The Pledge of Allegiance: Forced patriotism for kids?

[snafu]

What a stupid thread.

Read the pledge. It states that you pledge allegiances to the flag of the United States of America. And to the republic for which it stands. What other worthy reason would you have to pledge to something? Unity and self preservation is a grand thing to alien yourself with the rest of America.

One nation under ***. Indivisible with liberty and justice for all.

You don

 

[Humchuckninny]

What a stupid thread.

Oh, I am so sorry. Thank you for gracing us with your presence, oh great one.

Read the pledge.

Oh, that though never occured to me. Here, during this whole discussion about the pledge of allegience, and oh! silly me, I've never read the pledge. Thanks for pointing that out.

It states that you pledge allegiances to the flag of the United States of America. And to the republic for which it stands. What other worthy reason would you have to pledge to something? Unity and self preservation is a grand thing to alien yourself with the rest of America.One nation under ***. Indivisible with liberty and justice for all.

I see. Thanks captain obvious, for pointing out to US what we already knew. And for reciting the pledge to those of us who obviously haven't read it yet

You don

 

[Insomniac]

And when I was growing up and said under *** I presumed it to mean something more powerfull than you and me.

You also naturally had no reason to question its existence, even if somewhat mystical. Therein lies a problem with representation.

 

[snafu]

Listen chumfuck

The tread was Forced patriotism for kids.

I was simply ( for num nuts as yourself) was stating what the pledge was saying. the thread was dumb because most moron's unlike yourselve could see that.

You didn't fit in this catigory so I tried to make it simple for you.

 

[Humchuckninny]

Listen chumfuck
The tread was Forced patriotism for kids.

I was simply ( for num nuts as yourself) was stating what the pledge was saying. the thread was dumb because most moron's unlike yourselve could see that.

You didn't fit in this catigory so I tried to make it simple for you.

No, the fact is you either did not read any posts except for my last one (the one right before you showed your extreme pretentiousness, if you even read that one), or you didn't understand any of the posts. If you had, you would have realized that we had strayed from the "forced patriotism for kids" idea into an entirely new area of discussion - effectiveness for invoking patriotism into children and the persistant debate of keeping "under ***" in the pledge.

Now, if you had refrained from insulting all of the rest of us on this thread and produced a "new turn" to bring the thread back TO the original topic instead of trying to pretend that you had read what was going on and steer your blatantly wrong opinions in the wrong direction, then perhaps you would have gained some respect and people might respond to whatever it was you had to say, not matter how ignorant it may have been.

 

[snafu]

OK my apologies for any insults.

I didn

 

[Insomniac]

Dare I point out that this incessant bickering about who is on what topic is even more off topic than the post in question?

 

[Humchuckninny]

Dare I point out that you also participated in the, what was it, "incessant bickering?"

Snafu -I agree, your point did have validity to it. It was the simple insults and the derrogatory tone that bothered me, and I accept your apology. I also offer my apologies for the overreaction.

The difference is this - the original post wanted to discuss the morality of enforcing patriotism i.e., brainwashing. The topic steered away in two ways - one, the "under ***" portion. We began talking about that a bit. And two, the morals behind forced patriotism were no longer the main focus - it was how patriotism is best invoked into one's mind. The methods and location, specifically. Not whether or not it should happen, but how it should happen. I know, the difference seems subtle, but it is there and changes the course of debate entirely.

What you said wasn't different from the TOPIC, no. The topic being forced patriotism. And that was my entire point - that what you said didn't follow the general line of debate throughout the entire forum. It's just one of my huge pet peeves - when people don't actually read where the discussion has progressed to and contribute to the current discussion. It was nothing personal at all, I swear

Oh, and I know that topics rarely stay "on topic." It just makes me mad when the topics change, people don't read the changes and post what they think. It's always been something that makes me mad.

The definition of brainwashing is (according to Heritage dictionary) n : forcible indoctrination into a new set of attitudes and beliefs. Which is precisely what happens in reciting the pledge. It's forced indoctrination (reciting in the unavoidable public school) of new attitudes (patriotism). It is not necissarily that you don't have a mind of your own - brainwashing doesn't mean you wash your brain at all. And it doesn't work on everyone by any means. I have my own patriotism stemming from much different roots than reciting the pledge. People are often able to identify brainwashing even while it's happening to them, and it doesn't mean it's effective. I hope that makes sense.

 

[snafu]

Ok and I can concur with that.

If setting up values for our young is brainwashing then I guess you can call it that. That