Is it disrespectful to sit during the Pledge?

[Arcturus Novus]

Hot take but America's appropriation of Christian rhetoric and imagery as a political tool is blasphemy :V

[San Montalbano]

The common culture/tradition and history of a state and the ideals of which that state was founded upon, among other variables.

Now what has caused, and why, these supposed traditions and ideals to have degraded?
Would you consider Marxism to be a "western" thought?

Marxism, as Fascism are both born in Western nations(if you consider germany the west, i do)

As for degradation, the largest is the movement of cultural marxism to subvert and dismantle the united states from within(things such as open borders, hate speech laws etc). Ideological subversion, was and continues to be a method used by marxists and those they find useful, to twist and conform a narrative.

[Tekeristan]

Hot take but America's appropriation of Christian rhetoric and imagery as a political tool is blasphemy :V

EXACTLY!

You're convincing me more and more that America is a solid candidate for the Beast of Revelation. Maybe reform can stop the blasphemy...

Evangelicals are horrifying

[Arcturus Novus]

Hot take but America's appropriation of Christian rhetoric and imagery as a political tool is blasphemy :V

EXACTLY!

You're convincing me more and more that America is a solid candidate for the Beast of Revelation. Maybe reform can stop the blasphemy...

Or just. Tear the motherfucker down. Become an edgy anarchist like the rest of us cool kids.

[Fahran]

The current way the subject is taught paints the atrocities as isolated incidents rather than the reality of it, which is a continuous stream of injustices since European settlements started.

I think you can get the gist of how terrible slavery and Jim Crow were when you go over the casualty rates, longevity, and precise details before reading books like To Kill A Mockingbird. The basic argument is that we're whitewashing history and that's complete nonsense. It's not whitewashed. Which pretty much serves to debunk this notion that it's all geared towards a program of indoctrination. The argument isn't one for proportionality and I haven't misunderstood it. The argument just happens to be wrong.

[Plzen]

Hot take but America's appropriation of Christian rhetoric and imagery as a political tool is blasphemy :V

Je suis Charlie!

Religion is no business of the State's. It deserves absolutely no further privileges, and honestly organised religious faith has too many privileges already.

[San Montalbano]

EXACTLY!

You're convincing me more and more that America is a solid candidate for the Beast of Revelation. Maybe reform can stop the blasphemy...

Evangelicals are horrifying

Agreed, religion goes in hand with the state in collaberation, not above it in supremacy.

[Ifreann]

But I'm not engaging in a comparison between the US and other countries, real or hypothetical. I'm saying that respect for the US should be given, if it is given, based on the US as a whole, not simply the fact that people are allowed to sit during the pledge nor simply the fact that some Americans live comfortably. Maybe you can give America your respect despite the many harms it does to its people. That's your prerogative. But someone else might feel that a nation running concentration camps cannot possibly have their respect, even if they personally are not in one of those camps. And there is nothing counter-intuitive about such a person declining to participate in the pledge because they do not respect America, even though America allows them to do that.

My argument has been that the benefits substantially outweigh the harms for over ninety percent of the population.

Respect isn't a function of benefits and harms. As I said, a person can quite reasonably judge the US not to be worthy of their respect without personally being a victim of America's crimes.

People will not exist in a vacuum in the absence of the United States. In many cases, the dismantling of our society would leave them much worse off than they are at present, suggesting that they have in fact received substantial benefits and protections even as they bite the hand that has nourished them. They can pick out any grievance they like to support their essential argument that their entire society is undeserving of respect, but then we can apply it to any society you would like to choose.

Again, no one is making comparisons between the US and any other state or a hypothetical anarchist society.

They're allowed to be disloyal of course, but I would hold them to that standard universally and have them deny loyalty to anything but ideals and themselves. Protesting the pledge suggests that you're not just protesting particular policies. You're protesting everything. Good and bad.

Declining to participate in the pledge means one doesn't want to participate in the pledge. Trying to suggest that people who don't participate in the pledge must also hate the good things about America seems awfully disingenuous.

You'll forgive me if I don't recoil in fear from an argument made by mister "Man is a featherless biped".

Plato isn't a terribly fearsome person.

I wait with baited breath for something substantial to support this assertion.

I have substantiated it. I'm asking you to provide at least one counter-example.

I could provide counter examples all day long. You'll just dismiss them and say that they're some of the few that don't fall into the categories you've outlined. Show me that what you've said is correct instead of playing the "You can't prove me wrong" game.

[Tekeristan]

Now what has caused, and why, these supposed traditions and ideals to have degraded?
Would you consider Marxism to be a "western" thought?

Marxism, as Fascism are both born in Western nations(if you consider germany the west, i do)

As for degradation, the largest is the movement of cultural marxism to subvert and dismantle the united states from within(things such as open borders, hate speech laws etc). Ideological subversion, was and continues to be a method used by marxists and those they find useful, to twist and conform a narrative.

"Born in Germany" would be a very crude and highly simplistic way to put it. One has to bring into consideration French socialists and English labor unionists that helped make up the first international working men's association. I'd assume good old Anglo-Saxon England tacks a good bit west.

How do closed borders and hate speech define the United States? And furthermore, explain ideological subversion. What do you define as an ideology in said case?
Of course we are going to inherently come into conflict. We perceive a nation to be different things fundamentally and lastly, we'll assign different reasons as to why your precious 'traditions' have eroded so much over the last 200 years. Is it Marxists occupying places high and low pushing an agenda? And to what end?

[Neutraligon]

My argument has been that the benefits substantially outweigh the harms for over ninety percent of the population.

Respect isn't a function of benefits and harms. As I said, a person can quite reasonably judge the US not to be worthy of their respect without personally being a victim of America's crimes.

People will not exist in a vacuum in the absence of the United States. In many cases, the dismantling of our society would leave them much worse off than they are at present, suggesting that they have in fact received substantial benefits and protections even as they bite the hand that has nourished them. They can pick out any grievance they like to support their essential argument that their entire society is undeserving of respect, but then we can apply it to any society you would like to choose.

Again, no one is making comparisons between the US and any other state or a hypothetical anarchist society.

They're allowed to be disloyal of course, but I would hold them to that standard universally and have them deny loyalty to anything but ideals and themselves. Protesting the pledge suggests that you're not just protesting particular policies. You're protesting everything. Good and bad.

Declining to participate in the pledge means one doesn't want to participate in the pledge. Trying to suggest that people who don't participate in the pledge must also hate the good things about America seems awfully disingenuous.

Plato isn't a terribly fearsome person.


I have substantiated it. I'm asking you to provide at least one counter-example.

I could provide counter examples all day long. You'll just dismiss them and say that they're some of the few that don't fall into the categories you've outlined. Show me that what you've said is correct instead of playing the "You can't prove me wrong" game.

Well that and I already provided an example where it is respect that causes one not to stand...

[Fahran]

They're listing abuses that are not taught to middle-schoolers and then claiming it as evidence that our educational institutions whitewash our history. We do teach our middle-schoolers about the most severe abuses and atrocities committed throughout our history. To claim we're whitewashing history because we don't expend time covering a particular pet subject isn't a good argument. We don't have time to cover every abuse. No country's educational institutions do. Because then we wouldn't have time to cover civics and other important subjects.

Like I said, it is amazing how wrong you can be. First of all I said nothing about middle schoolers. Second I started learning in depth US history in 7th grad, which continued int 8th grade for the US history starting about WW1. Before that it is the bare bones thing taught to young children, which by necessity is dumbed down so much that I would say it is actually inaccurate. True Refuge did indeed get my point rather well.

You can't really spend years teaching all the bad shit America did and then argue that it's proportionate or appropriate. You're nitpicking to try to prove your initial argument which was categorically incorrect. We're not whitewashing history. We cover a lot of the worst events and actions. They get weeks of study in middle school. Depending on your class, they can get a month or more of study in high school. It's not so dumbed down as to make it whitewashing. So cut that argument out. I have understood you just fine.

[Arcturus Novus]

Hot take but America's appropriation of Christian rhetoric and imagery as a political tool is blasphemy :V

Je suis Charlie!

Religion is no business of the State's. It deserves absolutely no further privileges, and honestly organised religious faith has too many privileges already.

I don't disagree? I don't know why you're invoking Charlie Hebdo of all things. I'm not even Christian, I'm converting to Judaism, but from what I understand of Christian theology the US using His name in everything and constantly invoking Him as the arbiter of American politics is uhhhhhh not cool.

And honestly, it's really only Christianity that has any special privilege in the West, esp. when you consider the steady rise of antisemitic and islamophobic hate crimes in the US and elsewhere since 2016.

[Neutraligon]

Like I said, it is amazing how wrong you can be. First of all I said nothing about middle schoolers. Second I started learning in depth US history in 7th grad, which continued int 8th grade for the US history starting about WW1. Before that it is the bare bones thing taught to young children, which by necessity is dumbed down so much that I would say it is actually inaccurate. True Refuge did indeed get my point rather well.

You can't really spend years teaching all the bad shit America did and then argue that it's proportionate or appropriate. You're nitpicking to try to prove your initial argument which was categorically incorrect. We're not whitewashing history. We cover a lot of the worst events and actions. They get weeks of study in middle school. Depending on your class, they can get a month or more of study in high school. It's not so dumbed down as to make it whitewashing. So cut that argument out. I have understood you just fine.

Sorry I think I need to stop since this is getting into threadjack territory.

[Tekeristan]

The current way the subject is taught paints the atrocities as isolated incidents rather than the reality of it, which is a continuous stream of injustices since European settlements started.

I think you can get the gist of how terrible slavery and Jim Crow were when you go over the casualty rates, longevity, and precise details before reading books like To Kill A Mockingbird. The basic argument is that we're whitewashing history and that's complete nonsense. It's not whitewashed. Which pretty much serves to debunk this notion that it's all geared towards a program of indoctrination. The argument isn't one for proportionality and I haven't misunderstood it. The argument just happens to be wrong.

How do you analyze those events in history as part of a greater picture or structure?

[San Montalbano]

Marxism, as Fascism are both born in Western nations(if you consider germany the west, i do)

As for degradation, the largest is the movement of cultural marxism to subvert and dismantle the united states from within(things such as open borders, hate speech laws etc). Ideological subversion, was and continues to be a method used by marxists and those they find useful, to twist and conform a narrative.

"Born in Germany" would be a very crude and highly simplistic way to put it. One has to bring into consideration French socialists and English labor unionists that helped make up the first international working men's association. I'd assume good old Anglo-Saxon England tacks a good bit west.

How do closed borders and hate speech define the United States? And furthermore, explain ideological subversion. What do you define as an ideology in said case?
Of course we are going to inherently come into conflict. We perceive a nation to be different things fundamentally and lastly, we'll assign different reasons as to why your precious 'traditions' have eroded so much over the last 200 years. Is it Marxists occupying places high and low pushing an agenda? And to what end?

Closed borders and hate speech do not define the united states, The consitution defines the United States, as do things like the bill of rights

Cultural marxists do control positions of power within the education system to an unrivalved degree.

It’s actually impressive and commands a degree of respect how they can brainwash students and turn the nation inside out. Lenin would admire that tactic.

Traditioms have eroded in many ones, a small example are kids being called racist or bigoted for celebrating fourth of july or supporting george washington, citing him as illegitament because he was a slave owner.

[Plzen]

but from what I understand of Christian theology the US using His name in everything and constantly invoking Him as the arbiter of American politics is uhhhhhh not cool.

Luckily for Americans the United States is free enough that politicians can freely use cultural symbols and rhetoric without having to care in the slightest about what some theologist thinks.

[San Montalbano]

Je suis Charlie!

Religion is no business of the State's. It deserves absolutely no further privileges, and honestly organised religious faith has too many privileges already.

I don't disagree? I don't know why you're invoking Charlie Hebdo of all things. I'm not even Christian, I'm converting to Judaism, but from what I understand of Christian theology the US using His name in everything and constantly invoking Him as the arbiter of American politics is uhhhhhh not cool.

And honestly, it's really only Christianity that has any special privilege in the West, esp. when you consider the steady rise of antisemitic and islamophobic hate crimes in the US and elsewhere since 2016.

Only in privledged christian societys can muslims say what and do what they want for the most part.

Ironically, other islamic dominated nations do not return the favor to christians.

[Kowani]

I think you can get the gist of how terrible slavery and Jim Crow were when you go over the casualty rates, longevity, and precise details before reading books like To Kill A Mockingbird. The basic argument is that we're whitewashing history and that's complete nonsense. It's not whitewashed. Which pretty much serves to debunk this notion that it's all geared towards a program of indoctrination. The argument isn't one for proportionality and I haven't misunderstood it. The argument just happens to be wrong.

How do you analyze those events in history as part of a greater picture or structure?

In high school? We don’t.

[Plzen]

-snip-

As I said before, if you intend to keep using cultural Marxism as some kind of scapegoat you need to first convince us that there exists such a coherent concept as cultural Marxism.

Still haven't gotten a satisfactory response to this:

Second it is the actvity or movement to initaite marx-esque change in a nation, such things include class struggle, oppression politics, political correctness etc etc

So you defined an imagined abstraction in terms of more imagined abstractions. But fair enough. Let's look at those things one by one.

"Class struggle" - so do you not believe that people in similar economic situations ought to collectively advocate for their common interests?
"Oppression politics" - is political oppression not an issue that concern you a great deal? should we not seek to reduce societal oppression?
"Political correctness" - this is a meaningless term. "correct" according to what standard? the original definition was the CPSU party line, but those guys don't exist any more

[True Refuge]

but from what I understand of Christian theology the US using His name in everything and constantly invoking Him as the arbiter of American politics is uhhhhhh not cool.

Luckily for Americans the United States is free enough that politicians can freely use cultural symbols and rhetoric without having to care in the slightest about what some theologist thinks.

Politicised Christianity as it exists in the US is kind of disgusting for the rest of the Christian world. Just because it has the freedom to exist doesn’t make it any less contradictory to its own religious principles.

[Fahran]

Respect isn't a function of benefits and harms. As I said, a person can quite reasonably judge the US not to be worthy of their respect without personally being a victim of America's crimes.

They can but it remains counter-intuitive that they hide behind the country as they denigrate it. It also invites inquiry into why we should consider their opinions if they do not have positive contributions to make towards the community as loyal citizens.

Declining to participate in the pledge means one doesn't want to participate in the pledge. Trying to suggest that people who don't participate in the pledge must also hate the good things about America seems awfully disingenuous.

They're disrespecting America in its totality. That includes the good things that come with it. If you wanted to protest a particular bad thing, you could do that while still respecting the country as a whole.

I could provide counter examples all day long. You'll just dismiss them and say that they're some of the few that don't fall into the categories you've outlined. Show me that what you've said is correct instead of playing the "You can't prove me wrong" game.

If I can reliably dismiss your examples, it suggests that they lack merit.

[Fahran]

How do you analyze those events in history as part of a greater picture or structure?

In high school? We don’t.

AP/IB classes definitely do. I wouldn't know if other classes do, but, in spite of that, I've met some pretty average students who could comprehend the pledge of allegiance and slavery. I don't buy the notion that kids are indoctrinated in the United States or in most liberal democracies. We wouldn't have so many people griping if that were the case.

[Askita]

Tomorrow is Veterans Day, the 11th of November, which also coincides with the armistice signed that ended the first world war. Here in the United States, it's a holiday, and schools tend to bring in veterans to speak to students about their experiences in combat. However, I've also noticed a trend, both in sports (Colin Kaepernick) and at my own high school. People sit/kneel during the national anthem or during the pledge of allegiance. Some do it in order to protest certain events, while others refuse to stand for their own personal reasons.

The reason I bring up this topic is due to the arguments I've seen that are against sitting for the pledge/national anthem. At school, we have debates saying "it's disrespectful to all those who fought for your freedoms to not even stand for the pledge." This argument seems rather compelling to my classmates whenever we discuss this, however I have my own take, and I would to hear what you all think about it as well.

My ancestors were slaves, kidnapped from their homes in Africa and forced into chattel slavery for their entire lives. My grandparents tell me stories of what it was like to grow up in the 1950s and 1960s, dealing with discrimination, racism, and police brutality. In fact, my grandmother told me how hard it was, as a black woman, to secure a job in post Jim Crow America. The veterans who came into our school were from WW2 onwards. During that same time period, the United States orchestrated countless coups in democratic nations: Guatemala in 1954, and Iran in 1953.

But perhaps the worst are these: The US backed an authoritarian regime in South Korea, despite being "pro democratic". The US supported Saddam Hussein in the 1980s Iran-Iraq War. The US gave weapons to what became Al Qaeda. The US straight up invaded Panama in 1989 and arrested its leader (whom they supported for years) on drug trafficking. They left Iraq in state of chaos after the 2003 invasion. In fact, the US actively ignored the Rwandan Genocide, but made sure to invade Iraq after their invasion of Kuwait.

The point I have is that the US, like all countries, does not have a perfect track record for humanitarian intervention and democracy. These events, which disregarded the will of the people and a nation's sovereignty, is why I personally don't stand during the pledge of allegiance. If it's disrespectful to veterans to sit, then I find it disrespectful to the millions who suffered from American foreign intervention and regime changes. So, what are your thoughts on this issue? Is it an issue at all? Is the Pledge of Allegiance sole purpose to commemorate the bravery of the soldiers? I find this topic to be rather fascinating and controversial

Nope. As an African American soldier. I don’t find it disrespectful at all. A lot of soldiers don’t find it disrespectful. He actually got the idea from a soldier in the military

[Tekeristan]

"Born in Germany" would be a very crude and highly simplistic way to put it. One has to bring into consideration French socialists and English labor unionists that helped make up the first international working men's association. I'd assume good old Anglo-Saxon England tacks a good bit west.

How do closed borders and hate speech define the United States? And furthermore, explain ideological subversion. What do you define as an ideology in said case?
Of course we are going to inherently come into conflict. We perceive a nation to be different things fundamentally and lastly, we'll assign different reasons as to why your precious 'traditions' have eroded so much over the last 200 years. Is it Marxists occupying places high and low pushing an agenda? And to what end?

Closed borders and hate speech do not define the united states, The consitution defines the United States, as do things like the bill of rights

Cultural marxists do control positions of power within the education system to an unrivalved degree.

It’s actually impressive and commands a degree of respect how they can brainwash students and turn the nation inside out. Lenin would admire that tactic.

Traditioms have eroded in many ones, a small example are kids being called racist or bigoted for celebrating fourth of july or supporting george washington, citing him as illegitament because he was a slave owner.

Things change. Is change bad? The constitution was literally made with the explicit intent to keep power to a small minority of white wealthy land owners and to keep back the "mob" that was everyone else. We only vote for Senators because of reform. Would that be 'Kultural Bolshevism"?

I'd like to see your sources for that. Of course your 'definition' of "cultural Marxists" is going to start bending towards anyone with an even liberal social progressivism.
You don't know a thing about Lenin.

That's cute. That's the traditions we're supposed to die over? A holiday where we pop fireworks and get together to consume quantities of alcohol, and purchase hotdogs and hamburgers? Or is it really about, you know, the whole meaning behind it! You know, the pursuit of independence (In the interests of nativist ruling class), of liberal liberty (private ownership so again just the former), and all of which America has done to pursue the interests of democracy and rights across the world (yay operation Condor). I'm sure the vast consumerism made rampant doesn't undermine these things in of itself.

[Fahran]

You can't really spend years teaching all the bad shit America did and then argue that it's proportionate or appropriate. You're nitpicking to try to prove your initial argument which was categorically incorrect. We're not whitewashing history. We cover a lot of the worst events and actions. They get weeks of study in middle school. Depending on your class, they can get a month or more of study in high school. It's not so dumbed down as to make it whitewashing. So cut that argument out. I have understood you just fine.

Sorry I think I need to stop since this is getting into threadjack territory.

Not really. Your argument was essentially that the pledge and our teaching of history amounted to indoctrination. Judging by the number of people, mostly older adolescents and younger adults, who jumped in to argue that America did bad things, any indoctrination was an abject failure.