Joe: I love X! Don’t you?
Jack: Well, to be honest, no.
Joe: Why do you hate X?
Joe: Jesus was perfect in every way.
Jack: Well, no: he lost his temper a couple times.
Joe: So you obviously think Jesus was stupid, useless, and psychotic.
Wikipedia equates it to the “false dichotomy” fallacy, although, in my mind, there are subtle differences. The key, though, is in trying to forbid moderate viewpoints by trying to force all beliefs into extremism.
After hajario said that Red Skelton, in the quote linked, was full of shit, you said…
But he never said anything about “everybody who disagrees.” He gave one specific example of something he thought was full of shit. You extrapolated that to include everybody else he disagrees with, completely without evidence, and in contravention of logic.
Then you started talking about perfection, as if there was no possible middle ground between “full of shit” and “perfect.” But any intelligent person knows there is a vast amount of middle ground between the two. A great many of us – including yourself – including myself! – can be quite wrong, but not be “full of shit.” You excluded that vital middle ground.
One of my issues is that kids don’t know what allegiance is. Concepts like liberty and justice are pretty abstract - to a kid justice is fairness and fairness is often “I get what I want.” (Heck, its pretty hard to understand for a lot of adults). I teach Unitarian Sunday School to 2nd and 3rd graders - justice is a big concept for us - we start working on it in preschool and most of the kids get it before they graduate from high school. But elementary school kids - where you are most like to find the pledge - its really rare for them to understand it as a complex abstraction.
Right. If we were to take it serioudly, the sensible time for people to pledge their allegiance to the country, once, would be upon reaching adulthood, or upon applying for citizenship, whichever comes later.
IMHO, it is past time to drop the PoA from regular classroom use.
There are two possibilities: either ‘allegiance’ is a big deal to pledge (as in the implication that divided or multiple allegiances are a Bad Thing) or it’s something trivial, like your loyalty to the sports teams you root for. (True, there’s middle ground, but basically whatever ‘allegiance’ means, it’s somewhere on that spectrum.)
If it’s a Big Deal, then only adults should be asked to pledge it. But if it’s kinda trivial, WTF is it doing in our classrooms every day? Seems like it’s got a big role for something relatively unimportant.
Either way, it should be gone. And I don’t really see a middle ground where it’s trivial enough that elementary-school kids should be reciting it, but important enough that they should be asked to do so every day.
I had read, and heard, Skelton’s disquisition several times before finding it on the Snopes website. It seems simple enough, and despite my own convictions about the subject I liked his argument. However, to see a crude insult like that–which Skelton’s discussion certainly did not deserve (what did he do to YOU, Hajario?) was, to me, an outrage and an unnecessary attack on Skelton’s memory. Hence my sarcastic question about Hajario apparently considering himself, by contrast, perfect.
I don’t recall it being said in school past fifth grade and I never gave it much thought. I certainly didn’t think of it as an actual pledge or even ponder it’s meaning at all; it was just another thing you did in school. I’m kind of surprised to hear people express such strong feelings about it. Indoctrination? Really? Do you think kids actually internalize it or give it any kind of thought ?
That’s a good point…I hate to think that college students would be scarcely more literate than those high-school sophomores (and I don’t mean just the ones who made it on athletic scholarships!)
Can you think of any other reason to make them repeat it day after day at such an early age? That’s not something done with a simple pledge. Swearing in ceremony to join the military-once, and done. Swearing in ceremony to become a judge-once, and done. Swearing in ceremony to become The President Of The United States Of America-once, and done. Surely those pledges are at least as important as the Pledge of Allegiance…but when the soldiers, judges and Presidents get to work every day nobody says, “It’s not that we didn’t believe that you were totally sincere yesterday, but just to be sure…”.
dougie_monty, you’ve been told repeatedly not to post things that sound like threats to another poster any time you think you’ve been slighted. I’m issuing a warning for this.
I’m thinking more in terms of the effectiveness than the intent. I mean, I get what you’re asking and I can’t really think of a good reason yet at the same time, it seems a pretty weak attempt. Surely no one thinks kids take it seriously:confused:
I accept the warning. I understand. While you’re at it you might consider reprimanding Hajario for calling my statement “loopy” and something to laugh at. Such bald contempt is plenty malicious and injurious itself but somehow people sorta close one eye and look the other way.
That’s the thing; it’s quite likely that they DO internalize it, to the point where it becomes an ingrained, even Pavlovian, reflex to free-associate admirable national attributes and qualities to America and the American flag.
If we wish to indoctrinate kids to associate them, we should be making the effort to help them understand that the admirable attributes and qualities are aspirational; the PoA as currently pushed tends to portray them as inherent and latent.
But what other reason for having them say it day after day at such an early age can there possibly be than indoctrination? If you have another, I’d like to hear it.
Actually, he made a comment about that particular post, and did not attack you personally.
If you wish to discuss this particular ruling any further, please start a thread in ATMB. And as I know I’ve told you before, if you really believe another poster has done something against the board’s rules, then report the post, rather than attempting to respond in kind. Thanks.
