No: Reciting the Pledge of Allegiance is a personal choice

Standing up for the pledge of allegiance is a choice, and it should stay that way. If someone doesn’t want to stand up for the pledge, they should not be ostracized for their choice. Many people believe not standing up for the Pledge is a disrespect to those who serve our country, or to our ancestors. However, not standing up is not about disrespecting anyone, it’s about being educated about what the Pledge actually is.

First off, any sort of Pledge of Allegiance is an oath stating your loyalty to any certain person or country. Frankly, there are many people that go to our school who aren’t even from the United States, so why should they be forced to state their undying loyalty to our country? We shouldn’t look down on those who just aren’t from America.

Next you have the controversial line “under god”. It was added in the 1950s during the Cold War in order to combat atheism, which at the time signaled that you might be associated with  communism. Newsflash: the Cold War is over, and the US constitution claims to not be bounded by any certain religion. Here in the US, we have people of many different religions, so forcing someone to state their allegiance under a power they may not believe in would just be cruel.

Some claim that not reciting the Pledge every Monday is an offense to those who serve our country. But think about it this way: our troops are defending our freedoms, so why not exercise them? I’m not saying that it is bad to recite the pledge, but we have troops that work hard to protect our freedoms, so we shouldn’t condemn those who exercise them.

Instead of wondering why people don’t stand up for the Pledge, I challenge you to ask yourself why you do stand for the Pledge. The moral of the story here is that to every person, the pledge has a different meaning. To some, it’s just something that you do every Monday. To others, it’s an important task that they feel compelled to do. But for others, it just doesn’t work, or it doesn’t make sense, and there is absolutely no problem with that.