Boy kicked out of scouts for refusing to swear allegiance to god

[John V]

So don't preach. It's boring as all fuck anyway. Especially since you have nothing to back it up.

So don't join the Boy Scouts. Better yet, do something positive and create your own alternative organization - maybe the Gaytheist Scouts or something.

[The Grand Nudger]

I agree with John, if the Boy Scouts want to be shitwits then why join their little sausage party? Really guys...neckerchiefs.....

[Minimalist]

So don't preach. It's boring as all fuck anyway. Especially since you have nothing to back it up.

So don't join the Boy Scouts. Better yet, do something positive and create your own alternative organization - maybe the Gaytheist Scouts or something.

I never did. Never let my kids join either. Why would I want them hanging out with a bunch of jesus-freak bigots?

[John V]

I agree with John, if the Boy Scouts want to be shitwits then why join their little sausage party? Really guys...neckerchiefs.....

The Gaytheist Scouts could wear pink neckerchiefs, and use them to wipe...oops, forget that, I think Susan G. Komen has trademarked and patented all things pink.

[kılıç_mehmet]

Pretty damned well, but if it's besides the point why did you ask?

It doesn't matter if you, or native american tribes still maintain their customs in the US. Their customs are but a shade under the common, created cultural hegemony that is true for all empires that resemble the US. Rome too, forced romanisation on most of the peoples of Europe. Where do you think that all these latin speaking peoples came from? Latinized Celts and Germans of course. The same applies for the US. The reason why we were not able to maintain our grip on the middle east and of course, the Balkans, was due to the fact that we were very bad at assimilating others into our own ranks. And of course, those people were indeed deeply rooted people, clinging to eachother, cherishing their language, customs and religion, which further made any assimilation attempts impossible.

For the US, there is the ground of common religion-Christianity.
The whole lot of the people have discarded their native tongues in favour of the english language. They have lost touch and contact with their roots, and adopted a new identity, the "American identity".

your boogeyman example arises from never having lived here.

You don't have to live in the US to know these.

We do teach "immigrant languages" in schools..american english itself is an immigrant language. You will find flags in peoples cars, on and in their houses, at their businesses, tattooed on their bodies.....everywhere.

By immigrant language, I meant recent immigrants. Obviously, all of you know and speak the english language. However it's quite disputable if all immigrants to America actually spoke english as their mother language. Now they know no other language but english, aside from a few people that speak french and german, and I'm fairly certain that this too, in due time, cease to exist.

Why would the federal government of the United States of America fly some other nations flag?

If ethnic consciousness was high enough in the US, you'd not be a federation, but a con-federation.

Nation identity =/= cultural identity

If the nation under question is a rootless, made up nation, sure!
Even an arab and a black african can become French nowadays, but the reverse does not apply for the French. They cannot become arabs, nor can they become Turks. For us, National identity and cultural identity are the same, they are inseperable.

and hey, guess what, you can still find those flags flying all over the god-damned place.

I sure know that the people of Texas love to parade their flags all over the place, however, that surely does not bring about the question of ethnic seperatism in the US.
Their consciousness is rather now only by thin association.

You'd be able to maintain your distinct customs as well in the US as you cared to (supposing that they weren't illegal...but even then......still as well as you cared to).

I'm not saying that the US forces me to discard my customs by law, friend(although such things were done to red indians, converting them to christianity, teaching them the english language, forcing them to discard their customs and tribal associations, having them intermarry with others and etc. and etc.). However I'm fairly certain that circumstances and integration procedures will force me to leave my identity behind, and probably won't allow me to push our ethnic identity over the made up American identity. My children will still speak better english than they do their mother language, and their children won't probably speak any of it at all. Worse if they go and intermarry with others...It's rather impossible to maintain your own ethnic identity in a place like the US. You have to live in an isolated ethnic enclave. Like the red indians in those reserves. And look how well they fare for trying to cherish their customs. America does not reward you for it, instead, you get punished.

Knowing that US had invested a great deal of time and money to "americanize" immigrants, natives and their former slaves, I don't know how you can tell me all this stuff. The US is a nation of assimilated immigrants.

[Doubting_Thomas]

As if I've missed anything extraordinary by not living in America,

No, but from this and other posts it's obvious that you simply don't know much about America. America has no 'official language' although English is most common, including laws ect. But there are areas of America with street name signs in Chinese or Korean, and there are over 35 million people in America who speak Spanish at home (compared to 6-7m Turkish/Kurdish in Germany). America is not very integrated sadly, and even after many generations people still identify with their overseas origin, "Boston Irish", "Italian" etc. Although I guess everything is relative. I know people from maybe 10 or 20 "communities" in America.

Intermarriage does not end conflicts at all. Here we are, in Germany, where Turks and Germans do intermarry. And what do we have? Nothing. In truth, we have even more conflict. Turkish men marry German women, and after a while, the women take away the kids to live with their own, so that they do not become "Turkish like their father", as if they could become true Germans with the Turkish blood in their veins.

a) What about Turkish women marry German guys? b) What part of being Turkish are the German girls not approving off with regards to raising kids?

You are living in one of the more racist countries in Europe, where your ethnicity is at the sharp end of racist right-wing nationalism and yet you are using this fact to advocate your own right-wing nationalism. The mind boggles. Sadly you are not so alone, according to Wikipedia:
"In recent years, the Turkish minority has shown an increased tendency to segregation and radical views.[104] According to a representative 2012 survey, 72% of the Turks in Germany believe that Islam is the only true religion, 62% prefer social contacts only to fellow Turks, 46% wish that one day more Muslims live in Germany than Christians, 25% think atheists are inferior human beings, 18% believe Jews are inferior human beings, and 51% believe that homosexuality is a sickness"

Often, religions here actually encourage mixing. To be honest, you can see the islamists at the front of the "brotherhood between moslems", encouraging moslems of different ethnicities to intermarry.

Do they advocate marrying outside of Islam? again, what about Muslim girls marrying atheists, jews, christians, hindus....

Religion and politics derived from religion are always against nationalism, and tend to confirm with ideologies like humanism that dreams of uniting mankind. Under that context, I've always labeled politics that derive from religion as left-wing, as they are international, compared to right-wing politics focusing their efforts on a national level.

I'm sorry but you are so mistaken. Ever heard of Franco, Mussolini, Aryan Nation/White power et al, Popular Orthodox Rally (Greek Nationalists),... and there are many many many more examples.

Besides, the reason you don't care whether a restaurant serves X-food is due to your lack of sophistication and callousness in terms of culinary pursuits, which has nothing to do with multi-culturalism or anything that relates to it. Culture is beyond food.

Lol. What do you know about my experience of food? Bit low.

But since the only contact that you Americans

very presumptuous, I'm not American.

This is what happens in America. When I immigrate to America, I'm asked to leave behind my previous identity for a new one. I become one with the new identity which tells me to discard my culture and tongue, and fully assimilate into the new one. Unless I live in one of the ethnic enclaves of immigrants that every country has nowadays, I have no other choice but to do so.

Again, you evidently know virtually nothing about America. What have you been spun about Turkish community in America?

[The Grand Nudger]

It doesn't matter if you, or native american tribes still maintain their customs in the US. Their customs are but a shade under the common, created cultural hegemony that is true for all empires that resemble the US. Rome too, forced romanisation on most of the peoples of Europe. Where do you think that all these latin speaking peoples came from? Latinized Celts and Germans of course. The same applies for the US. The reason why we were not able to maintain our grip on the middle east and of course, the Balkans, was due to the fact that we were very bad at assimilating others into our own ranks.

Maybe you should have taken a hard look at that failure then..perhaps adopting a policy of multicuturalism and inclusion..you know, something like the ideal the US is -supposed- to operate on. hehehehe

And of course, those people were indeed deeply rooted people, clinging to eachother, cherishing their language, customs and religion, which further made any assimilation attempts impossible.

People here are equally fond of their own heritage.

For the US, there is the ground of common religion-Christianity.

Not as monolithic an organization or as common a ground as they would have you believe amigo.

The whole lot of the people have discarded their native tongues in favour of the english language. They have lost touch and contact with their roots, and adopted a new identity, the "American identity".

No more so than the immigrants who they counted as ancestors before them. Snapshots in time Mehm.

You don't have to live in the US to know these.

But, apparently, you do have to have -not lived here- to get them so fantastically wrong.

By immigrant language, I meant recent immigrants.

Oh, like spanish?

Obviously, all of you know and speak the english language.

A great many of us don't..and an ever increasing number of us speak english and spanish, just as one example...and that's largely due to recent waves of immigration.

However it's quite disputable if all immigrants to America actually spoke english as their mother language.

A great many didn't, which is why american english became the language that it became...an immigrants language.

Now they know no other language but english, aside from a few people that speak french and german, and I'm fairly certain that this too, in due time, cease to exist.

All of this prattling on about language, ignoring that a wide number of languages are spoken here, that you don't speak your own ancestors "first langauge", and that it really doesn't matter one jot or tittle. The transition to another language is part of nearly all of our cultural heritage (you know, that mysterious thing that you find so important).

If ethnic consciousness was high enough in the US, you'd not be a federation, but a con-federation.

What does ethnicity have to do with nationality?

If the nation under question is a rootless, made up nation, sure!
Even an arab and a black african can become French nowadays, but the reverse does not apply for the French. They cannot become arabs, nor can they become Turks.

This is idiotic. Ethnicity itself is not an impassable boundary , but even if we ignored that you are again conflating ethnicity with nationality.

For us,

right, for bigoted ethnic supremicists..just to be clear.

National identity and cultural identity are the same, they are inseperable.

Last I checked Turkish (as it applied to nationality) covered alot of ethnicities. Pretty sure you're aware of this...as it irks you to no end.

I sure know that the people of Texas love to parade their flags all over the place, however, that surely does not bring about the question of ethnic seperatism in the US. Their consciousness is rather now only by thin association.

Again, having never lived here I can excuse you for not realizing the wide variety of flags you will be exposed to if you so much as walked through a Walmart parking lot.

I'm not saying that the US forces me to discard my customs by law, friend(although such things were done to red indians, converting them to christianity, teaching them the english language, forcing them to discard their customs and tribal associations, having them intermarry with others and etc. and etc.).

Yep, trail of tears and all that, just another example of why ethnic supremicism is garbage. We tried your way, it didn't work so well in our current estimation. We have the dignity to acknowledge a mistake in a way that you clearly do not.

However I'm fairly certain that circumstances and integration procedures will force me to leave my identity behind

You're sure of it despite being unable to demonstrate that this is the case...and in spite of an american explaining to you that it is not, from experience?

, and probably won't allow me to push our ethnic identity over the made up American identity.

It's actually our policy not to "push" ethnic identity over any other ethnic identity at all. Not that we always succeed in that.

My children will still speak better english than they do their mother language, and their children won't probably speak any of it at all.

If it's so unimportant to you and them that they don't care to learn the langauge then sure.

Worse if they go and intermarry with others...It's rather impossible to maintain your own ethnic identity in a place like the US.

Cats marrying dogs, oh my goodness!

You have to live in an isolated ethnic enclave. Like the red indians in those reserves. And look how well they fare for trying to cherish their customs. America does not reward you for it, instead, you get punished.

Should we be rewarding people for accidents of their birth? I wasn't aware that this was the case.

Knowing that US had invested a great deal of time and money to "americanize" immigrants, natives and their former slaves, I don't know how you can tell me all this stuff. The US is a nation of assimilated immigrants.

Were you planning on moving to the US in the 1800's? Maybe the 50's? The US is also a nation that has been assimilated. It's true that some of the earliest immigrants sort of set the scene, painted the backdrop of what it meant to be American...but those things were what they brought with them. America didn't just arise out of nothing with no cultural heritage behind it's ideals or traditions. What gave you the impression that it did? Neither did an "american ethnicity". What it means to be "american" arose in the same way as what it means to be "turkish". Just happened at different points in time.

[Doubting_Thomas]

The Gaytheist Scouts could wear pink neckerchiefs, and use them to wipe...oops, forget that, I think Susan G. Komen has trademarked and patented all things pink.

Why the childish homophobia?

[Darkstar]

So don't join the Boy Scouts. Better yet, do something positive and create your own alternative organization - maybe the Gaytheist Scouts or something.

Sure that would allow in homosexuals, but what about atheists? It still only allows theists, and not even straight ones!

[Polaris]

So don't join the Boy Scouts. Better yet, do something positive and create your own alternative organization - maybe the Gaytheist Scouts or something.

I never did. Never let my kids join either. Why would I want them hanging out with a bunch of jesus-freak bigots?

Never really saw Boy Scouts being that big into religion. Not anymore at least than a child saying the pledge of allegiance.