Life's Bullshit

The USA Took My Baby Away

By Player 2 ⋅ December 25, 2007 ⋅  Email this post ⋅  Print this post ⋅ Post a comment

So, I said I had some more to talk about, and now I guess I will. I wanted to se ehow things turned out before I wrote about it.

So, in order to work as a teacher in the state of California, one has to swear to the Oath of Allegiance It goes a little something like this…and I quizote:

I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend

the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of

the State of California against all enemies, foreign and

domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the

Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the

State of California; that I take this obligation freely, without

any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will

well and faithfully discharge the duties upon which I am about

to enter. 

Lame. First of all, I DO have mental reservations to signing this, and I don’t take it freely. They’re making me sign this to work as a teacher. MAKING ME, so it’s not like I’m doing it freely at all.

What’s the big deal? Well, the part that really gets me is the whole “I will..defend the constitution…against all enemies, foreign and domestic.” I’m not going to defend shit. They make officers of the military say this oath. I’m not taking up arms against anyone, ever. Not only do I not agree with any of the wars we’ve fought in since World War II, but I’d probably kill myself before I killed anyone else.

It’s pretty insane that they make teachers say this oath. They even make UC graduate students say this to get aid from the government, from what I can understand. Totally weird, lame, and bullshit.

I basically was faced with a choice: I could not sign it, feel good about myself and never become a teacher, or I could sign it, rub some dirt on my morals a bit, and just hope it never comes up again. I’ve wanted to be a teacher most my life, and recently I decided to hold off on that for a while, but I was still trying to get a job working for the Torrance district, maybe doing some networking. I didn’t want to have to throw it all away because of some oath.

When I went to turn in my insane amount of paperwork, and the man at the window found that I hadn’t signed the oath, I asked him if I really had to. He said yeah. So I added a bunch of stuff under the oath in a blank space, saying that my duties are limited to that of a teacher, I’m never taking up arms for an country and am not expected to by signing the paper, and that the signature and the paper and everything becomes null and void when I leave the job for whatever reason.

I’m not sure how legal what I did is, nor am I too sure what people are going to do when they see that. Maybe the government will put me on a black list, thinking I’m a communist or something. Maybe the school board will deny me later in life. Hell, maybe a couple guys in suits will be waiting for me when I go to get my TB test. I mean, this is part of the Homeland Security bullshit that we’re all paying so much for.

Whatever happens, at least I spoke my peace.

You’ve just been spooned, via spooner.