"Creepy American"

My longtime friend Drew and I don’t always see eye to eye on things. I actually grew up with Drew for the most part and first met him through my family church. Drew has obviously veered from that ideology drastically. Not that this is really news to anyone who knows him. I don’t fault him for that its important for each person to form their own values so if anything he deserves props. It isn’t easy to challenge your own beliefs to end up at a polar opposite must have been a scary journey. I have flipped on some beliefs in my life time granted not as drastic as Drew who is now an Avid Atheist.

Drew often speaks his mind and one of his pet peeves is when he is labeled “a trader” or “communist”. This reached its peak I think a week after 9/11 at the time Drew had a message board and while people were still frantically looking for loved ones Drew stopped short of saying that we had it coming. He sort of listed an incident that he witnessed on CNN with someone of Arabic decent showing a part of a missile (sent by Israel I believe) that said made in the USA. This got Drew pretty choked up from what I understand. Drew even went as far as to debate if the events of 9/11 were "evil" or not. Lets just say he was called a lot more than “a trader” by various message board posters.

Check out TEMINUS and read the article “Oh Boy Here It Comes” Drew is blogging today about his disgust for the pledge of allegiance. Sure its surrounding by a few facts and valid points, but it’s a fine example of how he rubs many people the wrong way. First off I do recall how almost no one in high school actually said the Pledge they just stood there and mumbled at best. People in the music homeroom didn’t even have the pledge on the intercom, but that is not surprising since Music people are usually not interested in politics or current events. I would hope to God (sorry for offending anyone) that has changed a bit since 9/11 but given the attention span of a student I doubt it.

Anyway in TERMINUS fashion I am going to put parts of what he said and try to over analyze it to the point that you wonder if I have too much free time on my hands. First off I can see where people can debate the UNDER GOD part of the pledge which wasn’t added until the mid 1950s. I actually always took it as representing “the supreme being” when I was young, using God as generic term saying that the country is blessed under God (Christianity) Allah (Islam which pretty much means GOD), Buddha etc. However since I am older now I do know it was added by Christians. I would think that some people would just take a different impetration of “God” to mean what they want, since many Christians themselves debate the true sense of the word. However that would exclude people like Drew who think that we just formed out of no where. However I don’t quite see what is so bad about asking children to recite the pledge. I don’t even see why they cant’ require them since they are in a public school which is pretty much a product of the government.

Making kids pledge allegiance to this country is really f---ing creepy. It's a loyalty oath, for f--'s sake… So, my gut feeling is that in any dispute, I'm anti-Pledge, because it's creepy, and non-conformists get hit by a load of shitstorm.

SO basically since you don’t like it when you people disagree with what you say “aka shitstorm” is unleashed among these non-conformists (he might refer to as the “real patriots”.)

Well first off it is more TEACHING about our country than FORCING THEM to become mindless slaves. It making them know damn right well what this country stands for by the time they finnish their higher education. I honestly wish I learned more about our country during my time in highschool. We never really got past the Industrial Revolution once the next year we would start all over again or study world history. It’s a shame. But at least we were taught the pledge and hopefully had an idea what the country was based on. Maybe he can shed some light on the subject about the whole oaths thing since he is a law student. Don’t we take “oaths” (a declaration or promise) in the courts? What if people just decided to start lying because they didn’t believe in the “oaths” they had to take?

Anyway Drew goes on to stumble upon his own irony in this article.

“Their was a college basketball player in the Philly area a year ago, I think, and she got hit with the load of shitstorm big time. That's not right. Everyone says "She has the right not to salute the flag( actually she turned her back to the flag), but we have the right to hit her with a load of shitstorm," which is perfectly true, but it kinda sends the wrong message about freedom and American values, don't you think?”


Now the message that should be sent is everyone is allowed to speak their mind in this country. People got angry because they were legitimately pissed that she would do something like that. Maybe some of those people were war veterans that lost friends in war or were hurt protecting our country that don’t quite understand why it is such a “burden” to take 30 seconds out of your day to honor your country. So everyone should revoke their freedom of speech in regards to this matter in fear of hurting someone’s feelings. Maybe they want to make her realize what the country means to them, or that the pledge isn’t as “Creepy” as people say it is. So all the children that want to recite the pledge should be silenced if they wanted to voice their opinion in class? Last time I checked America wasn’t about not being able to give let us say Drew Vogel “a shitstorm” about what he has to say.

Drew seems to be under the impression that only he gets slammed for his views. Please. Most of my friends are either “Athists” totally apathetic or even as minority of a religion as Wiccan. I honestly get hit by “shitstorms” by Drew and Lima Beanz about Christianity some fall under blanket statements and usually come off as “hateful”. Drew once practically bragged to me about the time his father and him burned up a Bible. I imagine he said something like this to get a ride out of me or something and to be honest I did get pissed at time. However I distanced myself from it and said he can do what he wants even if he is an asshole about it. Inretrospect perhaps he did mean to "offend" me he was just stating something he felt, that was totally against something I belive in. This results in an uneasy feeling. But that is life.

Even the most generic statement about my religion will result in Drew rolling his eyes. It seems that most my generation doesn’t really believe in God, so I take a lot of flack about my religious beliefs which I don’t feel the need to slam down peoples throats.

Let us say hypothetically Drew and I were at the first Atlanta Thrashers game after the death of Dan Snyder, and one of the players asked the people in the stands to pray for the Heatly and Snyder family I can almost guarantee Drew would have been “”offended” and maybe even gripped about all the people whose feelings might have been hurt that don’t think that we are a creation from God. It perfectly okay for him to say "offenseive" about Christans (he often makes them quite cartoonish on this blog and thinks they all agree with Pat Robertson). The same guy that doesnt like to sterotype any collection of people. But thats Drew for you.

Maybe the Philly girl was taught the lesson that people aren’t always going to agree with you deal with it than it was a good lesson. Should she have been suspended ? I guess not? Suspended by the team? Only if there is a rule in the league about it but if the coach wanted to bench her I wouldn’t blame him. BUT THE POINT IS THAT IS WHAT AMERICA IS ALL ABOUT WHEN YOU SPEAK YOUR MIND OTHER PEOPLE WHO ARE FREE TO SPEAK THEIR MIND WILL DO SO. WRONG MESSAGE MY HAIRY BUTT.


I don’t mean to make this more about Drew than the pledge, but Drew has the tendency to come off very condescending when making his voice heard. This particular rant has an uncomfortable amount of bitterness or anger underlining in it. Drew hates Rush Limbaugh but at the same time he comes across as slamming people who don’t agree with him on regular basis. Do I let it bother me ? Not really it doesn’t “offend” me all that much. I know he manages to turn off the majority of the people I send his blog link to because of the tone of his writing. I actually think they should require the students to recite the pledge so that makes me “creepy” but if I differ on something Drew says “It is a shitstorm" that he undeserving of but when he tells me his opinion it is “The Way Things Ought to BE”
Now lets take a look at the pledge


I Pledge Allegiance to the flag of the United States of America
and to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation under (God),
indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Okay omit the God part and what is so offensive? It just a reminder of what this country was based on when it was formed really. Allegiance is really just love and devotion. Drew tells me what a better American than he is on the blog than people who don’t question everything our government does. It could be argued that his campaign to get Bush out of the White House is out of his “love and devotion” to this “great nation”. Our country is actually a Republic not a Democracy if you want to split hairs, and I don’t see anything wrong with having some pride in our country with saying we are “indivisible” maybe Drew sees that as little imperialistic to other countries and could hurt their feelings. Liberty and Justice? That is what Drew fights for with every fiber of his bearded being even if it means some fat slob getting rich because he was too dumb to realize Big Macs are not healthy.

I think the Pledge is just a reminder about the country and how great it is and by having students recite it they come to realize it. I guess maybe they should stop because it hasn’t seemed to work. Too much of an inconvenience to come together and remember what this country was founded on I guess. Too much of hassle while people like Price put their lives on the line. Such a pain to get up at a sporting event and stand of the national anthem! A waste of time for a country, where millions get to express their views on blogs like this? I am sure Drew will slam me for this one and tell me how a better American would not want to say the pledge and that I am a sheep. He will list all these things he hates about this country in the following weeks. In the mean time I will be writing about my views and learning and reading about his and perhaps discussing various topics back and forth. Because that is what America is all about.