's Blogs

The guy above is just another dinosaur banging his old drum on religious rights. What about the rights of people who are not religious? In most faiths the numbers are decreasing. The Supreme Court is in place to give minorities a voice in laws passed by irresponsible politicians who pass laws pressured by religious beliefs of the right wing lobby, or gutless pandering in political motives in part. The State and the Church are separate entities and should remain as such. The religious right whines when it doesn't get it's way in people conforming to THEIR beliefs. How is it correct WE have had to conform to THEIR beliefs all these years? I think Obama has done a great job in moving forward on human rights in America. The obstructionist Republicans have been irresponsible and by the looks of the gaggle of Presidential nominees, who are as bad as the last time, have a huge job to put forward a viable candidate as their leader. Trump, Huckabee, and Cruz, have, are and will continue to hurt the Republican agenda and policies from getting recognition and support as long as they remain in the race.

I cannot rationalize in my mind, a black child in America going to school, putting his hand on his heart, and pledging allegiance to a flag and country, whose flag is so drenched in the blood of blacks during slavery , civil rights, equality, oppressive policing, and Politicians who still hate based on colour, and there were for the record several Republicans who vowed not to work with Obama on any issue before he was even sworn in. I can't wait for the debates lol.

I read a lot of great information about how the Pledge of Allegiance originated. It was created (and written) by Frances Bellamy in 1892. Frances Bellamy was a Baptist minister and a national socialist (his cousin Edward Bellamy was a leader of an American national socialist group). The original Pledge was written as "I pledge allegiance to my Flag and the Republic for which it stands, one nation indivisible, with liberty and justice for all". The original pledge alone was enough to cause concern because of its nationalistic nature. What was also telling that the original salute added to the Pledge was with children sticking their right arms out to the flag, which was definitely the same type of salute later used by the German National Socialists in the 1920s and 1930s (what the media later called "Nazis"). In fact, for a time, Americans and German socialists got along and they even got to show their pride in the U.S., a good decade before World War II. That salute was disowned by the American government in 1942 shortly after the U.S. entered World War II (the hand over heart salute has since been used for the pledge). By 1954, the pledge, which went through some mild changes, added "under God" after "one Nation". And that's why we have the pledge we got today but if it had been up to me, the pledge would've been deleted. I believe the Bellamys were fascists and the fact that Mussolini AND Hitler (both of whom were also national socialists) used similar salutes further proves my point.

The religious right are so full of hate for anything, and for most anybody, that doesn't completely adopt Christianity in it's entirety, even if half of the Bible, if not more, has been mistranslated. The propaganda they preach, as in this video, dismisses some of the real messages in the Bible that are obvious; messages of love, peace, kindness, understanding, and tolerance of their fellow man. They're so good at making fools out of themselves.

Very true guynflint I don't follow the politics in my own countries so what chance have I to understand any other country

no offense at all scott. most public schools now do not perform this "allegiance" anymore. as a some what conservative.. i agree. it seems like something you see from an old hitler promo film.
i just wish we did things here with more constitutional procedure. for example..our courts do not make laws. only congress. a prez has to sign it and the court has to determine that law's constitutional value. also, only states have the ability to define "marriage". so, whereas i agree we all should be able to marry, the way we just did that may not hold up in the long run without a constitutional amendment ratified by the states. it can get confusing..lolol

Sorry guys i didn't intend to offend anyone i was just intrigued that's all.

its a circus

In Australia our constitutional head is the elderly Queen of another country, that has to be weirder than pledging allegiance to a flag. Haven't heard of any other country requiring its citizens to swear allegiance to its flag or to the flag of another country. While there are many ways in which the USA is both unique and peculiar for other nations and their peoples, for the US it's just business as usual.

Scots, this is American footage from 2003. It is simply an example of how the Christian right hasn't changed their tune. Best wishes.

Hi Lunarwill, how current is this legislation? It seems very confusing. One thing that puzzles me is that the children were swearing allegiance to the Flag! We swear allegiance to our Queen, no other country, it seems, swears its allegiance to there particular flag or am I wrong?