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Is there a chance that you are talking about two separate people and comparing them because you think one is much different than the other. I didn't see you say anything about what your cousin thinks about the Pledge of Allegiance. Is there a chance that not all Republicans are acceptant of those two words in the Pledge and that your cousin might be one of those?
I was responding to another poster (Navyapproved) who used this thread to post a vitriolic diatribe against liberals and I quote again:
"the liberals hate everything good, uplifting, positive etc., In other words, they hate anything and everything that contributes or tends to contribute to individual success and self-reliance. They like quite little helpless "subjects", not competent, capable citizens. Too easy to fool the former and hard to fool and/or control the latter."
How is it you attack me for going off topic but you say nothing about this post?
If you read what I wrote, I was CLEARLY stating my deep respect for my cousin, regardless of our political differences. I've never asked his thoughts on the Pledge. Bottom line is he is THOUGHTFUL person and would never make such ridculous, stereotypical remarks about LIBERALS (or CONSERVATIVES).
He might be for the pledge as it is or against it. I am sure he has a well reasoned viewpoint, be it for or against. Not foolish stereotpypes about this group or that group.
Somebody please, please explain how rote memorization and recital of a loyalty pledge - in a group, and led by an authority figure, no less - is in any way, shape or form linked to "individual success", let alone "self-reliance"? The entire ritual rewards those who conform and obey authority and singles out those who stray from the government-approved groupthink.
As I may have posted previously, I first learned of teacher-led loyalty oaths in schools when watching a documentary on life in the Soviet Union.
Exactly.
+1 rep. Thanks for being a voice of reason in a place that has become a sea of irrational hate and fear in the past few months.
People who cling to man-made devices like the pledge are the ones wearing blinders. It's they who are insecure, and that is why they do it, to prove to themselves and the world that they are "good" Americans. It approaches classism and has always reminded me of old black & white film clips I've seen about how Nazis and Soviets handled their schoolchildren.
"Individualism" my foot. It's blindly surrendering individuality to the State. For Pete's sake, the text of the pledge says it all - "indivisible". It's a creepy, cultish thing and I wish it would go away.
The Pledge of Allegiance is not a religious prayer and its a shame that people think that... I don't mind going back to the original Pledge but I don't like it when people infer that it is "religious" in some fashion... One word does NOT make it a religious doctrine...
Of course it is a religious prayer pure and simple, which is why people who take religion REALLY serious like Amish, JW's etc don't let their children recite it.
During the 1999 - 2000 school year, my son, a senior, led the Pledge each day on classroom intercoms for the whole school. Afterward he always read the menu for the school lunch. That worked very well because he sometimes ad libbed on the meal part by throwing in some cute things like "smothered snake" instead of smothered steak.
That's nice for your son, good work.
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Also, his voice lent itself to all those things very well and for that he was selected by those authority figures you talk about.
I am really not seeing your point here. So one kid out if the student body got to lead the pledge, and that somehow makes it an expression of self-reliance and individuality? Was he free to change the words? No?
Then he stepped up for conformity and supported authority. Which may be an OK thing in a school, but don't try to tell me that the pledge is an expression of individuality or self-reliance, because it so obviously isn't.
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How many children would know about how bad those two words make the Pledge of Allegiance if it weren't for adults who tell them about it?
How many children would recite the pledge in the first place if it wasn't for "adults who tell them about it" - or, more preceisely, to do it.
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Surely there is some inbred thing that would make them realize how bad they are.
It was a stupid, McCarthyite idea to mess with the pledge - but frankly, the entire thing strikes me as a 1930s anachronism.
+1 rep. Thanks for being a voice of reason in a place that has become a sea of irrational hate and fear in the past few months.
People who cling to man-made devices like the pledge are the ones wearing blinders. It's they who are insecure, and that is why they do it, to prove to themselves and the world that they are "good" Americans. It approaches classism and has always reminded me of old black & white film clips I've seen about how Nazis and Soviets handled their schoolchildren.
"Individualism" my foot. It's blindly surrendering individuality to the State. For Pete's sake, the text of the pledge says it all - "indivisible". It's a creepy, cultish thing and I wish it would go away.
They are Americans more in form than in substance.
I'm not a huge fan of the 'under god' part of the pledge, so I didn't say it. I stood up and stood silently until the pledge was over and then sat down. Some say that the addition of 'under god' made us stronger as a nation, but I don't believe in gods of any type so that is intrinsically dividing me (and the rest of the non believers) from the rest of the country. I think we should be indivisible, but since non-believers aren't included, doesn't that make it an oath of divisibility?
I was never in a class room, as a student, or as a teacher, that didn't have a small American flag hanging in one corner, usually at the front of the room. I never said that pledge without that flag being there and would make sure it was if it, for any reason wasn't.
I was amazed when at a college basketball game the pledge was recited by the crowd before the game and I heard the words "under God" recited. That was in 1957 and I was recently our of the Army and didn't know that during the time I was in the Army they had been inserted. Back then I was one of the most liberal people I knew of but those words didn't bother me because I didn't think about them politically.
Yes, most of you people weren't around back then but I have not been able to see the reason for not liking them other than purely political. I see you who have tried to answer evilnewbie here as libs who just want to do just that to avoid anything that could be Christian.
My high school classroom was without a flag for a number of years. Every morning my students stood and pledged the empty bracket on the wall.
By the time I left the classroom, I was a strong proponent for doing away with the daily Pledge ritual. At least half of my students were foreign born and their "allegiance" could be to any one of a number of countries. I made all students stand, but most did not recite the Pledge. Those who did, did so like robots, which was almost worse than not saying it at all.
Great post. It is too bad that mostly liberals have entered the thread and had to attack evilnewbie and ignore the very thing the thread is about. I wonder how popular Skelton would be these days since he never used foul language, or involved pure sex in his comedy. I am sure he could never be seen on Comedy Central because of the way he talked and the possibility that his lack of foul language just wouldn't be funny to our present population.
I am sure that if any of these people had seen that one from Skelton they would have stopped watching him altogether.
Roy, give it up, please.
Red Skelton reflected the attitudes and standards of his times. Today's comedians do exactly the same. It's not the 1950s and it never will be again.
I, for one, am very happy about that.
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