Arizona Bills Push Patriotic Oaths In Schools

[Purveyor]

PHOENIX -- Two state representatives have proposed bills requiring Arizona students to show more respect for their country in a move that is stirring constitutional arguments and a threat of lawsuits.

All public high school seniors would have to recite an oath supporting the U.S. Constitution to be able to graduate, under a proposal in House Bill 2467 sponsored by Republican Rep. Bob Thorpe of Flagstaff.

And all students in first through 12th grades would have to say the Pledge of Allegiance each day if House Bill 2284, sponsored by Republican Rep. Steve Smith of Maricopa passes.

MORE...

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/01/23/bills-push-patriotic-oaths-in-schools/1860437/

[onehandle]

1. Loons. nt

[grilled onions]

2. When We Have Bigger Problems They Fret Over This

When they don't even grasp the "..with liberty and justice for all" what is the point? They would like to expel a huge number of people in this country from the sick,elderly,those without papers,those with papers but don't look Merican enough,don't speak Merican enough,many of the troops who come back with injuries physical,mental or have finally opened their eyes to the real tragedy they were involved in yet here they are expecting everyone to look at that flag--that piece of cloth and burst with pride. Many of those students will go home to a shelter,a vehicle with little to eat with a family wondering where their next meal or their next job will be coming from. Let's get America and ALL it's citizens back on their feet before we start reciting.

[Smilo]

3. Hey Arizona, please tell us how

you have managed to sort out all of your problems - because if you have come up with this ludicrous ideas, they obviously have nothing else to work on /snark.

[TM99]

4. WTF?!

I was an exchange student to Germany in the 1980's. I spoke with so many older men and women who grew up under Hitler and the Nazi regime.

This is the kind of nationalistic & jingoistic bullshit that they described in the run up to all out fascist control of a once great country.

I wish, as someone who has lived now in AZ for over 20 years, that this was a shocking surprise to me, but it simply isn't. The amount of outright bullshit and insane stupidity is simply epic here now.

[SheilaT]

5. Back in the 1950's Arizona required a loyalty oath of all teachers.

A couple of teachers (who actually were a couple) refused to sign the loyalty oath. I'm kind of thinking they belonged to some religion that was against such things. In any case, they taught for several years without pay, and for the first four or five or maybe more of those years the district actually set aside the money for their paychecks, finally ceasing to do so. A year or two later, their court case finally completed (I honestly don't recall whether it was the state supreme court or the federal one) and the school had to give them all of their back pay.

I'm a bit fuzzy on the details, but it happened in the school district I attended in Arizona in the early 1960's.

[47of74]

6. And the dumbfuckery continues in Arizona

[lonestarnot]

7. WITF and WITF! Where do these people come from?