[turtle]

No wonder our country is going to shit. What happened to patriotism? Hell yes I pledge allegiance to my flag and my country. I swore an oath to protect and defend this country and the flag that represents it.

What is so odd about that? America is built on freedoms and protecting/defending those freedoms.

This is a REALLY odd echo chamber I'm looking at right now.

[Matsu]

It can sometimes have an aura of fascist indoctrination if overused. If oaths are not to be taken lightly, then they probably shouldn't be taken by children...

[chucker]

Originally Posted by turtle No wonder our country is going to shit.

I'm not sure the US is "going to shit". It's got challenges, but what country doesn't.

Originally Posted by turtle What happened to patriotism?

Well, if that's a sincere question: patriotism is a movement that arose in the 19th century and culminated in the mid-20th century. Some countries went too far with it; others decided to keep it up. It's easy to blur the line between "my country is great", "my country is the greatest", and "my country is the greatest; therefore, all other countries are worse".

You can say "really, all pledging allegiance symbolizes is that someone strongly believes in their country's values", and that's fine. I for one, though, find it eerily too much like "schoolchildren must conform to their government lest they be labeled outsiders". Which admittedly is an extreme take, but sometimes, kids get arrested for refusing to pledge, and I think that's… problematic, to say the least.

Originally Posted by turtle This is a REALLY odd echo chamber I'm looking at right now.

It isn't, though? You're not the only one in this thread who disagrees with Brad and me.

[kscherer]

And, to be fair, Chucker is from Germany?

And the others are Canadian?

And Brad is … Brad?

I said that whole pledge thing growing up, and I still know the words by heart, but none of it has anything to do with my being — or not being — an American. My "Americanism" is based solely on being born here, raised here, and living here for 53 years.

And to put "patriotism" into a current context, it's the old-guard Russian "patriots" that are supporting the rape, murder, and pillaging of a sovereign country, and not so much the younger, less "patriotic" people. So, as Chucker put it, too much "patriotism" is a bad thing, especially when those "patriots" line up behind a nut ball and ransack the nation's capitol or follow his most recent "let's gut the Constitution" remarks. One must be very careful in their patriotic "duty" so as not to follow mad leaders into mayhem.

So, that said, my "patriotic" duty does not — ever — extend past the duty I hold for the God I worship, the family I serve, and the community in which I live. I'm not going to go kill people for the sake of politicians and billionaires. In fact, I'm not going to kill anyone in the name of "patriotism" unless said people pose a direct and immediate threat to my family. All this "for the patriotism" rhetoric has gone entirely off the rails.

[Brad]

Originally Posted by turtle Hell yes I pledge allegiance to my flag and my country. I swore an oath to protect and defend this country and the flag that represents it.

If that's your choice as an informed adult, by all means pledge your allegiance to what you love! But I see forcibly indoctrinating impressionable children into unquestioning, unwavering loyalty to a dispassionate, detached abstraction as something to be frowned upon since it suppresses critical thinking and free expression and instills a potentially dangerous attitude of isolationism. That goes for politics, religion, sports, corporations, or any other fill-in-the-blank subjectively infallible entity.

I look back at my childhood self, mindlessly reciting the words just because it was the thing you had to do, and I just shrug with indifference. I wish the words were earned. I wish any of the many teachers or adults in my early life, which I suspect is very typical in this regard, would have at least tried once to at least give some much-needed context instead of just pounding the habit into our days. I guess it may have been a tool to keep kids in line more than anything else, a trivially easy routine to mandate especially for young folks who need structure and discipline.

These United States have some good things going for them (you don't see me trying to flee the country), but they sure as hell aren't infallible (I personally IRL know some people who have been very real victims of systemic discrimination and abuse perpetuated by the people who've been running this country at the highest levels), and I think very few things deserve a daily pledge (and I can think of nothing that should mandate one) unless they're pretty damn top-tier.

[PB PM]

Originally Posted by turtle America is built on freedoms and protecting/defending those freedoms.

Expecting people to tow the line, and follow some cause just because of state says so, isn't that the exact opposite of the founding of America? Once a group of rebels, always a group of rebels, it's your nations culture, no?

Patriotism, nationalism? Bah humbug, it cannot die fast enough. It is one of the driving causes of hatred and division in the world, right behind religion.

[drewprops]

It isn't the 1950s anymore. The genie is out of the bottle, the message can't be controlled, we must come together over shared goals. When a team comes together organically, it's pretty darned unstoppable. You can't force excellence.

I *do* find it spiritually limiting to only find things from the past to criticize because if all you ever look for are failures, all you'll be able to see are failures.


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[kscherer]

Originally Posted by drewprops we must come together over shared goals.

Sounds nice. Whose goals?

Would that be the goals of ANTIFA? The Proud Boys? Donald Trump? Hilary Clinton? You?

[chucker]

Originally Posted by kscherer Sounds nice. Whose goals? Would that be the goals of ANTIFA? The Proud Boys? Donald Trump? Hilary Clinton? You?

Me, of course. I alone know the path forward.

[kscherer]

Originally Posted by chucker Me, of course. I alone know the path forward.

Then I trust you with my goals. So long as they lead to what I want.

[PB PM]

Originally Posted by kscherer Sounds nice. Whose goals?

The same could be said for national pride/patriotism. Why do we today have to live our lives for the goals and viewpoints of people who possibly died hundreds of years ago?

People around the world are never going to agree on everything, next door neighbours cannot even do that. The only goal most humans share is the desire to one up each other, in one way or another. That said, there are ways we can learn to get along better, and it will be a lot easier if people grew up and stopped this ra ra, my nation is the greatest patriotic BS.

[drewprops]

Originally Posted by kscherer Then I trust you with my goals. So long as they lead to what I want.

Hot smart ladies in fur bikinis teaching us Excel!!!?


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[drewprops]

Whoever needed to hear this about something that happened today in my general vicinity: You're Welcome.



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[kscherer]

Originally Posted by drewprops Hot smart ladies in fur bikinis teaching us Excel!!!? ...

Now we're talking!

Although I have no idea why they need to teach us Excel. Unless it's a boob chart or something!

[Matsu]

I feel like I missed something important here?

[709]

Originally Posted by drewprops Whoever needed to hear this about something that happened today in my general vicinity: You're Welcome. ...

GA pulls through again. 51 compared to 50 is a bigger deal than most people realize.

[turtle]

Thank God there is at least the House to add some level of sanity to the formerly all blue government.

All one party is rarely ever a good thing.

[drewprops]

We are so very tired of the advertisements. It has not felt like Christmas around here because of the deep saturation on every channel... television, radio, internet, print, telephone, text.


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[PB PM]

Apparently German police have been doing raids and arresting some far right group members that were planning to overthrow the government, possibly with Russian backing. Chucker, you know more about this?

https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/german...ests-1.6676932

[709]

Originally Posted by turtle Thank God there is at least the House to add some level of sanity to the formerly all blue government.

Yes, I for one can't wait to see what kind of solid governing Cowardly Qevin and the Sedition Caucus have in store for the next two years.

Originally Posted by turtle All one party is rarely ever a good thing.

Given that the leader of the party that tried to overthrow the US government just suggested that The Constitution be thrown out, I'm not sure they agree with you.

[turtle]

My statement still stands. All one party is rarely ever a good thing.

Red, Blue or Green. It doesn't matter.

[chucker]

Originally Posted by PB PM Apparently German police have been doing raids and arresting some far right group members that were planning to overthrow the government, possibly with Russian backing. Chucker, you know more about this? https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/german...ests-1.6676932

I heard about it from my coworker who's a bit of a far-right troll ( ), who doesn't find the story plausible, and who was asking "hmm, I wonder what that scenario would mean for the order of succession". Asking the important questions…

[Bryson]

I think there's a fundamental difference between reciting a pledge or oath once, as an adult, to be granted citizenship, vs reciting a similar pledge repeatedly at school, while an impressionable child.

(I became a Canadian Citizen about 10 years ago, and pretty sure there was a pledge to the Queen, but given that I was a British Citizen already its didn't seem all that controversial to do so.)

Edit: My apologies, I was reading the previous page and didn't notice the conversation had moved on.

[chucker]

Originally Posted by 709 Yes, I for one can't wait to see what kind of solid governing Cowardly Qevin and the Sedition Caucus have in store for the next two years. Given that the leader of the party that tried to overthrow the US government just suggested that The Constitution be thrown out, I'm not sure they agree with you.

I would argue that's a symptom of the US having too few parties, not too many.

Harder to get a majority on some of the wilder political takes in the US if you don't have just one party to compete with, but a handful.

Originally Posted by turtle My statement still stands. All one party is rarely ever a good thing.

Agreed.

[Bryson]

Originally Posted by chucker I heard about it from my coworker who's a bit of a far-right troll ( ), who doesn't find the story plausible, and who was asking "hmm, I wonder what that scenario would mean for the order of succession". Asking the important questions…

Of all the countries where I could see this working, I would imagine Germany to be pretty much last. They would be pretty resistant to such an attempt, surely?

[709]

Originally Posted by turtle My statement still stands. All one party is rarely ever a good thing. Red, Blue or Green. It doesn't matter.

Totally agree on that. The US needs a better system to allow 3rd parties a reasonable chance.

[chucker]

Originally Posted by Bryson Of all the countries where I could see this working, I would imagine Germany to be pretty much last. They would be pretty resistant to such an attempt, surely?

Well, I'd say we aren't resistant in the sense that we've fortified everything; we haven't. You can sit on the grass in the park next to parliament, if you'd like.

It's also a bit hard to tell how seriously to take the Reich Citizens movement. (Their basic premise is: the German Reich of 1918 — or the one of 1945? — never officially ceased to exist, and the current republic only exists as a LLC on paper, not as a state. Plus, the constitution is still temporary. Something like that. And they refuse to accept German national IDs.

Like most conspiracy theories, they take kernels of truth and weave those into a framework that isn't… particularly coherent; for example, if you consider a government illegitimate, you can't then simultaneously use that very government's courts to sue someone…)

The AfD is a bit more 'serious', and has seen some election results that required other parties to change coalitions around. Harder to pinpoint where that's going. But, unlike in the US, while we do have two major parties (traditionally), those people aren't being assimilated into either of them; they've formed their own parties and are looking to form coalitions.

TL;DR:

• resistant in terms of police protection? No, I don't think particularly. And I personally think that's good, but I can see how others might beg to differ.
• resistant in terms of the system (e.g., protections in place due to the makeup of parties)? Yeah, I think we're quite strong on that. It would be very tricky for any such movement to reach 50%, which is a key difference to the US.
• resistant in terms of coöpting individual people? No. Rhetoric against refugees, against the EU, against the Euro, etc. does work here, on about 10-25% of people. "They" are taking our jobs away; "they" are mooching on the welfare state, etc. The usual.

[kscherer]

Originally Posted by 709 Totally agree on that. The US needs a better system to allow 3rd parties a reasonable chance.

Actually, we need to eliminate party affiliation on ballets altogether. Adjust the preliminary elections to sort out the top 5 candidates by total vote, and those five get on the November ballet. Vote for the one you like the best, or who best represents your sense of "unity" or whatever.

I believe strongly in the freedom of speech, but party affiliation should be stricken from the ballet completely, and any candidate should be required by law to run on the merits of their person, and not some stupid, archaic and divisive party affiliation.

[Bryson]

Originally Posted by chucker resistant in terms of police protection? No, I don't think particularly. And I personally think that's good, but I can see how others might beg to differ. resistant in terms of the system (e.g., protections in place due to the makeup of parties)? Yeah, I think we're quite strong on that. It would be very tricky for any such movement to reach 50%, which is a key difference to the US. resistant in terms of coöpting individual people? No. Rhetoric against refugees, against the EU, against the Euro, etc. does work here, on about 10-25% of people. "They" are taking our jobs away; "they" are mooching on the welfare state, etc. The usual.

I did indeed mean mostly interpretation #2. Maybe a little of #3. I hadn't really considered interpretation #1.

Essentially, what would be the chances of the population at large accepting that this crackpot scheme is a legitimate means of seizing power, rather than just a terrorist attack?

[Capella]

Originally Posted by drewprops Whoever needed to hear this about something that happened today in my general vicinity: You're Welcome. ...

No, you're welcome I say as someone who's been doing a bigass fundraiser.