(February 18, 2019 at 2:23 pm)Yonadav Wrote:(February 18, 2019 at 1:59 pm)downbeatplumb Wrote: The pledge of allegiance is a strange thing to my British eyes. We have nothing like it over here. It looks like indoctrination, a bit like the oath the Wehrmacht made to Hitler.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HoZw9xz0OY4
Well it doesn't look like an oath to Hitler at all, since the pledge of allegiance isn't to a person. I'm not a big fan of the pledge because I think that it is wrong to take oaths from children. I never took an oath until I joined the Air Force. The pledge isn't indoctrination, because it isn't followed up with anything doctrinal. So the students really do just see it as meaningless words. Being from a culture where oaths are a super serious thing, I see a problem with the pledge trivializing the entire concept of oaths. When some kid spends 13 years repeating an oath every day that they see as being meaningless, I don't know if I can take their word for anything or not.
Person, piece of cloth, what is your problem?
The issue is having a society that does not promote blind loyalty.
The American flag is a piece of cloth, not a human being. It DOES represent the idea of valuing pluralism and the free market of ideas. So I do not see how forcing someone into a blind ritual represents thinking for oneself.
The Nazi flag represented blind loyalty. BOTH TO THE FLAG and to their leader.
In America, oaths are entered into on a voluntary basis. In America we do have rituals yes, nobody is saying we do not, or should not. The difference is that our oaths, rituals are NOT FORCED ON US.
To force by law an oath or a ritual is the opposite of what the free west stands for.
