That’s probably the nub of the issue. There was a time when standing up and swearing spoken oaths was a very British thing to do, but we’re over that now.
I did that all the time as a kid. I didn’t realize until years later that the mumbly ceremony in first grade (circa 1975) was the Lord’s Prayer, and the mumbly ceremony at the B’nai B’rith summer camp was the singing of HaTikva.
It always seemed the polite thing was just to play along.
Anyhoo, I’d vote against this in a heartbeat. It’s too open-ended, with the notion that vaguely, somehow, youths reciting a pledge will make some undefined problems go away. When the problems don’t go away, the proponents won’t admit they were wrong - they’ll just claim the pledge isn’t being taken seriously and what’s needed is more pledging, with pledge-enforcers making sure everyone is pledging right.
Oh well. At least this is just being tossed around in the House of Lords, and not by a group with actual political influence - the editors of The Sun, for example.
Our cub scouts have to say an oath when they join…
“I promise, on my honour,
to do my duty to God and to the Queen,
to help other people,
and to keep the Cub Scout Law”
I imagine a citizenship oath will be taken about as seriously as the Cubs take theirs.
Bah. Swear an oath to some anacronistic old biddy/jug-eared clown/ginger-haired bastard son of a doe-eyed nympho and her domestic staff, depending on circumstances? Why? They don’t mean shit to me.
The first paragraph is pure unadulterated toss. I’m an atheist and I don’t give a shit about the royal family.
The second bit, fair enough. I pledge to do my bit by society on the understanding that in return other members of society will try to see me right. I might be willing to give that a go if I was to believe it might happen.
As it is, I’ll just continue saving. A few more years and we’re off to somewhere more civilized where the natives can read and speak english properly and the trains are clean & on time. Sweden’s looking good at the moment.
Well, maybe with a few hours community service.
Only if you do it three times.
What a lot of Britons posting to this thread seem to be missing is that you’re already beholden to the Queen, whether you like it or not.
She’s part of your social contract. If you don’t like it, your options are revolution, emigration, or somehow getting Parliament to abolish the monarchy.
Beholden are we? We owe gratitude to the Queen whether we like it or not?
Really?
£0.62/year for the lot of them… worth it for the entertainment of seeing republicans seethe.
And your third one shows exactly why any obligation or expectation to express loyalty to her is so odious to some of us. It’s the use of the status quo to override any inconvient opinions we may hold.
Well, I didn’t say it wasn’t odious; the fact remains, though, that the majority of the public is not in favor of abolishing the monarchy (or wasn’t, last I checked). It’s a symbol of Britain, etc. etc.
And yes, tagos, beholden. The first duty of the Queen is defense of the realm, and I doubt you’d be thrilled if HM decided to do away with the Army, Royal Navy, and RAF. We all know she doesn’t actually do any defending (and couldn’t actually dissolve the MoD and its associated arms if she wanted to), but that’s the way the chips have fallen.
Obviously there’s nothing the monarchy actually does which you ought to be grateful for (keeping the Christmas broadcast short, perhaps), but as I said, she’s the head of state you’re stuck with, and unless you actually manage to get rid of her you owe her your allegiance.
So what? Why should I have to swear allegiance to majority opinion?
So we should be grateful for her doing nothing, and that she doesn’t change things even though she couldn’t?
You haven’t demonstrated this. Why should we express allegiance to her solely because she exists?
Isn’t the oath defined in Cub Scout Law?
Wow, recursive.
Because that’s what government is based on. Why should she not have you arrested and thrown in choky simply because you exist?
Because the law says she can’t. The law also says she’s your Queen. (Actually, mine too, since I’m still a UK citizen)
I’m not saying you ought to go around proclaiming how loyal you are to the monarch, just that if there was a law requiring you to do so you can’t very well complain if you get prosecuted for refusing.
As I said, she’s part of your social contract as currently written, accident of birth or not. If you want to do something about it, as noted below, you can - although I’ll grant that packing up and leaving for somewhere else is probably your only feasible option.
This is all a purely academic exercise, of course, since that oath thing will never actually happen. Still, it might be an important one, when you consider that time and circumstance might one day land you with an elected government with an interest in making you do something much more odious than paying lip service to some bint in a tiara.
Helping to round up the Jews, for instance.
I’m starting to feel a bit like King Arthur here.
-“I am your king!”
-“Well* I * didn’t vote for you”
So you keep saying, as though it explains or justifies something.
What I don’t understand is why you’re equating the objection I have with expressing an allegiance to the queen with some kind of blind denial of her existence. Just because British law assigns her a particular role and recognises me as a British citizen does not justify any expectation for me to have or to demonstrate any loyalty or support for this situation.
And why on earth are you now talking about prosecutions?
(Edit: and there’d be no reason for me to pack my bags, anyway, I could renounce my British citizenship and just stick to my Irish one…)
Come, now, a rousing chorus:
God save our gracious Queen,
Long live our noble Queen,
God save the Queen:
Send her victorious,
Happy and glorious,
Long to reign over us:
God save the Queen…
Isn’t singing God Save the Queen more or less the same as a hypocritical mouthing of a pledge?
That’s why I never sing. The same as I never join in any recitations of prayers in church services.
Seconded.
And many of us never sing it or stand up for it.