December, ever heard of Emmett Till? There were most definitely lynchings in the 1950s, though not to the extent in the decades prior.
I sure have heard of Emmett Till, although I’ve not thought about him for a long time. I worked for civil rights in the 50’s.
The statement I disputed was
Till’s presumed murderers did go to trial, although they may not have worried about it. I will grant that Mississippi was the most laggard state at that time, and my statement was a bit over-broad.
Back to the OP, it would be ridiculous to imply that the lynching of Emmett Till was caused by adding the words, “Under God” to the P of A or forcing kids to recite it or any other aspect of life in the 50’s. The 50’s were a time of enormous progress for African Americans. However, IMHO it would be invalid, to give credit to the POA for civil rights advances. There were many reasons. Most of the gains were due to actions by courageous Black people.
Assuming that american children can’t compete with the rest of the world’s children, and noting that children in the rest of the free world usually aren’t made to recite any kind of pledge (it’s an american peculiarity), the only relationship one could imagine between your two points is that possibly reciting a pledge transform children in drooling idiots…
Was it what you meant?
The point was not that it was responsible, but that it didn’t prevent it.
Poly
I agree with RT. (Don’t faint, my friend. ;))
Furthermore, a more weird and contradictory circumstance could hardly be imagined than being forced against your will to pledge allegience to a republic that stands for liberty for all. But no liberty for you and the others forced to say it, obviously.
[Soup Nazi voice]
No liberty for you!!
[/Soup Nazi voice]
Omni, one of the silliest kind of arguments is one in which a person tries to correlate something they don’t like with the crime rate. As with most other attempts, you don’t make a ghost of an argument SHOWING such a connection: just an intimation. There are litterally thousands of factors that affect crime rates, and more thousands of plausible causal chains. As a fairly well-read social scientist, I can say for sure that no conclusive evidence has been presented that would support your conclusions.
So far, the only solidly verified claim is that increased poverty definately contributes somewhat to crime. This alone would be enough to account for the crime rates over the last century: lowest during the huge economic boom, very high during the jump in poverty after the 60s, lowering rates as the economy boomed in the 90s.
So unless you have osmeting better, I’d suggest you drop this silly line of proof.
—I think currently we are teaching the kids less respect for anything and more ‘I-got-mine-screw-you’ type of attitude, where the self is important and respect is a thing of the past. —
Or rather, the sorts of respect you approve of, for the sorts of things you think should be respected. Unfortunately for you, kids today still respect plenty of things from parents, to justice, to equality, etc. Far more go into public service or non-profit work. On the whole, I’d rate the kids of today as by far morally superior to an age where the population was segregated, women were thought to be foolish and useless for anything but childrearing, atheists and homosexuals were verboten, and people actually felt proud about ganging up on a brave person who was willing to stand up for his dignity.
Kids today better respect the fullness of the values like justice and liberty and equality, rather than thinking that parading symbols around was enough, putting the values they stood for second.
Saying the pledge of allegiance should not be mandatory. We have the freedom of speech, the right to say or not say what we believe. However, it should be mandatory for people to at least stand. They should show respect for other’s beliefs, even if they don’t share them. If another nationality was saying their pledge of allegiance or singing their national anthem, I would stand, I just wouldn’t pledge allegiance. And it wouldn’t matter the country- I would stand to acknowledge my respect for their beliefs.
I disagree. Standing is as much a forced behavior as saying the pledge or singing the anthem or saluting. While I would prefer that people were respectful, forcing them to be respectful serves no purpose.
When “should” becomes “must,” you’re turning liberty into tyranny.
monica: Please avail yourself of the many dictionaries on the planet and look up the word “freedom.”
And, would you be so kind as to provide the text of a pledge of allegiance to their flag from another country?
—However, it should be mandatory for people to at least stand. They should show respect for other’s beliefs, even if they don’t share them.—
As much as you or I would LIKE for people to respect each other, we shouldn’t FORCE them to. What would be the point of that? The message? Respect is supposed to be earned, not made into a meaningless and expected rote.
And even if we agreed that showing respect should be mandatory, who are we to mandate HOW one should show their respect? Why can’t I just tell someone that I respect their country outright? Why can’t I recite my own thoughtful pledge of respect? Why do I even have to be present? For instance, I respect athletes: but I don’t have to show up at every game played, or even any one, to “demonstrate” it. I don’t much like watching sports games: I’d rather play them, or do something else. That doesn’t mean that I think watching sports is dumb, it’s just not my thing.
Apos:
That’s an excellent analogy! If you don’t mind, I’ll be sure to use it, and attribute the quote to you, the next time (and, sadly, this subject will come up again, no doubt) someone decides that to honour his own freedom in the United States, they have to deny freedom to someone else.
monica:
What about the Saudi flag? Are you going to show “appropriate respect” to it although the flag itself has the words “There is no god but Allah and Muhammed is his Prophet” on it?