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It's a symbol of indoctrination, whether it's Nazi Germany or the good ol' US of A.
Nailed it. Exactly.
caw
It's a symbol of indoctrination, whether it's Nazi Germany or the good ol' US of A.
This does bring up a bit of a point I'm curious about. Would there be the same reaction if a well like, successful player did the same thing. If someone like Russell Wilson did it, you may be seeing more people saying it's good for him to take a stand and far less America: love it or leave it comments.
Regardless of how one feels about the Pledge and standing/not standing, I think it only fair to note that it's not a logic fail at all, imo. The flag is a symbolic representation of the nation and its foundation (the Constitution). The Pledge essentially says this.
That may be, but it's arbitrary to say this ritual means X and only X to everyone. Can't a person take a stand against racism and still respect the fact soldiers died for this country?Regardless of how one feels about the Pledge and standing/not standing, I think it only fair to note that it's not a logic fail at all, imo. The flag is a symbolic representation of the nation and its foundation (the Constitution). The Pledge essentially says this.
I'm on my phone, so I won't use the multi quote thingy.
Michael Wolfe - in the context of the NFL tradition of the team standing while the flag waves and the national anthem plays, I can't think of what else the flag and anthem are supposed to stand for if not the American ideal.
Roxxsmom - I see a huge difference in logic between, say, a woman in Iran refusing to display a similar show of respect to her country's flag in protest of discrimination against women, and Karpernick's towards the American flag and anthem.
Rugcat - good God, this could be the last time I ever agree 100% with one of your posts, so I want to call it out. Yeah, poor Alex Smith.
Just had an interesting convo with my hubs and my son about the Pledge. I stopped saying it in junior high. I still stood because I wasn't quite brave enough, but I didn't do the hand-on-heart thing, and I didn't say the words. So when my son expressed his annoyance that he had to say it (in grade school) I told him it was his choice, that I'd back him with the school if he wanted to stay seated. My husband just now heard this story and he's very annoyed with us. "Why should we have to pledge allegiance?" I ask him. "WHY NOT?" he answers. *sigh*
And this is a guy who's relatively liberal. If he can't understand the failure of logic of pledging allegiance to THE FLAG (not the Constitution, mind) I don't know what to tell him.
Of course he has the right to refuse to stand.
But Kaepernick has a long history of difficult public relations with the team and the fans in San Francisco. Alex Smith, their quarterback, had led the 49ers to nine straight wins before he was injured. Kaepernick took over, played well, ( although he lost the big ones) and Alex Smith never played again. Smith was a class act, never complained, kept his mouth shut, and was traded the next year.
Kaepernick, unlike Smith, proved to be surly, dismissive, contemptuous of fans and media, and was not particularly popular even at the height of his success. When the team began to struggle and he played poorly, the fans gleefully piled onto him – something he well deserved, Imo.
Had he been a respected sports figure, his refusal to stand would have been an interesting demonstration of conscience, and I think would have received much support along with some condemnation.
But he is so disliked that it's seen by many as nothing more than a stunt and another example of his unpleasant and contentious personality. Maybe that's not fair, but it's the way it is. Personally, I never forgave the 49ers for how they treated Alex Smith, and I would happy to never see Colin Kaepernick in a 49ers uniform again.
Roxxsmom - I see a huge difference in logic between, say, a woman in Iran refusing to display a similar show of respect to her country's flag in protest of discrimination against women, and Karpernick's towards the American flag and anthem.
c.e.lawson said:Rugcat - good God, this could be the last time I ever agree 100% with one of your posts, so I want to call it out. Yeah, poor Alex Smith.
but really we're all just here expressing our opinions here, NT. so here are some, in no particular order:
compulsory participation in nationalistic ritual is bullshit.
kapernick has the right to do whatever he wants as long as he is prepared to suffer the consequences that come with it. you know, like regular people.
William Haskins said:kapernick is a shitty quarterback who folds like a cheap card table under pressure.
Maybe Kaepernick is saving his energy so he can stand in the quarterback pocket better, something he didn't do very well last year.
Every time I watch Aaron Rodgers throwing lasers to his receivers, I can't help remember in 2005, the 49ers chose Smith instead of Rodgers and sealed their fate for the next decade. Rodgers is a elite qb, Super Bowl champion and as soon as he's eligible he walks into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Nearly 12 years later Smith is a game manager still trying to get to a Super Bowl. The only way he gets into the Hall of Fame is it he buys a ticket.
It lost all meaning for me. For most of my time during the years we did have to recite every day, I didn't think about the meaning of it at all - it was just something we did to start the school day.
I never claimed any "contradiction." I see a sentiment that, in and of itself, should not be rote for school-aged children. I think repetition of these sorts of sentiments for young people in our country are more likely to make them meaningless than meanigful.
Alex Smith suffered under a series of new offensive coordinators and systems every year. When he finally got some stability under Harbaugh, he blossomed. He would've made it to the Super Bowl had not a teammate muffed a punt and given the game away to the New York Giants – a game that was already won.
rugcat said:But here's the simple truth – it's an unspoken rule that you do not lose your starting position due to injury. Smith had nine straight wins for the 49ers when he was temporarily sidelined by concussion. He was replaced by Kaepernick and never given another chance. That's not being beat out for the position – that's being screwed. He not only refused to complain, he did everything in his power to help Kaepernick become a better quarterback.
rugcat said:Kaepernick has some real talent. He is also a nasty piece of work – he was on top of the world, riding high. But instead of being gracious, or even halfway decent, he basically shit on everybody he came in contact with.
rugcat said:In San Francisco, the blowback on Kaepernick has nothing to do with his race, with black lives matter, or anything else except the people here thoroughly dislike the man, and with good reason.
If the 49ers had picked Rodgers instead of Smith, Mike Nolan and Mike Singletary would have screwed him up, too.
Having little kids pledge allegiance to a nation is kind of odd, though. What does it mean? For starters, it does assume that Nation is a monolith, which it can't be. Pauline Hanson's (white) Australia is not my multicultural Australia - so which of us should define it, and which of us should pledge allegiance to whose version of it, and how old do the children need to be to understand the nuances of the debate?
There's no doubt that Aaron Rogers is a better quarterback. Coming out of college, it's always a risk – some number one picks never make it, some sixth round picks become superstars. The 49ers made their best guess, and they guessed wrong.I'm certain given what they know now, maybe 99.9 percent of 49ers Nation would love to turn back time to find out for themselves.
Rodgers is still elite. Smith, like Nolan and Singletary, is still a scrub.
True story: What I learned from the daily pledge of allegiance was how to tell my right hand from my left.It definitely is odd for little kids to be pledging allegiance to a nation. But I think the idea of doing so is that a nation, children included, should be of one mind and one heart when it comes to certain topics like keeping the nation together. That the individual is part of a whole, part of something greater than themselves and is needed in order to for unity to be maintained. Heavy stuff to be putting on kids for sure and something that is hard to truly understand the scope of at that age.
If people were going with that instead of just saying it is antiquated or indoctrinating kids as if allegiance to your nation is some sort of cult or makes the pledge lose meaning in a wholesale fashion, I wouldn't disagree. But that's not how this conversation normally goes down in other places or has gone down in this thread.
Good point. But kids aren't monolithic. How about we not act as if they are?
You didn't say there was a contradiction, you implied that there was a contradiction in the way in which the pledge is worded. I can't speak for everyone, but as a child I certainly understood that the flag was a symbol and not what was really being pledged to. Nor did I then or now find anything creepy in pledging allegiance to my nation, or find that it made the pledge itself less meaningful for me.
In other words, you're basing your opinion on assumptions that rely on all children being the same in this regard and they're not anymore the same than when I was a child. For some, it will lose meaning. There's no denying that and it would be foolish to even try. But for others, it feels just as meaningful as the first time they said it.
But this topic has very little to do with whether it should be said at sporting events, which is interesting enough on its own.
It definitely is odd for little kids to be pledging allegiance to a nation. But I think the idea of doing so is that a nation, children included, should be of one mind and one heart when it comes to certain topics like keeping the nation together. That the individual is part of a whole, part of something greater than themselves and is needed in order to for unity to be maintained. Heavy stuff to be putting on kids for sure and something that is hard to truly understand the scope of at that age.
If people were going with that instead of just saying it is antiquated or indoctrinating kids as if allegiance to your nation is some sort of cult or makes the pledge lose meaning in a wholesale fashion, I wouldn't disagree. But that's not how this conversation normally goes down in other places or has gone down in this thread.
But I think the idea of doing so is that a nation, children included, should be of one mind and one heart when it comes to certain topics like keeping the nation together.
But that's not necessarily a good thing - at all. Keeping the nation together how, exactly? What does that mean? Who gets to decide?
Much better for kids to pledge allegiance (if they have to pledge allegiance to anything) to concepts like critical thought, or compassionate service or something, I would suspect.
Also - times change. I'll bet even in your own singular instance, the nation that you pledged allegiance to (as you understood it) when you were a tot, is not the same nation that you're pledging allegiance to now. Not in your hopes for it, or your understanding of where it is heading, or your understanding of the history that created it.
If I'd had to pledge allegiance in my tot-hood, I'd have been pledging allegiance to a nation that believed strongly in the need for racism and homophobia and sexism and religious intolerance. And a six-day-week and pubs closing in mid afternoon. These are not things I'd pledge allegiance to today, and the people who would pledge allegiance to those ideals (yes, we have them!) are not people I want to be all that much in unity with.
The idea, as I understand it, is to be one nation and not break apart into little splinter nations no matter what. Whether the pressure is coming from outside or within.
When a flag rises you stand up off your ass because people died underneath for you freedom.
Cross-posted, so I'll put it here, and crib from your response as well
What if the figurehead of the nation is someone as polarising as Trump? Then the pledge, for half of the people who took it, becomes meaningless, surely?
On one occasion I went with a Wog friend to his national Christian club. A hymn was sung and a flag was risen. An ignorant Arab didn’t pay respect. Needless to say he was carried out of the club on a stretcher.