How famous are Cristiano Ronaldo and Messi in the USA?

[Hauldren Collider]

Heil hitler = creepy.
Heil Deustchland = not creepy.

Hail Obama/Hail Bush/etc = creepy.
I pledge allegiance to the flag... = not creepy.

God Save the Queen....... = Creepy? You have god and a cult of personality in there. Double creepiness.

[Asher]

Asher, your avatar is slightly creepy.

Only slightly? I thought it was pretty creepy. It was designed to be so.

Now if I encouraged every schoolchild to wear my avatar and salute it each morning, we'd have a problem.

[Asher]

Heil hitler = creepy.
Heil Deustchland = not creepy.

Hail Obama/Hail Bush/etc = creepy.
I pledge allegiance to the flag... = not creepy.

Err, let me fix that for you.


Heil Hitler = creepy.
Heil Deustchland = creepy.

Heil Obama/Heil Bush/etc = creepy.
Heil America = creepy.

PS: Heil != Hail

[Hauldren Collider]

Asher must be really creeped out by 4th of July.

Shame. Fireworks are fun.

PS: Heil != Hail

Ah. I had just assumed it was the german version of hail, like haus = house.

[giblets]

Err. This is stupid on two counts:
1) You have a lower tolerance for creepiness, which means you don't have an issue with the pledge
2) You do have hissy fits over the pledge. Search the forum archives, and look at how often the Pledge has been in the news since 2000. It's a lot.

I'm sorry that all that time wasted saying the pledge of allegiance prevented you from learning the definition of 'tolerance'.

[Aeson]

Luckily the 4th of July isn't about putting your hand over your heart so much as having it blown off... so not creepy.

[Asher]

I'm sorry that all that time wasted saying the pledge of allegiance prevented you from learning the definition of 'tolerance'.

[Elok]

Sure, there were other influences. But the pledge has more effect than you give it credit for. There would be no vehicle without the pledge (or anthem which is a similar thing) for me to feel that unity with the other students while proclaiming our patriotism. There would not be a constant daily reminder of "America = freedom" being pounded into the mind. It's not like we went out at recess and had formal rituals to display our patriotism on our free time. (At times we might have shot Commies or Russians or Russian Commies... but more often than not it was Indians.)

That is the point of the pledge. It's why it was put in the schools in the first place. To instill a community spirit and patriotism in kids. And believe it or not, it did influence people. Maybe it no longer has that effect...

Well, it sure as hell didn't for anyone I know. Maybe that's all there is to say, though. I don't know your time, you don't know mine. However, have you considered that you probably had a very different education when it came to civics and history, at least? I'd think that would do a lot more to instill community spirit than reciting some words.

No, I didn't want to believe any of it. I was suicidal at the time and kept alive against my wishes. Medicated to the point where I was someone else, and then medicated again to treat that until I was something else again. Treated with ECT to the point I was nobody (for a short while). But I can see how some of the things implanted in my psyche at the time were very helpful towards overcoming my problems later on. Even at a point in my life where I didn't remember it having happened at all (after ECT).

There is a level of authority in a mental hospital that is much like that in prison. You do what you are told if you want to get out. Unlike prison, you won't just get out at a set time (if you never get paroled), you can be held indefinitely. Also if you aren't cooperative you might just be medicated until you are. I was very passive at the time so it wasn't any trouble for me to just go along with it. My plan was to get out and finish it. It didn't happen that way, largely because of the affirmations I just did unthinkingly. Just as the first time my plan wasn't even a plan at all, I never actually decided to do it, it was just something I'd go over in my mind as a comfort until it just happened.

This is a very different context from a classroom, to put it mildly. Under such circumstances, I can see any number of things working.

You're the one who brought it up, I was trying to figure out what you meant:

"Certainly not ones native to the pledge itself, as opposed to the symbolic value it's assigned, or the teacher's harangue about it."

Ah, I see. By "symbolic value," I meant its use as a sign that you were not a commie pinko rat bastard--its value as a sign that you are subordinate to the group or what-have-you. Which has nothing to do with what it actually says. They might just as easily say anyone who doesn't sing "I am the very model of a modern major general" is a commie fink.

[Aeson]

Well, it sure as hell didn't for anyone I know. Maybe that's all there is to say, though. I don't know your time, you don't know mine. However, have you considered that you probably had a very different education when it came to civics and history, at least? I'd think that would do a lot more to instill community spirit than reciting some words.

In 1st grade? If we had anything it wasn't likely any more weighty than the pledge itself. Only without the ritual and public display aspect.

This is a very different context from a classroom, to put it mildly. Under such circumstances, I can see any number of things working.

Why do you think that psychiatrists and psychologists rely on these methods?

Ah, I see. By "symbolic value," I meant its use as a sign that you were not a commie pinko rat bastard--its value as a sign that you are subordinate to the group or what-have-you. Which has nothing to do with what it actually says. They might just as easily say anyone who doesn't sing "I am the very model of a modern major general" is a commie fink.

Yes, but it's part of the effect the pledge has still. It takes that symbolic value and drills it home day after day. It makes it visible day after day. It sets the kids up for having to choose whether to visibly fit in or not. (Works both ways, depending on how the leaders/popular kids act.)

[Aeson]

Elok,

If when your kid is 4-5, you took your kid to a daycare or kindergarten and walked in one day to see the kids all lined up, facing some icon, and repeating a mantra in unison... would you leave your kid in that daycare? (Try to dissociate the thought from any specific good or bad mantra/symbol if possible...)

[Hauldren Collider]

Only slightly? I thought it was pretty creepy. It was designed to be so.

Now if I encouraged every schoolchild to wear my avatar and salute it each morning, we'd have a problem.

MrFun's avatar is pretty creepy. Yours is only slightly creepy.

[Aeson]

I pledge allegiance, to Asher, and to the panda humping an apple. And to his black dick, on which it stands, a blue turban, poorly drawn, with... blah blah blah blah blah

[Asher]

Amen.

[Hauldren Collider]

I pledge allegiance, to Asher, and to the panda humping an apple. And to his black dick, on which it stands, a blue turban, poorly drawn, with... blah blah blah blah blah

Okay, his avatar just got about 355% creepier

[Aeson]

See, told you pledges are creepy.