an allusion to a commitment of human rights and freedoms,
21:26
and that was Belgium. And you might have noticed that neither of those two
21:32
use the word God in any sense of the word, even in Israel,
21:36
where they're arguably one of the most religious places in the world. Super interesting.
21:40
Now, only the Netherlands in UK include a reference to by God or
21:42
a similar sentiment, although many include an optional so help me God at the
21:48
end, And I think that's kind of wonderful that there's like an optional part
21:51
of the oath. There are several of them that have optional bits that are
21:53
like in brackets that sort of like choose to say this if you want to
21:56
choose your own oath, I like that. Okay. So, as they
21:59
said, most of these oaths have to do with someone who is becoming a
22:03
citizen. They don't even have to memorize it. You know, they come
22:06
to the country. However, they get there, they're going through the citizens
22:10
r us gates and they are asked to simply read this pledge or even sometimes
22:15
they just they'll just read it quality to themselves and they'll sign a document saying
22:18
that they read it, and that's all that they have to do. They've
22:21
even started allowing people to do this virtually during the pandemic that became a thing
22:25
as people could become citizens by swearing an oath over like zoom or skype or
22:29
something anyway, that was all people becoming citizens. What about having students in
22:34
classrooms, you know, have as part of their daily ritual salute the flag
22:41
and say the Pledge of Allegiance. Well, one country that does this,
22:44
as North Korea, famously one of the most oppressive dictatorships in the world.
22:49
They require their students to say the Pledge of Allegiance. Okay, So being
22:53
sure that we've just as we're as we're exploring this, just prepare yourselves to
22:59
be uncomfortable. The Philippines, which recently left one alt right despotic dictator of
23:03
a president, specifically a really, really kind of troublesome person for the Marcos
23:08
family, with a history as an oppressive and brutal military totalitary and ruling family
23:14
who managed to rewrite history so people forgot how corrupt and devastating their family the
23:18
rule had been. The Philippines also requires their students to pledge of allegiance.
23:22
China, which is a Marxist when I'm also seen described as Leninist communist state,
23:29
also requires a pledge of allegiance. All right, I Ran, not
23:33
particularly known for their freedoms and respect for human rights, also requires a pledge
23:37
of allegiance, and then, interestingly, dramatically breaking from the theme of most
23:41
of those countries, India also requires a pledge of allegiance. Okay, all
23:45
right, so at least you know one out of I guess five, a
23:48
bad sure twenty percent life. That twenty percent life, yeah, I mean,
23:56
and you might be going, well, where does the United States fallen?
23:59
There? I think you can take a guess where we're starting to lean.
24:02
Another thing to think about, too, is Hitler actually required all soldiers
24:06
and civil servants to swear it to him personally, you know, which is
24:10
one indicative of a cult leader, but too maybe something that we don't want
24:15
to mock or imitate. We don't want to like maybe like take a page
24:18
from his book. Yeah, worth at least considering. Some other monarchs and
24:22
dictators around the world and throughout history have required an oath of allegiance at some
24:26
point. But it's really just it's not that common. It's just not a
24:30
very common thing to do. I even saw that even in the entire most
24:34
sovietness of Soviet histories, they did not require a pledge of allegiance from their
24:38
citizens, although I did find one oath that was ascribed to I want to
24:45
say it was Lenin, No, it was Stalin, It was Joseph Stalin,
24:48
but I don't know that it was one that was actually supposed to be
24:51
recited by the citizens, the comrades, if you will, of the country,
24:56
right, right, right. All that is to say, a pledge
24:57
of allegiance is fairly un common if you think about it. But the most
25:02
currently patriotic thing you can do is listen to capitalism's cancerous rattle the advertisement break.
25:15
Okay, we're back. We've been talking about all the countries, the
25:18
few that do require a ritualistic recitation of some kind of oath or pledge of
25:26
fealty to the country. It's probably worth looking at the United States specifically,
25:30
because one of the things that the United States pride itself on is state rights.
25:34
I mean, there was a whole Civil War about that specific thing,
25:37
and so you're going to find and that's actually some one of the more interesting
25:41
things about the United States is that every state kind of has their own stuff
25:45
that they deal with. So in the United States, specifically, a nineteen
25:48
forty three Supreme Court ruling West Virginia versus Barnet determined that no one could be
25:52
compelled or punished by school or government to recite the pledge of allegiance. So
25:56
this goes all the way back to nineteen forty three during World War Two,
26:02
where patriotism was probably something that was like a really prime currency. They really
26:07
wanted everybody to be really really patriotic at the time, and the Supreme Court
26:11
was like, no, it can't make people do that, which I think
26:14
is actually pretty important. I think that's a really important ruling well, and
26:18
I believe that they specifically cited the First Amendment of the United States Constitution for
26:22
the protection and guarantee of free speech that cannot be oppressed as the reason,
26:27
although I will say that there was also if I'm remembering correctly, in this
26:33
case. It may have been this case or a different case. Part of
26:34
where this guy started was some Jehovah's witnesses who wouldn't say a pledge of allegiance
26:38
because that was against their religion, and they got in really big trouble.
26:42
And I think that that may have been this case, but that one also
26:45
was one that had them. They basically went to a court saying that they
26:49
have religious freedom, the rights to practice their religions as they say fit,
26:53
and that made me not pledging an oath of allegiance to a flag. So
26:59
that was honored, like that was upheld that they had that right in this
27:02
country. Yeah, pretty interesting. Although this ruling happened in nineteen forty forty
27:07
six or forty seven, depending on who you ask. Apparently, of the
27:11
fifty United States have some requirement to say the pledge built into their state laws,
27:15
although almost all of them have some sort of opt out policy where you
27:19
do not have to say the pledge if you don't want to. The requirement
27:23
for most of these states where there is a requirement is that time be set
27:26
aside for the pledge to occur, although actually implementing it is not necessarily required
27:33
in many of those places. Now if you want to opt out. Some
27:36
places, such as Florida and Texas require a parent or guardian to provide signed
27:41
consent that a child may opt out of saying the pledge, and in some
27:45
states the children themselves can opt out, but they are required to remain quote
27:52
unquote respectfully silent, and in some which I think is new Jersey must remove
27:56
any headwires such as a hat, while also ending at attention quietly and respectfully
28:02
as they say. The hat thing is interesting. I think we should probably
28:04
eventually do, maybe even like a mini on like why removing hats is such
28:08
a big deal, Because one time I went in for jury duty and a
28:11
sheriff actually grabbed me because I would not take off my hat when I was
28:15
addressing the judge, because I was like, I don't want to be here,
28:18
I don't respect this court. I was being ahead, but like it
28:21
was one of those things where I wouldn't take my hat and he grabbed my
28:23
hands, pulled them out of my pockets and made me take my hat off.
28:26
Wow, that sounds like a free country right there. Yeah, you
28:30
know the land Florida. Anyway, So when we talked about these states,
28:33
the states that don't have a requirement, I'm actually pretty shocked by this.
28:37
Some of them, I'm like, yeah, that makes sense. The other
28:40
two, I'm like, that doesn't make any sense. They must have missed
28:41
that, or maybe the person that wrote the law doesn't know what a flag
28:45
is. But Nebraska, Hawaii, Vermont, and Wyoming do not specifically have
28:51
requirements for a recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance. I was particularly surprised about
28:56
Nebraska and Wyoming. Yeah, Hawaiian, Vermont totally makes sense. But the
29:00
other two, I was really shocked by those. Yeah, I kind of
29:02
think it's a free speech thing there too, but I'm not totally sure.
29:07
What I found was that Georgia, Kansas, Illinois, New Mexico, Nevada,
29:11
Massachusetts, California, and Delaware do require the pledge but do not have
29:15
a clear exemption policy. And many of these places they simply leave it to
29:19
the oversight of the school districts to have a policy. So it's not even
29:23
states rights, it's then district rights at that point. Yeah. Now,
29:27
just to kind of talk about how much of a hot button topic this still
29:30
is. Just in February of twenty twenty three, the Arizona House of Representatives
29:34
have passed the most draconian attempt at a requirement for all school children up to
29:40
the age of eighteen say the pledge. Now again, the requirement is to
29:44
quote set aside time for the pledge. That's what you see in a lot
29:47
of places, although they added each student shall recite the pledge during that time.
29:52
They do offer the parental exemption. But the laws written in such a
29:56
way that even if it passes the state government, it's so blatantly illegal and
30:00
unconstitutional, it likely won't last long if it's challenged by literally anyone in a
30:04
court of law. Yeah, and so I don't think this will be something
30:07
that goes through. But you're finding more and more and more people are getting
30:11
bold with these really restrictive things, you know, for the sake of freedom
30:15
in their nation. They champion as a parents' rights issue, and I find
30:21
that kind of ironic, But that is kind of the theme, right,
30:23
It's you take away someone's liberty and then you say it's because you want to
30:27
preserve liberty. Right. That's like a thing that's been going on a lot,
30:32
and so I find it ironic and deeply distressing that that continues to be
30:37
the case and that people are just all for it. They're like, yeah,
30:38
I would like this authoritarian government that forces citizens to pledge an oath to
30:44
it. I think you would find that even people who are a fan of
30:48
the current government would fight for the right to not pledge allegiance to that government.
30:55
And I definitely think the people who are not a fan of the current
30:59
government, if you were to ask them to swear a pledge for the government
31:02
and they didn't want to, I would also respect their right to not wants
31:06
to do that thing, sure, and I think that they would probably appreciate
31:11
the fact that they could have the autonomy to say, like, I don't
31:14
like what this country is doing right now, I'm not going to pledge allegiance
31:17
to it, and that I would say, like, Okay, that is
31:18
perfectly within your rights to do, because you shouldn't have to swear to like,
31:23
imagine if like Joe Biden specifically came out and tried to pass a law
31:27
that was like, you have to swear a pledge of allegiance to me,
31:30
Like how upset that would make the conservatives? And rightfully so, I also
31:36
would not want to swear a pledge of allegiance to him, even being someone
31:38
who I think is pretty obviously left leaning, right, But like, I
31:42
think that if Donald Trump had come out as president and said you must swear,
31:47
you know, a pledge of allegiance to me personally, that they would
31:49
have seen that as okay, and even like, yes, I'll definitely do
31:52
that thing. And that is why I think it's kind of weird where we
31:56
see the weird split and where people are with this. Absolutely, so I
32:00
think we should probably get into why people do this, right, We got
32:06
to answer the question of why we do what we do, So let's start
32:08
exploring I think why people actually swear an oath of allegiance. And most of
32:13
the time we see this when people are changing citizenship in a new country.
32:16
Soldiers might be required to do it, and elected officials will often pledge when
32:21
taking an office, So it makes sense as part of like a formal process
32:24
or formal transition of power almost or transition of status. You see that kind
32:30
of happen in those spaces, Yeah, transition of status. And I think
32:32
that largely it is meant to in those spaces to communicate the due diligence of
32:39
saying, like, look, if we're going to take this person in and
32:42
shelter them, we want to make sure they're not trying to sabotage us in
32:45
due destruction, even though an oath guarantees nothing at all, right, No,
32:51
Yeah, the very act of doing it is both symbolically relevant and I
32:54
think it's meant to show like we're at least going through the motions of asking
32:59
this people, But I think it's also meant to try and elicit a sense
33:04
of obligation from those people. And if you think, like, look,
33:07
you're going to be here, I want you to feel the weight of the
33:09
responsibility that we are granted. You know, we're putting on your shoulders by
33:14
saying this out loud and saying it yourself. And so that's kind of where
33:16
I see the rationale for why people want to do this in those situations where
33:21
they're trying to have someone they're giving them more power by they're moving into an
33:25
elected official position or you know, a judge or something of that nature,
33:30
or they're becoming a participant in that government. Yeah. Absolutely. So another
33:36
reason why is that people do this as a daily or ritualistic kind of recitation
33:39
of the oath. But the thing is that's actually fairly uncommon. It's really
33:44
only happening in the United States or of some of those other countries we mentioned
33:46
North Korea. I ran in those places, So that's one reason why people
33:51
might do it, But it's actually not a common thing, even though in
33:53
the United States we have had that experience from the time that we got into
33:57
kindergarten or maybe even preschool all up in the time we graduated high school at
34:00
the very least. Yeah, I think that's actually really fascinat because that's such
34:04
a common experience for Americans. Yes, yeah, it's completely ubiquitous. You
34:07
would just not not see it, like you could almost not avoid it if
34:10
you're participating in any of those public institutions at all. Now, many,
34:16
if not most, people from other countries see the American devotion to this process
34:22
as odd to the point of being a little creepy, and they point out
34:27
that having small children swear loyalty to their government feels weird and kind of culty
34:31
and maybe a little brainwashy. And I think that if we didn't have this
34:36
and we saw some other supposedly democratic country doing this, I feel like we
34:39
would feel the same way. I think I agree with this, and I
34:43
think about this a lot, because when I started thinking about like the pledge
34:45
itself and why people say it, I started thinking about how it's become kind
34:49
of a rote response, like how it just like became kind of like such
34:52
a routine that you don't even really think about what it means or why somebody
34:55
might say it. I remember when I was younger, when I started really
34:59
thinking about what was being said, I was like, this is weird,
35:01
and started really kind of like trying to unpack the elements of it. As
35:06
you start doing that, like you do it for so long and so often
35:08
it's not it's just you don't even think twice about doing it. Yeah,
35:12
I had a very similar experience. It was very wrote response for a long
35:15
time for me, and then I started realizing and thinking about what I was
35:19
saying, and there were parts of it that I decided I was not going
35:22
to say anymore, and I would just be silent during those parts. But
35:24
I don't think I completely gave up on it until pretty much near the very
35:29
end of my public school life, if you will, and then it was
35:32
maybe a little late for that to have much of an impact. But yeah,
35:36
it's it is a very very ingrained response after the you know, hundreds
35:40
and hundreds or thousands of times you've done it by the time you've are nearing
35:44
the end of your political or your public school, political school, public school.
35:47
Yeah, as I was thinking about it, one of the weirdest things,
35:51
like one of the weirdest parts of it was the latest edition. I
35:53
don't know if you've seen the latest edition. In the pledge that they've started
35:55
doing, they added this part where it says one podcast under ads, and
36:01
I thought that was kind of a weird addition, So maybe we should review
36:05
that. Okay, we've been talking about why people swear an oath of allegiance
36:16
and what might be going on there. So we talked about why people would
36:22
swear if they're coming to a country, or they're moving into an elected position
36:24
or that or that sort of thing. But what would be the purpose of
36:29
daily practice of this ritual Well, largely it seems to occur in I think
36:36
the most stringently and these really highly conservative places with authoritarian leanings. And I
36:39
mean that around the world, right like, and if you look at places
36:44
where it's required, right and it's a daily ritualistic thing, it's in these
36:47
pretty authoritarian countries for most of them except for maybe one, and presumably as
36:52
a gesture of a symbolic patriotism and be indoctrination to influence future actions in a
37:00
way that is loyal to the state, if you will. Right now,
37:04
A cheek here critique would be to include that the loyalty should be unquestioned and
37:07
followed blindly, and that the symbolic patriotism is due to a pathetic, fragile
37:13
ego that needs to be constantly reminded of loyalty or else they will melt down
37:16
into a temper tantrum. And I think when you kind of think of it
37:19
like that, from like the fragile ego standpoint of a nation where it's just
37:22
like basically just somebody going tell me you like me every single day. You
37:27
know, if you want to interpret it that way, you can you know,
37:29
another side of that too. I think you know, when you kind
37:31
of talk about like daily ritual and daily kind of like practices, there are
37:36
lots of different things that we do on a daily basis that are not this.
37:39
They're not like country oriented. They might be spiritually oriented, or maybe
37:44
personally or familiar like family oriented. They may be one of those things,
37:49
and we don't typically question those things because they may have like some type of
37:52
well being or benefit for that person or maybe for the social circumstance that they're
37:58
in. But this doesn't seem to have that either, Right, We're just
38:00
kind of like, Okay, here's like something we do and then we kind
38:02
of move on and it doesn't really change behavior or like impact that person's daily
38:07
world in a really meaningful way. It feels very performative, and it feels
38:10
performative to the point to appease the people who would have the reaction that you
38:16
have experienced with your daughter and yourself, where it's being lectured about being respectful
38:23
and being told that if you don't want to pledge allegiance, you should have
38:27
to move out of the country, and like all of these outcomes of that
38:30
sort of thing that again it's like, why are you so offended by the
38:35
fact that someone doesn't want to swear an oath of allegiance to a country that
38:39
they do not respect where that country is going or at at the time.
38:45
Also, if you care at all about freedom and the freedom of speech and
38:50
the freedom of expression and our first amendments in the Constitution, I'm surprised that
38:54
more people wouldn't more staunchly defend that right to choose to use that free speech
39:00
in a way that is oftentimes simply remaining silent or they're kneeling or they're sitting
39:05
right. And again, if they're doing those things, they're not harming anybody.
39:09
They're not doing anything other than exercising their free speech right. And I
39:14
think we'll talk about this here at a moment, but isn't it great that
39:16
they live in a country where they can exercise their free speech right. That's
39:20
the beauty of this thing in this place that we live. You know,
39:22
we're very fortunate that like we can do that without sort of any repercussions exactly
39:28
otherwise. So that seems to be why there is a you know, the
39:31
reason behind why we might say an oath of allegiance, we're becoming a citizen,
39:37
or we are trying to assure the very fragile egos of those who can't
39:42
be not told that you're loyal to them every day. Otherwise it does seem
39:45
to serve very little purpose to do it in such a ritualistic fashion. I
39:49
think arguably it actually does have the effect that you mentioned already that potentially it
39:54
becomes a response that we do so rotely that we're not even thinking during it,
40:00
and it means nothing to us because we do it too much. That
40:04
is an actual technique used in psychology to help people to essentially have something not
40:10
become conscious to them anymore. Is to become so automatic at it that you
40:15
don't even realize you're doing it. Yeah, and that is a process to
40:17
help with certain psychological issues, is to break it down by having repeated exposure
40:23
and weakening the effect. And so one could argue that the ritualistic recitation of
40:29
this actually weakens the effect that it would have if you will otherwise do so
40:32
in a more I guess intentional way. Absolutely, I think you nailed it
40:37
there. So one thing we wanted to kind of go back to is this
40:43
idea that the pledge wasn't written by the person that claims, or that it
40:46
was attributed to, so the authorship itself may not actually belong to Francis Bellamy.
40:52
New York Times, the only source for this claim that we could find,
40:55
reported on an article in which a journalist reported finding a newspaper clipping with
41:00
the pledge three months before Francis Bellamy's was published. So, you know,
41:05
it's one of those things that could possibly be lost to history. So it's
41:07
worth maybe some further investigation. But this is what we understand of it right
41:10
now. Yes, Francis Bellamy swore under many affidavits that he was the author,
41:16
but there was this clipping that this journalist or maybe historian maybe historical journalist
41:22
I don't remember now found and they had a really hard time justifying, like,
41:27
how was this pledge of allegiance published? When the Pledge of Allegiance hadn't
41:31
yet been published and it was about three months beforehand. And to get a
41:36
little more context, because it's kind of a weird story. So the author
41:39
we've been describing, his name is Francis Bellamy. The person who they think
41:45
may have written this was a sixth grader named Frank Bellamy, which is very
41:51
close to Francis Bellamy. Oh weird. Yes, and they think that the
41:55
newspaper clipping suggests that he wrote it in to that same magazine, and that
42:00
maybe Francis saw it and either consciously or unconsciously copied it and then took credit.
42:07
And that's what the historian has suggested is the case. Now, as
42:12
I said, everywhere you look, they have essentially just declared that Francis Bellamy
42:16
authored this. The Library of Congress has this, Many places with like codified
42:22
official government documents have written down that Francis Bellamy is the official author and the
42:28
only source that it could find was this New York Times article. But that
42:31
is not to say it's not true. It's possible that it's just something that's
42:35
being currently uncovered. We don't know. So there seems to be some evidence
42:38
to question Bellamy's originality and authoring the pledge of allegiance. You know, I
42:44
think the weirdest part of that story is thinking about a six year old named
42:46
Frank. I think it was a sixth grader, so I think like a
42:49
twelve year old. Oh okay, either way, a twelve year old named
42:52
Frank also strange to think about. That's a very like like feels like a
42:55
very adult name. Like now a picture a kid like like with a stoe
43:00
in his mouth and being like that guy he took mine, he took credit
43:01
from my thing that I wrote. Die. You know, like he's like,
43:05
you know, he's wearing like a press hat and he's you know,
43:07
got a well ironed suit that he's wearing a sixth grade gym playing dodgeball or
43:12
something. Yeah. Sure, what a time to be live? All right
43:16
now? Is part of this kind of discussion. I think you have to
43:20
kind of think of the country you want to live in and the kind of
43:22
place that forces its citizens to constantly be swearing to it or swearing its allegiance
43:27
or swearing it fealty. Like you have to kind of take a second to
43:30
stop and go, well, where am I living in? Why is this
43:32
something that is required of the place that I live? We see this kind
43:36
of place or see this type of thing where we see people kneeling during the
43:38
national anthem as an exercise a free speech and people being livid about it,
43:44
yeah, and not being okay with that. As you know, we have
43:45
something like the pledge and the national anthem is like a respected symbol or supposed
43:50
to be a respected symbol, but also the respected idea of freedom of speech
43:53
within that and so it's really fascinating to kind of think about that dichotomy and
43:59
why people struggle with both of those things. Yeah, and just thinking about
44:01
like, if you were to hear in a country that some citizen, let's
44:06
just say North Korea, a citizen they're like, refused to pledge their allegiance
44:10
to the government or you know, a particular figure in the government, and
44:15
then they were punished in some way. Maybe they were they had to leave
44:21
their job, maybe they were kicked out of the country, maybe they're even
44:23
arrested, what have you. Like, we would look at that and say
44:27
that makes sense in a place like North Korea, where you have a vicious
44:30
dictatorship, and then think like, do we want to live in that same
44:34
country? Do we want to live in a country where we supposedly want to
44:37
protect people's freedoms and then when they were simply refused to you know, say
44:42
an oath, that they are then punished by the government for not swearing their
44:45
fealty. And I think that we if we want to say that we respect
44:50
the fact that we're in a liberal, democratic society where we have guaranteed freedoms
44:55
and liberties that you just don't get to have it both ways. You don't
44:59
get to like saying that people have free speech and then try and take that
45:02
away from them when they exercise it to criticize you. Right, it hit
45:06
me that there's a really clear example of like how this can get twisted and
45:09
go wrong as far as like ritualistic kind of blind engagement with this type of
45:14
thing. And I think because I recently read not too long ago nineteen eighty
45:16
four, and the one thing they would do in the book was they would
45:20
do the two minute tate, and the two minute tate was like this ritualistic
45:24
thing that there was, like there was time set aside to engage in this
45:28
behavior that was socially acceptable and something that every citizen did, and if you
45:32
didn't participate in it, you were kind of like identified and targeted as somebody
45:36
who was not part of the society and you might be a you know,
45:40
a problem. And so that's kind of what happens here, right, Like
45:43
if I don't stand for the pledge, I mean, it's not nearly as
45:45
bad as nineteen eighty four, but if I if I don't stand for the
45:47
pledge and I am targeted as somebody who doesn't belong or maybe has like a
45:52
you know, nefarious type of approach, when the truth is I just don't
45:54
believe in saying it, but I appreciate that I'm allowed to do that.
45:59
Yeah, And that's exactually like the great segue until I think the sort of
46:02
main conclusion here is that we have the freedom in this country to disagree or
46:10
to basically to criticize our government. We live in a place where you can
46:15
criticize your government. The places in the country where you can't criticize your government
46:19
are scary, dangerous, horrible places to be. You do not want to
46:22
live in those countries. Right. We appreciate that freedom here and we don't
46:25
want to take it for granted, but we do have to be able to
46:29
criticize our government if we're going to live in a place that boasts having the
46:32
freedom of speech. Yeah, we are allowed to love and appreciate the place
46:37
that we're at and still love it enough to be able to criticize it so
46:39
that we can see it do better. Yeah, Like that's really ultimately what
46:44
we're trying to do. Like, and that's a perfectly acceptable thing. Like
46:45
I don't want to say I love the country. I appreciate where I'm at,
46:50
and I love what it could stand for and what it could be,
46:52
and I just want to see it get there and I want to see it
46:54
do better. And so I think this is one of those things that we
46:58
have to protect. Is you know, if you want to say the pledge,
47:00
say it. But if you don't want to say the pledge, do
47:01
we have to protect that right too? Yeah. And good leaders appreciate criticism
47:07
because that's how they become even better, exactly, and there are so few
47:10
of them. Yes, yes, So I think my major takeome point is
47:15
that from as far as we can tell, the pledge of allegiance in the
47:19
United States is very unique. It is one of the very few places in
47:21
the world that you would ritualistically be asked to consistently and continuously swear allegiance to
47:27
a flag as it represents your government. And it is I mean, the
47:31
current group in which we're running contains mostly dictators and somewhat ironically communists. So
47:39
if that's sort of your bag, that's the crowd you're hanging with right now.
47:44
Right. One of my favorite things about this, or like one of
47:46
the more interestings. I thought about this was like it has become such a
47:50
rote thing that people don't really think about it being odd or thinking about It's
47:53
like it's become such an ingrained part of practice and kind of daily routines.
47:58
Yeah, that you just don't even think about where it came from. I
48:00
had no idea the original pledge required a salute, and then the Yin yang
48:05
Nazi salute, they go along with it, right, Like it's a hand
48:07
over your heart type of situation that got changed because of that, because of
48:10
World War Two. And I think that that's a super fascinating kind of like
48:15
thing about this thing that we have done for hundreds of like you know,
48:17
almost one hundred years now. Yeah, exactly right, And because it's more
48:21
recent, like the current iteration of all of this is more recent than people
48:24
might think. Going back to the point of like it was a good enough
48:28
for a founding fathers and like they them and their grandchildren had been dead long
48:31
before this discussion every even took place. Would not find a lot of flags
48:36
around before this, but someone noticed that and said, hey, we can
48:39
make a buck selling flags, and so now there's flags everywhere. Yeah.
48:43
I also think of like when people kind of go like, well, the
48:45
founding fathers like this, I'm like, bring one of them here today and
48:49
watch them just like their mind is gonna melt. Yeah, like I would.
48:52
That's the thing is is like, you can't. You can't do that,
48:54
Like you know, when they go into a store and they can't buy
48:57
pantaloons, They're gonna lose their shit. I think they would not understand any
49:04
of what's going on in any of the country at all. I think it
49:07
would be entirely lost. I mean, to be fair, I don't either,
49:10
but it is like, you know, it's a different it's a different
49:14
type of thing. Yeah, the problems that we have are so beyond the
49:17
scope of problems that they would have experienced or faced or thought that it could
49:22
even be possible back then. Yeah, And honestly, who cares? Who
49:24
cares? Like they did a great job kicking things off, a terrible job
49:29
in some ways, but a really good job in other ways. And like
49:31
all we have is where we're currently to try and continue to do better and
49:35
allow this country to evolve to what it's going to be and generally, as
49:38
we are participants in this species, to allow our species to continue to evolve
49:43
and become better into what that we are hopefully going to be, which I
49:46
hope is something good. Absolutely agree. Well, let's finish this up with
49:52
some recommendations. Recommendations. I am recommending a Netflix movie on. It came
50:05
out relatively recently, so Murder Mystery too. It's the sequel to the Adam
50:09
Sandler Jennifer Anderston movie. Murder Mystery came out a few years ago. It's
50:14
just a fun adventure sort of there's a little bit of a who Done It
50:17
and you know, action comedy sort of stuff going on, but it's it's
50:22
just a fun light sort of movie that's on that's really available for anybody who
50:25
has the Netflix account. So that's my recommendation. I like that, you
50:30
know, it's funny. I just watched, Yeah, I was Adam Sandlers
50:31
just got the Mark Twain Award and it was really great to see like how
50:36
loved he is by the people that like work with him and spend time with
50:37
him. So like that was kind of a nice thing. That's great.
50:39
So I'm recommending a new movie that just came out. It's called Redfield.
50:43
I was on the fence about whether or not to see this, but I'm
50:45
also at that stage where I'm like, I know that, like, Nicolas
50:49
Cage is just going to be ridiculous in whatever he wants to be in,
50:52
and so I was kind of like that was my selling point. Is Nicholas
50:54
Cage is Dracula. Sure, I will say I went in with very low
50:58
expectations and early enjoyed it nice. So if you're not familiar with the story,
51:01
the story is Renfield, Dracula's assistant who is his familiar. He has
51:07
powers from eating insects, okay, and so like this. One of the
51:12
lore is like when he eats small animals, he gains like similar superhuman powers,
51:15
and he has continued to keep Dracula alive for all these years. Dracula
51:20
being Nicholas Cage, and there are moments where you see, you know,
51:22
Nicolas Cage coming through. It's not it's like it's Nicholas Cage just being Nicholas
51:27
Cage but dressed up like Dracula sometimes, okay, And it's very funny,
51:30
and it took a turn that I was not expecting, which the turn was
51:32
it's very John Wicky. Okay, Nicholas Holt as great as Renfield and just
51:37
beats the crap out of a lot of people for a very long time and
51:40
the story is kind of interesting and uh and then Aquafine is in it as
51:44
well, and she's very funny. So if you're not if you don't know
51:45
her work, she was in shang Chi, she was like the like the
51:50
co star and Shanchi and she was great in it. So yeah, it's
51:52
a great watch. It's a lot of fun. So I definitely recommend it.
51:53
Okay, So this isn't actually tied into like any of the big like
51:58
tent pole universes. This is just sort of its own funds side movie.
52:01
Yeah, and it's wonderful cool, all right, great, Well, if
52:07
you would like to tell us about a movie you've been enjoying as a recent
52:10
or would like to tell us something about pledging allegiance, or if you've pledge
52:14
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52:17
do it here and you want to agree with something else that we said you
52:20
should do that you can always give us some constructive criticism and that's okay too,
52:24
but we also look forward to that praise. You can reach us directly
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52:57
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53:00
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53:04
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for your support and helping make this podcast what it is. You're the best.
53:45
Yes, we love you so much, all right. Also, music
53:49
and editing by Justin Greenhouse, writing and fact checking by Shane, Selena,
53:52
Jess and myself. Thank you all so much for listening. We couldn't do
53:55
it without you. Is there anything that I missed or anything you'd like to
53:58
add before we wrap up? Shane, no, I think that's good.
54:01
I think that works perfect. All right. I pledge allegiance to the end
54:06
of this episode. M This is Abraham, this is Shane. We're out,
54:08
and I salute you've been listening to Why we do what we do.
54:14
You can learn more about this and other episodes by going to WWDWWD podcast dot
54:20
com. Thanks for listening, and we hope you have an awesome day.