Should We Recite the "Pledge of Allegiance?"

[Mayweather]

Brad:

I see. So all immigrants to America are selfish hogs looking to gain their share of the immoral spoils?

All people that support America are awful. All people that want to come to America are awful. I suppose the great ones are just the ones to point out how awful America is. How do you reconcile utilizing American resources? Isn’t there blood on your hands every time you open you brush your teeth or drive to the park?

I think you are overlooking the fact that people and nations aren’t unidimensional, and defined soley by one attribute at a time. the following two statements are both true, but not opposed to each other:

a)people come to America to make a better life for their family

b)in America, our high quality of life was achieved in significant part by our forefathers willingness to kill off the idigenous people and take their land, and to engage in agressive wars to attain economic resources.

Yes, in many ways it is immoral for me to live the life I do here while millions of people starve worldwide, and others labor in sweatshops to support me.

No, that does not make me completely and utterly evil.

Yes, ignoring the above realities, and using “patriotism” as an excuse to avoid beginning to rectify them would be doubly immoral.

 

[Mayweather]

fix:

Ah yes, the hate America first crowd.

definitely, coming to grips with your own history is like totally hateful.

 

[fix]

Mayweather:

definitely, coming to grips with your own history is like totally hateful.

Accepting flaws does not mean wallowing in them and minimizing the virtues.

 

[fix]

Mayweather:

I think you are overlooking the fact that people and nations aren’t unidimensional, and defined soley by one attribute at a time. the following two statements are both true, but not opposed to each other:

a)people come to America to make a better life for their family

b)in America, our high quality of life was achieved in significant part by our forefathers willingness to kill off the idigenous people and take their land, and to engage in agressive wars to attain economic resources.

Yes, in many ways it is immoral for me to live the life I do here while millions of people starve worldwide, and others labor in sweatshops to support me.

No, that does not make me completely and utterly evil.

Yes, ignoring the above realities, and using “patriotism” as an excuse to avoid beginning to rectify them would be doubly immoral.

What myopia. Do you think that America is the only state in history that has done things wrong? By your absurd standards there would be no place on earth one could live or be proud of.

You are asking many people who have nothing to do with past injustices to pay for other peoples actions. That is an unfair burden and not logical.

 

[Mayweather]

fix:

Accepting flaws does not mean wallowing in them and minimizing the virtues.

i have this really messed up idea that “coming to grips” with your flaws means aknowledging them and trying to set the damage they have caused right. But yeah, just accepting is a much better idea.

 

[fix]

Mayweather:

i have this really messed up idea that “coming to grips” with your flaws means aknowledging them and trying to set the damage they have caused right. But yeah, just accepting is a much better idea.

How far back would you have us go? How would each instance you claim as an injustice be rectified?

It reminds me of a Woody Allen line. I can’t enjoy myself if I know there is one person in the world suffering.

 

[Mayweather]

fix:

How far back would you have us go? How would each instance you claim as an injustice be rectified?

It reminds me of a Woody Allen line. I can’t enjoy myself if I know there is one person in the world suffering.

I’d go back as far as we can. I don’t really have the time to adress in full how each instance of injustice should be rectified, because each would require a lengthy paper. Even a good paragraph for each would end up being grossly incomplete, inadequate for adressing the issue, and serve as nothing more than fodder for criticism.
That said, a good way to start making things better is to stop banking on superficial displays like the pledge of allegiance, and to lose the “love it or leave it” attitude which basically translates into “I can’t take criticism so I’m going to say some ‘patriotic’ stuff
and squelch this discussion.”

When did I say I never enjoy myself? I have a pretty killer lifestyle!

 

[fix]

Mayweather:

I’d go back as far as we can. I don’t really have the time to adress in full how each instance of injustice should be rectified, because each would require a lengthy paper. Even a good paragraph for each would end up being grossly incomplete, inadequate for adressing the issue, and serve as nothing more than fodder for criticism.
That said, a good way to start making things better is to stop banking on superficial displays like the pledge of allegiance, and to lose the “love it or leave it” attitude which basically translates into “I can’t take criticism so I’m going to say some ‘patriotic’ stuff
and squelch this discussion.”

When did I say I never enjoy myself? I have a pretty killer lifestyle!

Sounds like much academic nonsense. We are all to wring our hands and say mea culpa and never give just praise to our country.

The pledge is not meant to be superfical.

I do not know what a “killer” lifestyle means.

 

[Mayweather]

fix:

Sounds like much academic nonsense. We are all to wring our hands and say mea culpa and never give just praise to our country.

The pledge is not meant to be superfical.

I do not know what a “killer” lifestyle means.

you got me there. I do talk a lot of academic nonsense.
“Killer lifestyle” means I do a lot of really fun things, enjoy life etc.

 

[Brad]

Mayweather:

I think you are overlooking the fact that people and nations aren’t unidimensional, and defined soley by one attribute at a time. the following two statements are both true, but not opposed to each other:

a)people come to America to make a better life for their family

b)in America, our high quality of life was achieved in significant part by our forefathers willingness to kill off the idigenous people and take their land, and to engage in agressive wars to attain economic resources.

Yes, in many ways it is immoral for me to live the life I do here while millions of people starve worldwide, and others labor in sweatshops to support me.

No, that does not make me completely and utterly evil.

Yes, ignoring the above realities, and using “patriotism” as an excuse to avoid beginning to rectify them would be doubly immoral.

If people can come to America to make a better life for their family, is that a good thing or a bad thing?

If it is a bad thing then why don’t you tell them as such and why don’t you move out?

If it is a good thing, then why do you not unite in making the country better rather than beating up on what you live in?

If you want to be a self-defeatist, be my guest. But expect to run into a bunch of resistance from those of us that happen to appreciate freedom and know it was achieved by purer motives than your outlook says.

 

[Brad]

Mayweather:

I’d go back as far as we can. I don’t really have the time to adress in full how each instance of injustice should be rectified, because each would require a lengthy paper. Even a good paragraph for each would end up being grossly incomplete, inadequate for adressing the issue, and serve as nothing more than fodder for criticism.
That said, a good way to start making things better is to stop banking on superficial displays like the pledge of allegiance, and to lose the “love it or leave it” attitude which basically translates into “I can’t take criticism so I’m going to say some ‘patriotic’ stuff
and squelch this discussion.”

When did I say I never enjoy myself? I have a pretty killer lifestyle!

You have a real fine way of solving problems. What if I were to say you are morally bankrupt, living a lifestyle on the blood of the innocent? How dare you? That is appalling. I demand you sell everything and become a hermit.

 

[Brad]

Mayweather:

you got me there. I do talk a lot of academic nonsense.
“Killer lifestyle” means I do a lot of really fun things, enjoy life etc.

It was the unity of the United States of America during WWI and WWII that allows you and others that work to strip this country of means of unification, to do a lot of “really fun things”. Someday, you may get it, after you wash your brain from your fraudulent education. You can start first by asking for you money back from the college that sold you a bill of goods.

 

[Mayweather]

Brad:

If you want to be a self-defeatist, be my guest. But expect to run into a bunch of resistance from those of us that happen to appreciate freedom and know it was achieved by purer motives than your outlook says.

Seems to me you don’t know anything about my occupation, or what I do for America on a daily basis. I am more than comfortable with resistance from you, and anyone else who calls me defeatist.
For my part, I consider people who run from our problems, wish to deny, or refuse to adress them the worst kind of Americans.

 

[Mayweather]

Brad:

It was the unity of the United States of America during WWI and WWII that allows you and others that work to strip this country of means of unification, to do a lot of “really fun things”. Someday, you may get it, after you wash your brain from your fraudulent education. You can start first by asking for you money back from the college that sold you a bill of goods.

1. it wasn’t college it was a PhD program. and they paid me.
2. please showed me where I mentioned WWI and WWII.

so i’m stripping this country of means of unification? sorry I’m doing that to you.

 

[Lisa_N]

Mayweather:

Seems to me you don’t know anything about my occupation, or what I do for America on a daily basis. I am more than comfortable with resistance from you, and anyone else who calls me defeatist.
For my part, I consider people who run from our problems, wish to deny, or refuse to adress them the worst kind of Americans.

You might actually have a point if any of this were happening now. In the meantime please find a way to change the past. I’ve run out of ideas.

Lisa N

 

[Mayweather]

This conversation is going nowhere. Sorry for wasting all of your time.

 

[fix]

Mayweather:

This conversation is going nowhere. Sorry for wasting all of your time.

Do those in academe give up so easily these days?

 

[rastell]

Of course there is not “justice for all” but I would say the Pledge because that is the ideal- that is what this nation should be striving to achieve.

 

[smackdaddy]

Of course no one should be forced to recite the “Pledge of Allegiance”. Forcing someone to make a pledge to a flag borders on facist idolotry.

 

[Ghosty]

I do not say the pledge of allegiance, and I haven’t for years. I rejected the idea when I was an atheist, and I reject it even more now as a Catholic. I don’t think all Catholics need to agree with me, but I absolutely refuse to pledge allegiance to any country that protects the foul institution of abortion. I pledge allegiance to God, and to His Church, and I pledge enmity to those things that stand in the way of holiness. Sadly, the U.S. is one of those things right now, and perhaps always will be. I see no contradiction in this attitude whatsoever.