For those of you that have commented and claim the the US is a Christian nation, I will point you to article 11 of the Treaty of Tripoli – “As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion…” Go ahead, look it up. It was ratified by the Senate and signed by President Adams in 1797.

I’m happy to leave it at that too. Cheers.

yeah!

Except in 1954. And a couple of times before that.
But. Yeah! What he said!

@136 Messier Tidy Upper – I’m not American so maybe I should stay out of this debate. But I’m not going to.

Hah! The same thing applies to me. I’m an Aussie.

Your questions are highly leading and conflate many issues.

I completely disagree on that.

Your country has evolved.

Of course. All nations and cultures evolve constantly. Some get better, others seem to get worse.

At one point there was no pledge. Then there was the original pledge. Then the pledge was modified. At each point a majority, I’m assuming in your government, thought things were not “good enough” and instituted these changes. Are you saying they did not believe in American values? Are you saying they were unpatriotic? etc.

Not at all. I’m talking about a lot more than just the pledge here.

Loving your country and thinking it and its values are the best does not imply you think it is perfect, should remain static and should never change.

Naturally. When have I said otherwise? But I *am* saying you should love your country and believe in its values and be at least a bit patriotic. This is NOT incompatible with saying we can’t improve or should never change – which is an impossibility anyhow.

The argument here is between different stands of patriotic americanism debating how they want the US to continue to develop, legally and culturally. If western style freedom is about anything in a democracy it is about the right to debate how the future will be different from the past, how things are improved.

Is it? Maybe it is, maybe it ain’t. What does seem to be the case here is that NBC have taken a symbolic patriotic pledge and edited it to reflect their own political and ideological preferences which is disrespectful and, predictably, has upset lots of people.

Playing Leftwing “liberal” politics, making reasoned and reasonable arguments is one thing, but playing Leftwing “liberal” politics to annoy and hurt the feelings of the majority of a population is something else. It’s being petty, disrespectful and insulting.

A separate debate is how you bring about that change. Do you restrict your actions to the strictly legal, obeying what you think are bad laws until through the democratic process you get them changed and/or abolished, or do you engage in acts of civil disobediance until you get the law changed, disobeying laws you think are iniquitous? Now that is a whole other can of worms!

Indeed it is and one I’m not opening. Another separate story.

Actually that is a question. Possibly, in the context of what it was showing and the audience it was likely to attract, NBC was insensitive in dropping the god bit of the pledge. Perhaps it had an agenda.

Oh it had agenda alright that much seems clear. There’s not much “possibly” about it – or about the fact that NBC *was* insensitive there.

Perhaps it was part of a patriotic campaign to improve the US and move it to what many would see as a better future that many wnat (i.e. a god free one). But was what it did illegal?

Not illegal – just stupid, disrespectful and counter-productive. It’s created a minor storm in a teacup, upset some people and probably lost some viewers and aggravated those who disagree. Not a big deal but not something that reflects at all well on them or those who support what they did.

Whether or not you think the pledge should include “Under God”, whether or not you think the pledge should be said at all, I think you should respect those who *do* have that view and not behave like jerks to them which NBC in this case did. Its about basic manners and courtesy in my view.

Campaign to change the pledge, say it how you prefer it or not at all – fine. Your choice and your responsibility. But when other people say it as *they* please, then please don’t mutiliate and alter *their* words with the express intention of cheesing them off to make some minor ideological point of your own.

Personally I’m left wing and liberal.

Well, personally, I’m apolitical and use my own mind considering the evidence and thinking for myself rather than following *any* political ideology. I think the Right-wing gets it right on some issues and the Left wing gets it right on others and both “wings” are very often badly, damagingly wrong.

And I think that western culture has much to recommend it. But I don’t think it is perfect and I think it has a long way to go before it will truly be what I’d like it to be or even what it often pretends it already is! And I also think that we can learn from the rest of the world and from history

On that we agree.

In short, even if our current states are the best place in the world and in history to live lets get off our high horses, get our heads out of our arses, adopt some humility and be prepared to learn, to grow and to change.

You can do all that and still have pride inyour country, still be patriotic and still actually answer those questions I asked.

Yes, its fair enough to have humility and be willing to learn and grow and change. Its another to be constantly bashing your own culture and nation and supporting its enemies and their cultures which too many people on the Leftwing side appear to be doing in my view.

No. I do grok what you are saying, but I have to stand firm that going from the pledge of allegiance to shadows of Nazi Germany is silly. We just have to disagree on that. Peace out.

It seems a valid thing to bring to the discussion, if only as an indication of how your tradition appears to those outside the USA. You seem to be just as sensitive to the comparison of the behaviour (which is valid, unlike the fear I suggested we may have) as you claim we are being to the pledge itself.

In the end, if the pledge is as harmless as you say it is, then that’s fine. In fact you said so earlier that is was just a tradition. Just don’t complain when someone compares your tradition to other similar ones.

—————–

PayasYouStargaze: Even though we know it’s an irrational fear, those can be very difficult to rid yourself of.

Fine. That doesn’t make it a valid thing to dump into this discussion, however.

@Mike #28:

As an agnostic

Liar.

@ScottL #46:

I am an atheist

Liar.

A separate debate is how you bring about that change. Do you restrict your actions to the strictly legal, obeying what you think are bad laws until through the democratic process you get them changed and/or abolished, or do you engage in acts of civil disobediance until you get the law changed, disobeying laws you think are iniquitous? Now that is a whole other can of worms!

Actually that is a question. Possibly, in the context of what it was showing and the audience it was likely to attract, NBC was insensitive in dropping the god bit of the pledge. Perhaps it had an agenda. Perhaps it was part of a patriotic campaign to improve the US and move it to what many would see as a better future that many wnat (i.e. a god free one). But was what it did illegal?

Personally I’m left wing and liberal. And I think that western culture has much to recommend it. But I don’t think it is perfect and I think it has a long way to go before it will truly be what I’d like it to be or even what it often pretends it already is! And I also think that we can learn from the rest of the world and from history

In short, even if our current states are the best place in the world and in history to live lets get off our high horses, get our heads out of our arses, adopt some humility and be prepared to learn, to grow and to change.

My view on this is as follows. We’re not here thinking “look at those brainwashed Americans, soon they’ll be starting a world war”. I have no doubt that there are some out there who think that, but the commenters I’ve seen here don’t appear to do so.

No. It is just an uncomfortable reminder of terrible stuff that has shaped our history. Living history because there is still a large percentage of out population that experienced it first hand. It’s not just the Nazis, our neighbours had this much more recently under Franco, for example.

Even though we know it’s an irrational fear, those can be very difficult to rid yourself of. Even then, the pledge doesn’t bother me that much.

That’s because it reminds them of something.

Why should citizens pledge allegiance to a Republic in the first place?
States exist to service the interests of its citizens, NOT the other way around.
Pressing children into doing it it is nothing short of attempted indoctrination.
It doesn’t matter what it is trying to indoctrinate, governments should not do that.
It is inherently evil.

That’s what I’d really like to know.

People are people but cultures are just ideas about varying customs and ways of thinking.

All individual human people deserve the same respect, inalienable human rights and basic decent treatment – all *ideas* do NOT.

Some cultural ideas are just plain wrong. Such as the idea widely held in some worse cultures of treating some people eg. women and gays and other ethic groups as deserving less respect, less rights, less say.

Is what I’m saying really that hard to grasp?

Questions I’d really like those who identify themselves as Left-wing and Liberal to answer, please :

1. Do you believe the American way, the Western way, is the best in the world; that our values & ideas are better than others – or not?

2. Do you support your country and your nation’s values – are you patriotic – or not?

3. Do you really think that a nation or culture that represses, oppresses and even murders many of its people (& other people too) deserves to be held in equal esteem and regard to one that listens to and respects all of its people and allows them (the people) to choose its leader and be treated equally?

A ”Yes’ or a ‘No’ to each please.

—-

On that note, I’m going to bed, I’m tired and drunk enough – and, no, I can’t believe I’m talking about this again either. Except I do think it matters and I do feel this strongly. Oh & I do think I’m a good person and I dont give a fig about skin colour or genetics or what-not else. It is what folks *think* and how they act that matters, IMHON.

Oh & results and evidence obviously natch.

You are saying kids in the USA reciting a pledge is worse than a system that actively sought out and murdered talented people.

No, I’m not saying anything like that. You are the one extending a symbolic act to the entirety of Soviet and Nazi evil. The hyperbole is yours.

abadidea: It seems like Europeans are crawling out of the woodwork in this thread to say the EXACT same thing… that mandatory oaths of loyalty from children remind them of… a certain something….

PayasYouStargaze: I think we’re just rather sensitive to this sort of nationalist behaviour after what our grandparents went through.

Having flashbacks of Nazism because some kids snore their way through a dumb pledge in the USA is a bit more than “rather sensitive”. Seriously, if you see Hitler in this you need a vacation or something. This is shameful nonsense no better than what we hear from the creationists or the anti-vaxxers. You two need to turn in your skeptics badges and decoder rings.

Gus Snarp: Doesn’t it sound more like something out of 1984 or Stalin’s Soviet Union

Not really, no.

Gus Snarp: (though I don’t believe even they did something similar)

Are you joking? Under Stalin, a child’s entire life, in school with highly censored education, and outside school via youth groups, was dedicated to being a good little nationalist and communist and adding to the manufactured glory of Stalin’s personality cult.

The talented ones probably grew up to die young in the Purges of the 1930s. You are saying kids in the USA reciting a pledge is worse than a system that actively sought out and murdered talented people.

What is it with the hyperbole in this thread? You’d think it was about abortion or creationism in the schools. This is a *nothing* topic.