[quote]knewsom wrote:
rainjack wrote:
As for the silliness - unless I force you to participate in it, which has never happened, I should be able to exercise my constitutional rights, regardless of what you or your child think of it.
It’s never happened, but conservatives have tried time and again to institute mandatory praryer in school, not to mention attempts to ban the teaching of evolution. Religious teachings do not belong in school unless necessary to lend perspective to history. Teachers need not be preachers.[/quote]
So should we ban the pledge of allegiance in schools because it mentions God?
[quote]knewsom wrote:
It’s never happened, but conservatives have tried time and again to institute mandatory praryer in school, not to mention attempts to ban the teaching of evolution. Religious teachings do not belong in school unless necessary to lend perspective to history. Teachers need not be preachers.[/quote]
Please list the attempts of the conservatives trying to institute mandatory prayer. Are their people out there that want to? Absolutely. But it has never happened. Your fear makes you less than logical.
[quote]Lorisco wrote:
knewsom wrote:
rainjack wrote:
As for the silliness - unless I force you to participate in it, which has never happened, I should be able to exercise my constitutional rights, regardless of what you or your child think of it.
It’s never happened, but conservatives have tried time and again to institute mandatory praryer in school, not to mention attempts to ban the teaching of evolution. Religious teachings do not belong in school unless necessary to lend perspective to history. Teachers need not be preachers.
So should we ban the pledge of allegiance in schools because it mentions God?
[/quote]
No, but perhaps the Pledge should be said as it was originally written. WITHOUT the “under god” line.
[quote]rainjack wrote:
Please list the attempts of the conservatives trying to institute mandatory prayer. Are their people out there that want to? Absolutely. But it has never happened. Your fear makes you less than logical. [/quote]
Excuse me, but just yesterday you tried to tell me that liberals have “taken away the RIGHT to pray”, which is obvious illogical BS - yet you’re telling me that I’m being illogical because I stated that conservatives have tried on multiple occasion to make prayer mandatory in schools. I don’t have a list of links on my computer to all the articles I’ve read over the years about conservatives advocating mandatory prayer in schools through petitions, etc., but it HAS happened, and I’m sure you can admit to that.
I don’t “fear” that it’s going to happen - there are too many of us libs to stop it, and I’m quite happy about that. This psuedo-conservative wave of insanity is coming to an end; I’m quite confident that November will show a pretty distinct shift in our nations politics.
[quote]lucasa wrote:
That’s funny, I’ve been described as a conservative anarchist. Didn’t you and vroom just ‘educate’ everyone about how Stalin and Mao did the same thing with liberalist ideas? It’s funny to watch people ascribe liberals or conservatives as evil or power hungry. Evil knows no political party.
[/quote]
That’s funny, did you just lump me in with Knewsom as if his post had something to do with my opinions on this matter?
Y’know, I’m having fun watching this left vs rigth and school prayer silliness going on in this thread.
The right says the left wants to eliminate God.
When the left gets in the way of an attempt to put in a practice that is aligned with a particular religion, it gets spun into the left trying to ban God. It’s not the same thing and you shouldn’t buy the spin that says it is.
If you can find a story, with references, so I can go read it and make sure it isn’t just some hyped political BS, I’m pretty sure the underlying details will support this.
I’m so tired of the violent spin put onto everything in order to make everything in the political arena as divisive as possible.
[quote]vroom wrote:
I’m so tired of the violent spin put onto everything in order to make everything in the political arena as divisive as possible.[/quote]
LOL I don’t think you’re cut out for a career in politics, vroom.
Hey! I’m a liberal, and I wouldn’t mind it so much if everybody stopped being religious, but that doesn’t mean I think we should outright BAN religious stuff. If we did that, what would happen to the holidays? How fun would that be? Life would suck.
The way things are right now, we are symbionts, people. Atheists need the religious, and vice-versa. You see, atheists are what keep the religious people from collapsing under the weight of their silliness, burning folks at the stake, etc., and the religious keep us atheists from forgetting our roots, and they make sure we get some days off from work every once in a while.
I love religion… even if I don’t actually believe in any of it.
[quote]knewsom wrote:
This psuedo-conservative wave of insanity is coming to an end; I’m quite confident that November will show a pretty distinct shift in our nations politics.[/quote]
[quote]Lorisco wrote:
So should we ban the pledge of allegiance in schools because it mentions God?
[/quote]
Damn straight! I don’t want my kids pledging allegiance to ANYTHING OR ANYONE. I am not going to raise children who would be brainwashed to think this country is the end-all-be-all or who would be manipulated to recite prose like citizen-robots.
If you want to convince children to appreciate what they have you cannot do it with propaganda material. This is what they do in communist countries. Would you rather your child be made to appreciate this country in all her glory and shame as it is on their own or prodded thru the school systems? Patriotism cannot be taught…in fact it shouldn’t be.
I bet you couldn’t even tell me what the Pledge of Allegiance means?!
[quote]LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
Lorisco wrote:
So should we ban the pledge of allegiance in schools because it mentions God?
Damn straight! I don’t want my kids pledging allegiance to ANYTHING OR ANYONE. I am not going to raise children who would be brainwashed to think this country is the end-all-be-all or who would be manipulated to recite prose like citizen-robots.
If you want to convince children to appreciate what they have you cannot do it with propaganda material. This is what they do in communist countries. Would you rather your child be made to appreciate this country in all her glory and shame as it is on their own or prodded thru the school systems? Patriotism cannot be taught…in fact it shouldn’t be.
I bet you couldn’t even tell me what the Pledge of Allegiance means?![/quote]
Please enlighten us what it means. It is not like the title is self explanatory.
[quote]Zap Branigan wrote:
Please enlighten us what it means. It is not like the title is self explanatory.
[/quote]
I don’t consider this enlightening because it is apriori knowledge–it just hasn’t been realized yet.
I’ll answer your question inpart with a question:
How would you explain it to your children if they asked why they have to recite it or what it means?
It means one is unquestioningly pledging loyalty or the obligation of loyalty to a country–“the republic for which it stands”–and all her values wheather one actually believes in all of them or not. Now, I ask again–is this something you want to teach your children? Loyalty is a good value–don’t get me wrong–it is just not a school-age appropriate value–especially if it doesn’t teach one to question one’s own loayalty and why a specific entity would be deserving of said loyalty.
[quote]LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
Zap Branigan wrote:
Please enlighten us what it means. It is not like the title is self explanatory.
I don’t consider this enlightening because it is apriori knowledge–it just hasn’t been realized yet.
I’ll answer your question inpart with a question:
How would you explain it to your children if they asked why they have to recite it or what it means?
It means one is unquestioningly pledging loyalty or the obligation of loyalty to a country–“the republic for which it stands”–and all her values wheather one actually believes in all of them or not. Now, I ask again–is this something you want to teach your children? Loyalty is a good value–don’t get me wrong–it is just not a school-age appropriate value–especially if it doesn’t teach one to question one’s own loayalty and why a specific entity would be deserving of said loyalty.[/quote]
I have already discussed it with my 7 year old. She brought it up and we talked about it.
We keyed on the liberty and justice for all.
You cannot be seperate or disloyal to this society.
If everyone was out for himelf like you seem to be advocating it would quickly turn into a big fucking mess.
All the indoctrination and programming I have received since I was a small child has convinced me not to kill everyone that pisses me off. I consider this a good thing.
[quote]Zap Branigan wrote:
We keyed on the liberty and justice for all.
You cannot be seperate or disloyal to this society.
[/quote]
You are missing my point. I agree with teaching loyalty to this society on merit. I disagree that it is the school’s place to teach it–for the above stated reasons–because it is impossible to teach children (in a school setting) to discern the instances when such behavior is impracticle.
I think you mistake my questioning nature (thank you science) with being out for myself. I believe in most of the values of this country–some I do not and therefore would try to teach my children how to think for themselves about it. I don’t believe that my values are absolute. I would try to explain my point of view and leave it at that.
Quite right. But where did these values come from? Think about it for a moment–were they values that needed to be taught in school? I knew hatred and violence were intolerable before I started school. I understood the value of compassion before I could read–not on any philosophical level–but I knew what was good.
It all comes down to how one answers this question: Is it ones job as a parent to indoctrinate their child to particular beliefs or to give them the tools necessary to make these value based assumptions on their own?
It all comes down to how one answers this question: Is it ones job as a parent to indoctrinate their child to particular beliefs or to give them the tools necessary to make these value based assumptions on their own?[/quote]
There are lots of shitty families out there.
[/quote]
Even still, it is not the schools job to teach which ethical and moral values it deems correct over those it does not. I do believe there is a place for a discussion of these topics in the class-room as long as they remain in a purely dialectical form.
The problem is that many children won’t possess the ability to communicate and process these ideas due to their limited exposure to language and usage–making these discussions useless. These are discussions that are difficult at a collegiate level, let alone grammar school. This is the reason why particular subjects cannot be taught at this level.
It is an unfair realization because it underlies one of the greatest tenants of every liberal society–that tenant being education alone makes us free. If this is true then it means that those without access to a proper education can never be free (what constitutes a proper education can be argued, no doubt). This is why the teaching of the value of education is most important to the development of every individual and by extension to their society. By this I mean we must focus not only on the content taught but also the methods and process by which it is taught.
This is where we are beaten as a society by others, in my opinion–though not in our universities. And that is a tragic irony.
No child is forced to say the pledge of allegiance.
It’s pretty shitty to live in a country that you aren’t willing to pledge allegiance to.
I don’t think there are any onerous duties alluded to in the pledge. It doesn’t even mention assisting in the common defense… so it is actually less stringent than the law itself.
If the worst thing in the school system you can think to complain about is the pledge, your district must be freaking fantastic.
[quote]nephorm wrote:
No child is forced to say the pledge of allegiance.
[/quote]
Agreed! I am against the entire principle of a pledge. Kind of like I don’t believe in oaths based on faith.
Also agreed; however, it is even shittier to live in a country that uses a pledge such as ours to bolster false partiotism–especially since most children don’t comprehend what it is they are mndlessly repeating.
It is still an act that alienates those who do not believe in the recitation of mock pledges. To me they are pointless if they have to be forced or done in such systematic manner.
This is an illogical argument. I do not weigh the issues braught about by my own principles based on societal relevance. The average citizen isn’t prepared to undertake and or is uneducated on matters such as these. Yes. I agree it is a pretty paltry issue in comparison to Johnny getting gunned-down by Cletus in the halways–but is an issue nonetheless.
Lets just hide and ignore the issues and pretend they don’t exist because we are afraid of the consequences that such discussions may engender–is this a better solution?
Even still, it is not the schools job to teach which ethical and moral values it deems correct over those it does not.[/quote]
So you would be against a school - or district or teacher - taking a stand and teaching in class that slavery was a bad thing?
And you would be against a school teaching the value of tolerance for other people, ‘tolerance’ being very much a non-neutral value?
And you would be against the schools taking a holiday for MLK on the basis that the school is privileging the efforts of one value system - i.e., MLK’s efforts in the civil rights movement and equality for blacks - over another?
There has to be a bare minimum of civic virtue and values taught at school. I certainly don’t want any child of mine to be educated in a system where all ideas are of equal value - they are not.
[quote]LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
Also agreed; however, it is even shittier to live in a country that uses a pledge such as ours to bolster false partiotism–especially since most children don’t comprehend what it is they are mndlessly repeating.
[/quote]
Patriotism is emotional and largely non-rational. There’s nothing false about it. Children grow up wanting to think that their family, their group, their country is the best. A pledge of allegiance reinforces that natural (and healthy) prejudice. If a child is advanced enough to question the rational grounds of patriotism, he is advanced enough not to be harmed by the recitation of it.
Love for one’s country does not, in most people, spring forth spontaneously. Is there any wonder that if we remove all the institutions that further patriotism that we make patriotism rare itself?
No. This is a molehill. Sorry.
Then what’s the rational basis behind your complaints? You’re arguing a social issue without regard to societal relevance?
[quote]
Lets just hide and ignore the issues and pretend they don’t exist because we are afraid of the consequences that such discussions may engender–is this a better solution?[/quote]
Where did I say that?
Issues ought to be tackled in order.
If this is an issue, it’s pretty low on the list.
I would weigh favorably the advantages of vague, abstract patriotism against the risk of raising conformists.
