When I was growing up we also would go out and pledge allegiance with the American flag. I wish Americans were taught the importance of strong families as well.
This just seems like one of those issues where if someone you don't like is doing it, you try to make it look bad, even though other countries you don't dislike are doing the same thing and you don't have a problem with it.
There are definitely problems with the Pledge of Allegiance, as written by Francis Bellamy and originally published in the Youth's Companion, an American Christian Socialist magazine, in 1892. Some notes as to its provenance: "While working as assistant editor of the Youth’s Companion, a popular magazine for young people, Bellamy first published his pledge in August, 1892. Bellamy, who also served as the chair of a committee of state school superintendents of the National Education Association, preparing for the 400th anniversary of Columbus’ expedition, turned the pledge into a school ceremony and flag salute for the celebrations.
Scholarship shows that Bellamy had planned to use the word “equality,” along with “liberty and justice for all,” in his pledge, but dropped the idea, believing rightly that the committee, which was composed of state school superintendents, would drop the pledge entirely if the word equality, which they associated with radicalism and equal rights for African Americans and women, was used.
Bellamy, who was elected Vice President for Education for The Society of Christian Socialists in 1889, remained an active Christian socialist, which meant that he saw socialism with its commitment to cooperation and equality as a true expression of the Christian Gospel, rather than capitalism, which he associated with the selfishness and greed of the money changers whom Jesus drove from the temple. For Bellamy and other non-Marxist socialists, socialism would triumph through education and reform, rather than working-class revolution.
The Founders, most especially Anti-Federalists such as Thomas Jefferson and Patrick Henry, would not have appreciated the pledge - starting out with the notion of pledging allegiance itself. A pledge of allegiance was originally given to a feudal lord, making the giver of the pledge a subject of the lord and liable for the performance of such duties and labor, and payment of such taxes as the lord prescribed, in exchange for protection of life and limb given by the lord's military. The person who had given such a pledge would hold his land at the pleasure of the lord, who could take it from him at will. Such a pledge would abrogate one's status as a free citizen of a constitutional Republic, with inalienable and inherent rights, including life, liberty, and property. So in terms of the original conception of the founders, set out in the Declaration of Independence and the Articles of Confederation of 1777, our original Constitution, the pledge in and of itself turns those ideas on their heads, it is a betrayal, not an affirmation, of them. So in this way the Pledge is against our founding ideals - it's anti-patriotic, not pro. Of course, in the conception of a Socialist who saw the centralized State as the sole source of legitimacy of its subjects and of the privileges granted to them - guaranteed on good behavior, or the needs of the state - such a relation of subjection between the person and the State would seem natural. But it is alien to the vision of the Founders, who had rebelled against their subjection to the British Crown, and freed themselves from its chains and strictures.
Sure, they always have been, every totalitarian regime ever has cloaked itself in patriotism and "family values", the worse the totalitarianism, the greater the promotion and fanfare, the biggest example of recent times being the Nazis, with the various Communist regimes doing their best but not quite coming up to the Nazi standard. If you were a fan of big rallies, parades, inspirational music, lots of flags and ceremony, the Nazis had it cold - and they were certainly big on family values - if you had the right genetics, as defined by the Rockefeller-funded Institute for Racial Sciences in Berlin (https://www.thelibertybeacon.com/eugenics-and-the-nazis-the-california-connection/) - you got a subsidy for getting married and having children.
It's from Belarus, not Russia, and it's an exclusive interview with no less than Aleksandr Dugin, who wrote Foundations of Geopolitics back in 1997 - which Putin is following like a script. Read this - it also gives interesting info on Dugin and his connections (including one Eduard Limonov, who wrote a column for the Exiled! webzine back in the 1990s) - https://tec.fsi.stanford.edu/docs/aleksandr-dugins-foundations-geopolitics
Here's a warning - insults directed at me or anyone else in the course of a discussion, to include such terms as "leftard" will be dealt with by deletion on the first occurrence, a permanent ban at the next occurrence. You can argue, but if you want to act like a five year old and call people names, you're history.
When I was growing up we also would go out and pledge allegiance with the American flag. I wish Americans were taught the importance of strong families as well.
This just seems like one of those issues where if someone you don't like is doing it, you try to make it look bad, even though other countries you don't dislike are doing the same thing and you don't have a problem with it.
There are definitely problems with the Pledge of Allegiance, as written by Francis Bellamy and originally published in the Youth's Companion, an American Christian Socialist magazine, in 1892. Some notes as to its provenance: "While working as assistant editor of the Youth’s Companion, a popular magazine for young people, Bellamy first published his pledge in August, 1892. Bellamy, who also served as the chair of a committee of state school superintendents of the National Education Association, preparing for the 400th anniversary of Columbus’ expedition, turned the pledge into a school ceremony and flag salute for the celebrations.
Scholarship shows that Bellamy had planned to use the word “equality,” along with “liberty and justice for all,” in his pledge, but dropped the idea, believing rightly that the committee, which was composed of state school superintendents, would drop the pledge entirely if the word equality, which they associated with radicalism and equal rights for African Americans and women, was used.
Bellamy, who was elected Vice President for Education for The Society of Christian Socialists in 1889, remained an active Christian socialist, which meant that he saw socialism with its commitment to cooperation and equality as a true expression of the Christian Gospel, rather than capitalism, which he associated with the selfishness and greed of the money changers whom Jesus drove from the temple. For Bellamy and other non-Marxist socialists, socialism would triumph through education and reform, rather than working-class revolution.
For over three decades, Bellamy’s pledge read, “I pledge allegiance to my flag, and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.” https://www.peoplesworld.org/article/the-pledge-of-allegiance-s-socialist-history/
The Founders, most especially Anti-Federalists such as Thomas Jefferson and Patrick Henry, would not have appreciated the pledge - starting out with the notion of pledging allegiance itself. A pledge of allegiance was originally given to a feudal lord, making the giver of the pledge a subject of the lord and liable for the performance of such duties and labor, and payment of such taxes as the lord prescribed, in exchange for protection of life and limb given by the lord's military. The person who had given such a pledge would hold his land at the pleasure of the lord, who could take it from him at will. Such a pledge would abrogate one's status as a free citizen of a constitutional Republic, with inalienable and inherent rights, including life, liberty, and property. So in terms of the original conception of the founders, set out in the Declaration of Independence and the Articles of Confederation of 1777, our original Constitution, the pledge in and of itself turns those ideas on their heads, it is a betrayal, not an affirmation, of them. So in this way the Pledge is against our founding ideals - it's anti-patriotic, not pro. Of course, in the conception of a Socialist who saw the centralized State as the sole source of legitimacy of its subjects and of the privileges granted to them - guaranteed on good behavior, or the needs of the state - such a relation of subjection between the person and the State would seem natural. But it is alien to the vision of the Founders, who had rebelled against their subjection to the British Crown, and freed themselves from its chains and strictures.
Sure, they always have been, every totalitarian regime ever has cloaked itself in patriotism and "family values", the worse the totalitarianism, the greater the promotion and fanfare, the biggest example of recent times being the Nazis, with the various Communist regimes doing their best but not quite coming up to the Nazi standard. If you were a fan of big rallies, parades, inspirational music, lots of flags and ceremony, the Nazis had it cold - and they were certainly big on family values - if you had the right genetics, as defined by the Rockefeller-funded Institute for Racial Sciences in Berlin (https://www.thelibertybeacon.com/eugenics-and-the-nazis-the-california-connection/) - you got a subsidy for getting married and having children.
It's from Belarus, not Russia, and it's an exclusive interview with no less than Aleksandr Dugin, who wrote Foundations of Geopolitics back in 1997 - which Putin is following like a script. Read this - it also gives interesting info on Dugin and his connections (including one Eduard Limonov, who wrote a column for the Exiled! webzine back in the 1990s) - https://tec.fsi.stanford.edu/docs/aleksandr-dugins-foundations-geopolitics
Here's a warning - insults directed at me or anyone else in the course of a discussion, to include such terms as "leftard" will be dealt with by deletion on the first occurrence, a permanent ban at the next occurrence. You can argue, but if you want to act like a five year old and call people names, you're history.