it might be reasonable to stand up and show respect for your country. but it might not be reasonable to get any kind of punishment if you choose not to stand up for the pledge. there are other things to disagree with in the pledge than the "under God" section.
In my opinion, our educators should ask those individuals why they feel that way, and maybe help them petition our government for redress of any grievances that could render them happier campers of our republic.
Not trampling on our individual liberty and natural rights should always be considered a good thing; especially if we can discover why some of our citizenry are not happy campers in our republic.
Does it matter what their reasons are for not wanting to say it? What if their problems are with the pledge not the republic.
In other words, when they experience exogenous forms of cognitive dissonance; in that case, I cannot blame them for not being the happiest campers in all the world, of our republic.
Some religious claim any oath taking could be a form of carrying their lord's name in vain. We have a First Amendment, for a reason.
What about the moral of true witness bearing? Are you willing to bear false witness to our republic instead?
It is just an expression. Happy Campers are usually willing to go along with us, just because they are happy; at least until they are no longer as happy.
Hmm, I do. Soldiers do, hmm anyone should. Freedom costs, sometimes, quite often in fact, that cost is human lives.
Taking a pledge, like an oath, does not make one any more or less sincere. Also, one cannot bear false witness against an abstraction.
The America I loved is gone. What remains is unworthy of calling itself America. There is no reason to plege allegiance to a dead idea.
If you must take innocent human life in order to preserve your freedom, then you aren't free. You are simply declaring that might is right. Soldiers don't fight for freedom, they fight for the state. As for your claim that "anyone should", with should being a normative word, can you explain the principle that leads you to reason that it is valid to take a person's life in order to defend an abstraction?
A moral of true witness bearing would preclude your rationalization. However, you bring up a good point since our some of our own elected representatives seem to insist on being moral to some abstractions, by merely saying no.
It isn't about respecting a god; it is about our elected representatives to government bearing false witness to our own supreme law of the land while claiming loudly from public venues that they actually have morals, just to get us to elect them to "rule over us".
duhhhh, I already did, but here goes again.... LIFE, LIBERTY AND THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS...these are abstractions, thoughts and everyone should be willing to defend those rights, by killing if necessary, as Americans have done since the 1700's. If you are unwilling to defend those rights then you do NOT deserve to have those abstract rights. You are lucky, in America you get those rights by the blood of others, you do NOT have to deserve those rights, they are a blood given gift of Americans by the hundreds of thousands that have died to allow you American abstractions without taking the responsibility for earning those abstractions.
Yes, a lie is a lie is a lie. I personally say the pledge the way I learned it, in the early 1950's. Then it did not have the politically correct nonsense about "UNDER GOD". I pledge my honor to protect the nation that has given me so much, freedom, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness (no guarantee I will attain it). I left blood in vietnam defending this nation. Vietnam may have been a national mistake, but my honor was not. I will not lie by saying UNDER GOD, but I will pledge.
