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xiphias"Honor the Texas flag. I pledge allegiance to thee, Texas, one and indivisible."
And they've just passed a law requiring all Texan children to recite it.
I wish I could ask a question of Senator Jeff Wentworth, who wrote the law. I wish I could ask, "Senator, do you think that these children should have the right to move to another state when they grow up, if they want to? Or would you rather that they be forced to stay in Texas for their entire lives, whether they want to or not?"
I suspect that he'd have to say that he'd want them to have the right, as Americans, to move to other states.
Then I'd ask him, "So you want these children to ignore their vows? You don't care about promises?"
It infuriates me. And I'm noticing more and more that right-wingers (as opposed to "conservatives") generally don't care about what they promise, or what they vow, or what they pledge. They just don't care. They don't even THINK that oaths, and vows, and swearing MEANS anything, so they're fine making people pledge things, because they don't really think that those pledges have real effects.
They don't think them through, because they don't care, because they don't think they're real.
And they've just passed a law requiring all Texan children to recite it.
I wish I could ask a question of Senator Jeff Wentworth, who wrote the law. I wish I could ask, "Senator, do you think that these children should have the right to move to another state when they grow up, if they want to? Or would you rather that they be forced to stay in Texas for their entire lives, whether they want to or not?"
I suspect that he'd have to say that he'd want them to have the right, as Americans, to move to other states.
Then I'd ask him, "So you want these children to ignore their vows? You don't care about promises?"
It infuriates me. And I'm noticing more and more that right-wingers (as opposed to "conservatives") generally don't care about what they promise, or what they vow, or what they pledge. They just don't care. They don't even THINK that oaths, and vows, and swearing MEANS anything, so they're fine making people pledge things, because they don't really think that those pledges have real effects.
They don't think them through, because they don't care, because they don't think they're real.
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(no subject)
Date: 2003-08-21 12:04 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2003-08-21 03:59 am (UTC)Wonder why this "pledge" thing is soooo damn upsetting? Maybe it's just cause it brings up things we have read or watched about history.
(no subject)
Date: 2003-08-21 04:21 am (UTC)Well if we're already on the topic
While I admit, it was necessary to have this intermediate level of government 227 years ago. In today's world it has become so cumbersome, and a purpose unto itself, that the entire three-tier government (federal-state-city) has become such an inefficient monolith, that the USA is literally crumbling (or more recently your "black-out") under it's growing weight, and the impossible bureaucracy to get anything done. But G-d forbid, anybody even think of changing this mess, and making it more efficient. That would be "Against [Our Glorious] Tradition", and in this Ashcroft era, possibly Treason :-p
So I agree with you, these vows are indeed silly, and a debasement of what a vow should be. But what do you expect from any politician, which make their living by making and breaking promises. This is specifically why the Torah, in Numbers 30, with regards to the rules of Vows (Nedarim), begins with "Then Moshe spoke to the heads of the tribes". This was always the case, that the elders heard first, but here it is specially emphasized, to let them, who tend to make many promises pay special attention.
Re: Well if we're already on the topic
Date: 2003-08-21 05:14 am (UTC)I don't know where you live, but 300 million people is a lot, and it's sensible to handle some things on a smaller scale.
Re: Well if we're already on the topic
Date: 2003-08-21 06:21 am (UTC)Remember, my state, Massachusetts, is 21,385 square kilometers. Your entire country is 20,770 square kilometers. My state's population is 6,349,097, according to the 2000 Census. Your country's entire population is 6,116,533, and that includes Golan Heights, West Bank, and Gaza.
And Massachusetts is a small state, physically. Texas is about the same size as France.
The United States, as a whole, is larger than Europe.
Frankly, I feel that European countries are about the right size. And United States states are about the same size as European countries.
Europe is lurching painfully towards more unification -- the Euro, the European Criminal Court, unified guarantees of civil rights, and so forth. I think that the degree of unification that Europe will end up with will be about the degree of unification that would have been a good idea for the United States to stop at -- completely open borders, unified foreign policy, unified money and economy, unified military, unified roads and infrastructure, unified recognition of contracts, and unified guarantees of civil liberties and rights.
Perhaps the Unitied States should have stopped there. I wonder more and more if anything further than that is just Looking At Things Wrong.
But. . . once you have that kind of unity, swearing allegiance to any single member state is a Bad Thing, which is my point. The Texas Pledge was created when Texas was an independent republic. It's fine for a pledge in an independent republic -- it's NOT fine for a state in a federalized republic.
Re: Well if we're already on the topic
Date: 2003-08-21 12:49 pm (UTC)Well, yes, you do.
The list of modern, industrialized, Western democracies that have both state-level legislatures and a "senate" (defined for this purpose as house of the national legislature with either fixed representation by state regardless of populationm or whose members are chosen by the state legislature, or both) includes:
This doesn't include, for example, countries with regional legistlatures but no senate-like body (like the UK, with separate legislative bodies for Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales, the Isle of Man, and several Channel Islands), or less developed countries with local legislatures and senates like Brazil, India, Mexico, and Russia.
pledging
Date: 2003-08-21 05:40 am (UTC)When one is being granted Canadian citizenship, one is required to recite an oath of allegiance to the Queen.[1]
A pagan friend of mine takes his oathes very seriously, and so requested that instead of using the words "I swear", he be permitted to use the words "I do avow". He explained that swearing an oath of fealty was something reserved for his patron deity alone, but a vow was suitable for us human folk.[2]
That was quite fine with them, and everybody went away happy.
[1] Why exactly I am swearing allegiance to the Queen of Canada when i was born in England and am therefore already a subject of the Queen was never adequately explained to me. Maybe in her different roles she is treated as a seperate entity.
[2] I remain completely in the dark as to whether this has any basis in the historical meanings of the words. He was big on the emotional content of language.
Re: pledging
Date: 2003-08-21 06:02 am (UTC)For instance, the Constitution specifically permits the President, upon being "sworn into" office, to say "I solemnly affirm" rather than "I solemnly swear."
The reason for this is that the Founding Fathers wanted to make certain that people who had different visions of G-d would be able to serve in high offices. Also, many Christian groups believe that vowing should not be done for such a secular and mundane purpose as civil authority, and should be reserved for religious purposes.
This oath or affirmation thing goes up to the President, and down to any sworn official of the Unitied States. I was a Crew Leader for the United States Census in 2000 -- the people who go door to door asking folks questions are sworn officials: they take an "oath or affirmation" to keep things secret.
I took an affirmation, and before swearing in the team I trained, I took a couple minutes to explain exactly what an oath was, and exactly what an affirmation was, and what it meant to take one.
The training materials I was given didn't go into that. And I was instructed to teach from the book.
I didn't. I explained to them that an "oath" is where you swear your own soul to do something or not do something. If you believe in Hell, I said, you should understand that, if you break the oath, you are going to Hell. If you don't believe in Hell, you should take the "affirmation."
In an "affirmation", you are guaranteeing your behavior with your own personal honor. If you break an affirmation, then you have no honor -- which, in my mind, is even worse than going to Hell. I personally took the affirmation, I said, because I restrict vows for religious purposes.
If you're not comfortable risking your soul or your honor, I said, you will be paid for the time you've spent in training up until now, but I want you to understand just how important a job this is, and how seriously we take confidentiality.
Everyone took the oath, except for two people who took the afirmation.
Frankly, I credit most of my success as a Crew Leader to this little speech. My crew knew what they were doing, and just how important it was. They knew what was on the line, and were able to take pride in it.
There's a difference between "swearing" and "avowing", but I'm still more comfortable with "affirming."
Re: pledging
Date: 2003-08-21 07:15 am (UTC)Re: pledging
Date: 2003-08-21 06:21 am (UTC)Re: pledging
Date: 2003-08-21 04:41 pm (UTC)Sometimes the courts actually do the right thing and tell the Lege to get bent, see...
(no subject)
Date: 2003-08-21 05:50 am (UTC)I thought the Texas legislature was shut down. Texas Democrats on the run and all that. How did this get through?
(no subject)
Date: 2003-08-21 04:42 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2003-08-21 08:12 am (UTC)I never quite understood this Texas obsession. I don't think it is solidly a right versus left issue, but more of a culture war which happens to follow a right/left distinction (say, kinda like what type of people end up reading the "Left Behind" novels... reading the novel itself isn't a political choice, but the elements that bring someone to that book may define a certain political worldview). People in Texas have bumperstickers that say, "I wasn't born in Texas, but I moved here as fast as I could!" and "Texan first, American second!" There is a small group of people who place nuisance liens on property that cause legal havoc as a tactic to convince other Texans to secede.
But for the most part, most of the people who live and breathe this Texas ethos are rather benign, though their alleigence to the state is probably philosophically problematic. I think they are trying to stake out their identity from the huge chunk of Northerners who have moved there... or at least that was the case in North Texas. My family had a very light case of resentment against the Northerners even... not so much because they were Northern (that type of resentment is left for the older generations), but because they were all living in New York and other areas with high property values, only to come down here and spend all the money that would buy modest houses up North on these giant estates. They were bringing a cultural change with them. I remembered when the first bagel place opened up in Plano! That was really cool! I'd imagine that while my family felt resentful financially because we was po', the seasoned Texans might feel resentful of the cultural changes because you couldn't buy pork barbeque in the Jewish-style deli.
When I was trying to win scholarship money for college, I was given a hard time by one of the gentlemen community service clubs since the majority of schools I was applying to were outside of the state of Texas. They could see absolutely no value of leaving Texas for an education -- certainly expanding one's horizons was a lost argument. Afterall, UT Austin provided a fine education....
yepper
Date: 2003-08-21 09:54 am (UTC)I agree with
I grew up in Texas, too - and seems as though I remember there were a few things required to be drilled into every mind (or at least *used to be* drilled into you from school and church and your uncle Billy Joe) back in the 60's and 70's. I remember feeling MUCH more loyalty to the state than I ever felt toward the country. But then I left and became californian. My family darn near disowned me (for becoming californian)
Below is some of what I got out of my uncles, and my history and civics classes... who sez kids aren't impressionable?
1) Texas may be a state, but it's a sovereign state.
-- "We are the only state with the legal by-god right to secede from the Union if we choose. It's in our constitution" (implying that Texans were smarter and stronger than all the other states)
-- "We are the only state that was a separate Nation. We did the United States a *favor* when we joined the union"
(as if the US would have folded if Texas hadn't agreed... and seems to me that the feds weren't so pansy in the 1800's as all that... what they wanted, they took)
2) "We don't need no bureaucrats, revenoors or federal law-critters telling us what to do. They're a buncha damned yankee-pig-headed-idjits, anyhow"
(uh-huh, but look who's in the White House now... I wonder if they are still saying that?)
(BTW - as I understood it then, a yankee was anyone not from Texas)
3) "Our heritage comes from the guts 'n glory of *our* men who died at the Alamo."
(implying anyone from anywhere else is a wimp and their beliefs and deaths didn't mean as much)
There's so much more, but I think I have probably alienated enough people with just this tiny bit that I'll stop here.
Y'all have a good day.
Re: yepper
Date: 2003-08-21 04:59 pm (UTC)Perhaps because my father was, by your standards, a Yankee (he being a Marylander by birth and a Virginian by extraction), I always understood a Yankee to be anyone from north of the Mason-Dixon line, a line whose importance to US history was drilled into us by Mr. Garcia in Texas History class. Mr. Garcia, BTW, was originally from Bangor, ME.
Confused and mentally abused; it's hard to unlearn
Date: 2003-08-21 09:01 pm (UTC)I understand the technicality of the Mason-Dixon line and its significance... but the skewed view I received in education and at my family's knee (so to speak) left me so confused.
My bio dad was from NYC, but he left before I was walking, and my step-dad was from Ohio, but claimed Texanship more rabidly than any redneck I've ever known.
I guess you could say that the rest of the family, disliking my mother's taste in regional origin of men, way overdid the native pride thang. Bigotry seemed to be a thing of pride to them. When I stood up for someone vs the family bigotry, I dressed down and given the en familia version of being tarred and feathered.
Anyhow, back to the teaching I got growing up.... the general consensus seemed to be that no one north of Mississippi could really be a southerner... and then years later I find out that Texas isn't considered to be 'south' by anyone but a Texan.
And then we get Shrub. And the Texas Dems.
I am so disgusted with the games, bad decisions and ducky-hide politics that's becoming synonymous with Texas that sometimes I wonder if I shouldn't renounce my birthship. Maybe they *would* be better off seceding.