Mass. Town Will NOW Let Students Recite Pledge of Allegiance

[Darth Laidher]

Well, it was the one I was responding to.

Erm, wouldn't that make us the one's more annoyed about it ... if it was actually a terrible, terrible world we lived in over here.

Oh, no, wait ... it's not. It's actually quite pleasant really. Lots of flags out in the EU atm due to the footie, but once that's over, we mostly go back to being normal, non-obsessive patriotic people. It probably helps that our countries have so many borders - shows us that Johnny Foreigner is not so different, nor from a strange, scary country. Thus we don't feel so protective of our own. Yes, we sometimes despair at the EU, but in general it's a force for good. Hell, our EU is in some aspect like your US.

Since when has it been wrong to believe in your country and be proud of where your from? being patriotic doesn't mean throngs of people saying hail Hitler lol.Being different can be a good thing, setting yourself apart from that country next door gives you a sense of who you are.But i guess to you everyone is the same no matter where you come from,The centuries of history and culture are nothing any more.

[Memphis]

Well let me rephrase it then: There is no reason whatsoever to pledge allegiance to a country you have been born in by pure chance at all. You can still be loyal to a country without doing so.

Pledging is you stating your loyalty, I'm sorry, but you are not a loyal citizen if you REFUSE to verbally pledge support. You right, those people randomly born here who don't want to show their loyalty should immigrate to a country they like and pledge to them.

[nw2001]

Congrats. You presented a strawman to what his argument was:

In fact he never argued for what you claim he argued, this post previously before:

This post doesn't claim that things will fall apart, but that rather people cannot just decide to do any thing they choose to do and not expect some sort of repercussions for it. A person cannot just decide to not pay taxes without repercussion. Similarly, a person understands he cannot kill people and not expect to go to jail if caught. There are limits to what a person can and cannot do. We work within those limits and it is wrong to expect those limits to change based on our personal fancies.

except nothing happens if you skip prayer.

[Elliot B.]

Pledging is you stating your loyalty, I'm sorry, but you are not a loyal citizen if you REFUSE to verbally pledge support.

This frustrates me. I'm simply going to stop watching this topic.

[Darth Laidher]

I reported two...

first of all i didn't edit anything and second after a certain amount of time you can't edit them.when you said there were two the time had already ran out to edit my posts.

[nw2001]

Pledging is you stating your loyalty, I'm sorry, but you are not a loyal citizen if you REFUSE to verbally pledge support. You right, those people randomly born here who don't want to show their loyalty should immigrate to a country they like and pledge to them.

If it is expected for a citizen to be loyal to a country, why do I need to verbally say so? Is it not expected of me to be loyal? You need proof? And to be fair not everyone can afford to just randomly move hundreds of miles so that argument is crap.

[Kirkburn]

Since when has it been wrong to believe in your country and be proud of where your from? being patriotic doesn't mean throngs of people saying hail Hitler lol.Being different can be a good thing, setting yourself apart from that country next door gives you a sense of who you are.But i guess to you everyone is the same no matter where you come from,The centuries of history and culture are nothing any more.

GODWIN'D!, and bonus strawman.

Anyway, I said no such thing. No-one here has said such a thing. (The US barely has much history compared to other countries anyway ;) )

Pledging is you stating your loyalty, I'm sorry, but you are not a loyal citizen if you REFUSE to verbally pledge support. You right, those people randomly born here who don't want to show their loyalty should immigrate to a country they like and pledge to them.

Why verbally? What does disloyal actually mean? What are the results of such supposed disloyalty? What if someone not born in the US recited the pledge? How do you tell if someone means it when they recite it?

[Eric Veteran]

Please keep the discussion related to the topic.

Hint: This topic is not about cry-baby pictures or personal insults.

[Rodrigo]

ITT: Excessive patriots trying to defend useless habits.

Yeah because patriotism ALWAYS leads to good things (nazism) :rolleyes:.

[+Frank B. Subscriber²]

Pledging is you stating your loyalty, I'm sorry, but you are not a loyal citizen if you REFUSE to verbally pledge support. You right, those people randomly born here who don't want to show their loyalty should immigrate to a country they like and pledge to them.

I conform to the laws and the constitution of the country I happen to live in, I pay my taxes, I vote. I don't see anything else I should have to do to prove my loyalty. Most definitely not a prayer-like pledge.

[Memphis]

If it is expected for a citizen to be loyal to a country, why do I need to verbally say so? Is it not expected of me to be loyal? You need proof? And to be fair not everyone can afford to just randomly move hundreds of miles so that argument is crap.

If it is expected that when you pull a loan on a house that you will pay the lender back then why must you sign a contract? Its the same thing, you must verbally state your agreement. This is not an issue of left vs right, liberal vs Conservative. This is purely an issue of loyalty to your country. You can be loyal and sit at almost any position on the political spectrum.

I conform to the laws and the constitution of the country I happen to live in, I pay my taxes, I vote. I don't see anything else I should have to do to prove my loyalty. Most definitely not a prayer-like pledge.

Good for you, I'm glad you don't live in America, we need less people like you. Your probably the type that would run from a draft.

[Kirkburn]

If it is expected that when you pull a loan on a house that you will pay the lender back then why must you sign a contract? Its the same thing, you must verbally state your agreement. This is not an issue of left vs right, liberal vs Conservative. This is purely an issue of loyalty to your country.

Very interesting take on it, but generally you sign a contract before it comes into effect. As an American, it makes no damn difference whether you verbally state an agreement or not. The contract began when you were born a US citizen. There's no need to reaffirm it all the time.

Certainly it doesn't require a reciting from rote a specific set of words. That is often the kind of thing you find in overbearing state systems, sort of getting close to propaganda - the idea that if you get someone to say it enough times, they'll believe it more. Actually, they'll probably just remember the words better.

You can be loyal and sit at almost any position on the political spectrum.

And without having to restate it every day, too. You are loyal by your actions, not your words.

Good for you, I'm glad you don't live in America, we need less people like you. Your probably the type that would run from a draft.

Woah, where did that come from?

[Memphis]

Very interesting take on it, but generally you sign a contract before it comes into effect. As an American, it makes no damn difference whether you verbally state an agreement or not. The contract began when you were born a US citizen. There's no need to reaffirm it all the time.

Certainly it doesn't require a reciting from rote a specific set of words. That is often the kind of thing you find in overbearing state systems, sort of getting close to propaganda - the idea that if you get someone to say it enough times, they'll believe it more. Actually, they'll probably just remember the words better.

And without having to restate it every day, too. You are loyal by your actions, not your words.

Woah, where did that come from?

I will agree in saying that theirs no reason to affirm it all the time or every day, but remember this article is about a group of teachers who refuse to recite the pledge at all.

Propaganda? Do you even know the definition of propaganda?

Again, these teachers refuse to recite it at all.

As for my comment to him, people who say it is good enough that I obey that law and vote, I don't need to do anything else are the types in America who will dodge Selective Service registration or the draft.

[zhangm Supervisor]

I conform to the laws and the constitution of the country I happen to live in, I pay my taxes, I vote. I don't see anything else I should have to do to prove my loyalty. Most definitely not a prayer-like pledge.

I don't see why people ascribe such importance to words rather than simply accepting actions as sufficient. Surely one would expect Obama's popularity be extremely high, given how often he pledges to do things, but clearly, people find that mere statements are inferior to acts. The act of pledging is essentially worthless compared to the opportunity to teach these kids how to think.

[nw2001]

I will agree in saying that theirs no reason to affirm it all the time or every day, but remember this article is about a group of teachers who refuse to recite the pledge at all.

Propaganda? Do you even know the definition of propaganda?

Again, these teachers refuse to recite it at all.

As for my comment to him, people who say it is good enough that I obey that law and vote, I don't need to do anything else are the types in America who will dodge Selective Service registration or the draft.

Drafting isn't even ethical to begin with. Using it as a basis for a argument is ridiculous.

[tch1005]

they are still teaching you about that religion. IE if we had a Islamic class we would have a lot less "all arabs are terrorist" idiots in this country.

and if you read any of my posts. I respect peoples religious choices, I also have never have stated weather or not I am religious. however I will not respect the athiests who try forcing there beleifs or are not tolerant of others choices, because they are doing exactly what they say they are against

oh god! lets play insult the dyslexic who isn't good at spelling! I dont really care if you make fun of my spelling. I have already put up with bitchy teachers. :)

2 minutes? smoking a bit of crack? try 30 seconds tops. not to mention we spend more time with other worthless ****.

Let's play the "disability card" - I don't care if you're dyslexic, and the last I could tell, there was no mention of you ever stating that you were dyslexic - For what it's worth, so am I, but I know the fundamentals of grammar to distinguish the difference of "our" [a possessive] and "are" [a conjugation of the verb 'to be'], not to mention, they sound completely different... However! I'm sorry if you took offence to me singling you out, because you're dyslexic - I'm just a grammar and spelling nazi to preserve the English language from ambiguity.

By the way, I'm Canadian, so I quite frankly don't know how long it takes to say the pledge of allegiance, and the actual length is irrelevant as it's still a waste of time that could be used for instruction, or to check to see if any student has a weapon. Patriotism is a weapon - It's almost a religion, our country is great, our leader is great, and we can do no wrong - if you dare question the dear leader, and the powers that be, [Dramatic voice] YOU SHALL BURN IN THE FIRES OF HELLA!!!! [/Dramatic Voice]

But I must agree, everyone is too pre?ccupied with more useless shaz, like what colour the president is, as opposed to "will he make a good leader", or is this or that person an "evil" hómó-sèx-ùwál, than, say, He has good ideas, keep him in office.

So, I will just sum it up as, Humans, in general, are stupid, and can't seem to prioritize what is important, and therefore, make stupid judgment calls,[weird: Judgment, no "e", misjudgement, with an "e" ??? I have a lot of work to do :-?] and ultimately, shag every thing and everyone up in the process...

[Memphis]

Very interesting take on it, but generally you sign a contract before it comes into effect. As an American, it makes no damn difference whether you verbally state an agreement or not. The contract began when you were born a US citizen. There's no need to reaffirm it all the time.

Certainly it doesn't require a reciting from rote a specific set of words. That is often the kind of thing you find in overbearing state systems, sort of getting close to propaganda - the idea that if you get someone to say it enough times, they'll believe it more. Actually, they'll probably just remember the words better.

And without having to restate it every day, too. You are loyal by your actions, not your words.

Woah, where did that come from?

I don't see why people ascribe such importance to words rather than simply accepting actions as sufficient. Surely one would expect Obama's popularity be extremely high, given how often he pledges to do things, but clearly, people find that mere statements are inferior to acts.

Words are the precursor to actions. Notice Obama had to make the promises first. This is the same thing. If one cannot even make the promise or pledge to their country, what makes you think they are gonna do anything else.

Drafting isn't even ethical to begin with. Using it as a basis for a argument is ridiculous.

Drafting in time of all out war is perfectly acceptable. Dodging selective service registration shows pure disloyalty.

[Kirkburn]

I will agree in saying that theirs no reason to affirm it all the time or every day, but remember this article is about a group of teachers who refuse to recite the pledge at all.

Yes, we have strayed a little off point during the discussion, but the points I responded to stood on their own.

Propaganda? Do you even know the definition of propaganda?

Dude, I'm from the UK, we get taught a lot about WWII and post-WWII events. Making people recite the same thing every day is essentially propaganda. Lots of things are propaganda, and it's not always evil.

As for my comment to him, people who say it is good enough that I obey that law and vote, I don't need to do anything else are the types in America who will dodge Selective Service registration or the draft.

Stop with the silly strawman. You brought up draft-dodging, and now you're using it as the basis of an argument.

Words are the precursor to actions.

Uh ... why?

[nw2001]

Words are the precursor to actions. Notice Obama had to make the promises first. This is the same thing. If one cannot even make the promise or pledge to their country, what makes you think they are gonna do anything else.

Drafting in time of all out war is perfectly acceptable. Dodging selective service registration shows pure disloyalty.

You give no good reason why it is perfectly acceptable to send young men to their possible deaths because they are loyal.

[zhangm Supervisor]

Words are the precursor to actions. Notice Obama had to make the promises first. This is the same thing. If one cannot even make the promise or pledge to their country, what makes you think they are gonna do anything else.

I disagree with the latter part of your statement. Words might be a precursor to some actions, but you acknowledge that words are not a prerequisite to actions. Words may just as well be empty, or actions may come despite not having any pledge to commit them. I maintain that the pledge contains as much inherent meaning as the act of reciting the Happy Birthday song. The school should teach kids civic responsibility, but I don't believe that having them recite the pledge like a pack of braindead sheep is an effective use of time.

[nowimnothing]

Wow this thread took a marked turn from where it was when I posted earlier today... holy cow.

[Darth Laidher]

Wow this thread took a marked turn from where it was when I posted earlier today... holy cow.

When Darth post's it usually goes from bad to worse :laugh:

[mokthraka]

You give no good reason why it is perfectly acceptable to send young men to their possible deaths because they are loyal.

except you should server regardless of weather there is a draft, server your country, or I honestly dont think you deserve to live here. or the right to free speech

[Kirkburn]

except you should server regardless of weather there is a draft, server your country, or I honestly dont think you deserve to live here. or the right to free speech

Does that include women? What of conscientious objectors? What of those for whom war is against their religion? What of the disabled? What of the weak?

What does "serving your country" actually mean to you?

[mokthraka]

Does that include women? What of conscientious objectors? What of those for whom war is against their religion? What of the disabled? What of the weak?

What does "serving your country" actually mean to you?

of course it does not include the disabled... that is a stupid question

yes women should server unless they are mothers, and there are many positions you can fill if you are against actually fighting.

I have asthama so I cant serve, but you bet your ass I would if I did not have asthama or if they passed a law saying you could fill not combat rolls I would be the first to go.

the weak can be made strong