A Quote by Jimmy Carter
I have a great respect for the flag, (but) if the government passed a law saying that I had to pledge allegiance to the flag, I don't think I would do it. I've always felt that I lived in a country...where if I wanted to worship God as a Baptist, I could do so. If I were an atheist, I could be one. If I wanted to be a Catholic but was born a Jew, there's no condemnation...from a government authority.
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There is no global anthem, no global currency, no certificate of global citizenship. We pledge allegiance to one flag, and that flag is the American flag.
Burning the flag is a form of expression. Speech doesn't just mean written words or oral words. It could be semaphore. And burning a flag is a symbol that expresses an idea - I hate the government, the government is unjust, whatever.
You can salute the flag. You can revere the flag. You can respect the flag. And all of those are fine. What you cannot do is use the flag as a blindfold. You can't use the flag as a blindfold and not see the things you've seen with your very eyes that tell you that what's keeping this country held back is systemic racism.
[If critics of the Pledge of Allegiance persuaded the public it should be changed] then we could eliminate under God from the Pledge of Allegiance, that could be democratically done.
The Confederate flag was the flag of the American South during the civil war. It was the flag of people who were fighting against their own government in an attempt to retain slavery. It was the flag of people who thought slavery was no problem, who thought slavery was a good thing.
One of the great things about America is that we have the freedom to worship or not worship as we please. It doesn't matter whether you're a Christian, Jew, Muslim. It doesn't matter whether you're an evangelical or a Catholic or a moderate Jew. You're entitled to worship - or an agnostic or atheist.
In most countries, you have a monarch or some other principal person to whom its officers and its military swear their allegiance. Our officials in this country and our military swear allegiance to the Constitution. We say that when we say the Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag.
Where do real conversations about citizenship occur? In our schools. Think about the things you learned in first grade. "My Country 'Tis of Thee," "I pledge allegiance to the flag," "America the Beautiful."
Pledge allegiance to the flag that neglects us.
The forefathers, including James Madison, felt very strongly that the duties that we owe to God were outside of government's prerogative, that government had no business interfering with the way we worship God.
I think Americans is a very special nation that was created so that people could be free. And they could be free to believe what they wanted. They could be free to work as hard as they wanted, knowing that their labor would accrue to them and to their family, that there wouldn't be a lot of people impinging upon their freedom and telling them what they had to do, and that it would be a nation that was representative of the people, and that it would have a government that was representative of the people rather than one that tried to rule the people.
My position is that it isn't government's job to mandate patriotism. To me, mandating a pledge of allegiance to a government is something Saddam Hussein would do.
Walt had a seat-of-the-pants approach on what he wanted musically. We kind of 'read' the boss and had a very high batting average, but there were occasions when he felt we had just written the wrong piece for the situation he wanted. We invariably listened to what he wanted - he was very descriptive in what he wanted and we could read him. We'd go back to the drawing board and work out what he wanted. He was a great inspiration, but a tough taskmaster.
I also wish that the Pledge of Allegiance were directed at the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, as it is when the President takes his oath of office, rather than to the flag and the nation
My definition of patriotism is that it is unconscionable for you to disrespect the flag. You can be a patriot and challenge the government without disrespecting the flag.
A thoughtful mind, when it sees a Nation's flag, sees not the flag only, but the Nation itself; and whatever may be its symbols, its insignia, he reads chiefly in the flag the Government, the principles, the truths, the history which belongs to the Nation that sets it forth.
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