A substitute teacher in the Parkway South School District in suburban St. Louis County, Mo. was fired after thanking students for reciting the Pledge of Allegiance.  I kid you not.

According to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch:

A substitute teacher who has taught for years at Parkway South High School claims school administrators banned him from working there after he thanked students for saying the Pledge of Allegiance and a student complained. ...

"There are always two or three who don't stand up because it's not required[," Furkin said.  "]So at the end of the pledge I said, 'Thanks to all of you that participated in that. I'm sure that all of those families who lost loved ones so that we could enjoy the freedoms we have today would appreciate the effort.'"

Furkin said a student asked to go to the school counselor's office, so Furkin wrote the student a pass to go. Later on, he said, a school administrator questioned Furkin about what happened and told him that a student had been "hurt" by what was said after the pledge. ...

["T]he next day after that, I'm no longer welcome in the building."

So now, in America, we punish people for good citizenship.

It's not enough that these schools do not make students take the Pledge; they aren't even required to stand for it.  This used to be basic civics, and a part of public education was teaching kids to love and respect their country.  In bygone times, kids actually prayed in public schools; now you cannot even thank children for showing basic respect to their country.

School district officials say they fired the teacher for "bullying" his students.

The Progressive educrats have been building toward this for some time now.  Take this story, where a Colorado teacher was charged with child abuse for forcing a student to stand for the Pledge last February.  Or how about this incident in Blue Island, Illinois, from 2017, where a teacher got fired for confronting a student who refused to stand for the Pledge?

The Pledge of Allegiance is a pledge of citizenship for Americans.  Children used to be made to recite it no matter their – or their parents' – personal views of this country because it was rightly understood that children needed to be taught the value of their nation.  The Pledge is not nationalistic aggrandizement, but merely a pledge of basic loyalty and an acknowledgment of civil society.  It's a way to make children understand that there is more than just their immediate self-interest.  Strange – Hillary and her Progressive buddies claim that "it takes a village" to raise a child, yet they do everything possible to undermine the villagers efforts to inculcate civic virtue.

I find it fascinating that the same people who would defend Americans refusing to say the Pledge are the same people who foster alien immigration to this country.  When an immigrant becomes a citizen, he takes a pledge that is substantively not at all different from the Pledge of Allegiance made by U.S. citizens.  Our Progressive friends are quick to administer the Oath of Citizenship but are slow to defend the Pledge of Allegiance.  Now, why is that?  Nobody thinks immigrants ill used when they take their pledge.  For that matter, why are so many foreigners eager to pledge their allegiance to the United States while so many of our own citizens detest the concept?  If America is so terrible, perhaps we should start banning entry to foreign-born.  If we build a wall, we would be doing a kindness to the illegal aliens wanting to come here – keeps them out of this hellhole that is so unworthy of our allegiance.

As Rogers and Hammerstein pointed out in South Pacific, "you have to be carefully taught."  What has just happened at Parkway South taught a lesson to the students: that love of country is a bad thing, and anyone who objects to anything can get his way.  Firing this teacher did untold damage to the students at this school.  It taught them that their country was not worthy of respect.

How can a nation teach its young to hate or disrespect their own country and expect to survive?  America is splintering under this sort of thing.  We will be qualitatively not at all different from the Austro-Hungarian empire if this continues.

A nation that refuses to teach her people respect of country is destined for the ash heap of history.  I suppose that would suit the Progressives just fine.

Read more from Tim and friends at The Aviary www.tbirdnow.mee.nu.