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August 2001 - June 2017
The School Survival Forums are permanently retired. If you need help with quitting school, unsupportive parents or anything else, there is a list of resources on the Help Page.
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To everyone who joined these forums at some point, and got discouraged by the negativity and left after a while (or even got literally scared off): I'm sorry.
I wasn't good enough at encouraging people to be kinder, and removing people who refuse to be kind. Encouraging people is hard, and removing people creates conflict, and I hate conflict... so that's why I wasn't better at it.
I was a very, very sensitive teen. The atmosphere of this forum as it is now, if it had existed in 1996, would probably have upset me far more than it would have helped.
I can handle quite a lot of negativity and even abuse now, but that isn't the point. I want to help people. I want to help the people who need it the most, and I want to help people like the 1996 version of me.
I'm still figuring out the best way to do that, but as it is now, these forums are doing more harm than good, and I can't keep running them.
Thank you to the few people who have tried to understand my point of view so far. I really, really appreciate you guys. You are beautiful people.
Everyone else: If after everything I've said so far, you still don't understand my motivations, I think it's unlikely that you will. We're just too different. Maybe someday in the future it might make sense, but until then, there's no point in arguing about it. I don't have the time or the energy for arguing anymore. I will focus my time and energy on people who support me, and those who need help.
-SoulRiser
The forums are mostly read-only and are in a maintenance/testing phase, before being permanently archived. Please use this time to get the contact details of people you'd like to keep in touch with. My contact details are here.
Please do not make a mirror copy of the forums in their current state - things will still change, and some people have requested to be able to edit or delete some of their personal info.
My teacher yesterday commented after me as usual refusing to say the Pledge.
Teacher: Is there a problem?
Me: No, I just don't say the Pledge, that's all.
Teacher: Then you shouldn't live in this country.
A teacher in Florida was suspended for saying something eerily similar:
“In my classroom, everyone will do the Pledge; no religion says that you can’t do the Pledge. If you can’t put your hand on your heart, then you need to move out of the country.”
She used public embarrassment as a weapon the way I see it. I understand she may have been offended, but that's no way to treat anyone. I don't care who you are or what you do. Yeah, I don't like terrorists, either, and I still respect the fact they have the right to a fair trial unless the government labels them a terrorist. Then they can be sent of to G Bay. BS.
Besides, it's free speech. Sorry Dale Carnegie, I'm sticking with free speech on this one. And if my teacher can't accept a different opinion and free speech, SHE should move out of the country. (ohhhhhhh)
"Thou shalt not be an asshole"
-The one commandment of atheism.
SubCulture said "If you call xcriteria a shithead, he will write a ten page essay on why he is not a shithead, link you to a tedtalk on bullying and the tvtropes page on insults. After reading and watching all that you would evaluate your life and decide to never call anyone a shithead ever again."
Everyone has a right not to say the pledge. Men died to protect that right, and it would be for naught if no one exercised it.
My allegiance is to this nation's people, not its "republic" or its "flag". The day I say the pledge and mean it is the day I worship the corporations, the demagogues, and the bureaucracy.
Public Service Announcement: First world problems are still problems.
"Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence" - Donald Rumsfeld
For anyone who remembers me going on an archive binge: Thank you all. I know I ended it being a drama queen, I don't really agree with the ideology anymore, and I'm really not the same person I was (I went through a neopagan phase!) but still this site was the first online community I was in. I graduated from school and turned 18. Time flies. KFC Nyan Cat, June 20, 2019.
Quote:no religion says that you can’t do the Pledge
Matthew 5:34-37 But I say unto you, Swear not at all; neither by heaven; for it is God's throne: Nor by the earth; for it is his footstool: neither by Jerusalem; for it is the city of the great King. Neither shalt thou swear by thy head, because thou canst not make one hair white or black. But let your communication be, Yea, yea; Nay, nay: for whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil.
Quote:no religion says that you can’t do the Pledge
Matthew 5:34-37 But I say unto you, Swear not at all; neither by heaven; for it is God's throne: Nor by the earth; for it is his footstool: neither by Jerusalem; for it is the city of the great King. Neither shalt thou swear by thy head, because thou canst not make one hair white or black. But let your communication be, Yea, yea; Nay, nay: for whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil.
"Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence" - Donald Rumsfeld
For anyone who remembers me going on an archive binge: Thank you all. I know I ended it being a drama queen, I don't really agree with the ideology anymore, and I'm really not the same person I was (I went through a neopagan phase!) but still this site was the first online community I was in. I graduated from school and turned 18. Time flies. KFC Nyan Cat, June 20, 2019.
My school is moronically patriotic. It seems like about 25% of the students are in JROTC. Maybe it's less for the "lower" students but a depressing amount of the magnet students are in it...
And if you don't say the pledge, students will call you a "commie."
The teachers won't insult you but if someone is sitting down for the pledge they might yell "everyone stand up" in a shrill voice.
That said about half of the time I stand up and try to look like I'm saying the pledge but say "blah blah blah" under my breath, just to placate them.
Hello, traveler.
This is an ancient account I have not used in a long time. My views have changed much in the intervening months and years.
Nonetheless, I refuse to clean it up. Pretending that I've held my current views since the beginning of time is what we in the industry call a lie. Asking people to do so contributes to moralistic self-loathing. "See, those people have nothing damning! I do! I'm truly vile!"
Because you can never be a good person with a single blemish on the moral record, I thought that simply entertaining some thoughts made me irredeemable. Though I don't care for his writing style, William Faulkner presents a good counterexample. He went from being a typical Southern racist to supporting the civil rights movement. These days we'd yell at him for that, probably.
People are allowed to change their views.
Nevertheless, this period of my life has informed some of how I am today. In good ways and bad ways. To purge it would be to do a disservice to history. Perhaps it will not make anyone sympathetic, but it may help someone understand.
If, after reading all this, you still decide to use the post above as evidence that I am evil today, ask yourself if you have never disagreed with the moral code you now follow. In all likelihood you did, at some point. If some questions are verboten, and the answer is "how dare you ask that," don't expect your ideological opponents to ever change their minds.
Quote:In a 6-to-3 decision, the Court overruled its decision in Minersville School District v. Gobitis and held that compelling public schoolchildren to salute the flag was unconstitutional. The Court found that salutes of the type mandated by the West Virginia State Board of Education were forms of utterance and thus were a means of communicating ideas. "Compulsory unification of opinion," the Court held, was doomed to failure and was antithetical to the values set forth in the First Amendment. Writing for the majority, Justice Jackson eloquently stated: "If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein." To underscore its decision, the Supreme Court announced it on Flag Day.
(This post was last modified: 04-13-2014 04:00 AM by vonunov.)
i haven't said the pledge once this year, and it's in the middle of april.
no one has confronted me about it ever, but i have been quite lucky on getting seats in the back of the room. i do not believe in saying the pledge. i do not worship the flag.
04-17-2014 11:50 AM
Thanks given by:
James Comey
Banished Oldfaf in Exile
Posts: 6,500
Joined: Aug 2013
Once I got to like eighth grade I stood up with everyone else but just stayed silent and didn't put my hand over my heart. Speaking of that, what the actual fuck does putting your hand over your heart mean? In what way does that make the things you're saying any more sincere/otherwise? As soon as I realized what the pledge meant I hated it.
at some point I just stopped standing up, I got told something a couple of times, I told the teacher if he really wants to make it an issue send me to the office and we'll see who gets in trouble. They never took it that far.
Like you already said, I love how she contradicts herself or himself. You know, ignoring the right to freedom of expression. Gotta love education in 'murica. Do this or GET OUT! Mentality.
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