The "oath of allegiance" quoted above and the "pledge of allegiance" to the flag are two different things.

The former is taken by someone who is not a citizen of the US, but is about to become one. In order to be sworn in as a US citizen, he/she must renounce all prior claims of citizenship or subjecthood to any foreign government, power, or ruler. Some foreign nationals are subjects of a monarch who is considered the head of state in their country of origin.

Oh, now I see what you're getting at. Fortunately that is not the US pledge.
Ours proclaims the supremecy of the republic, not one individual.

yep, but "prince" is basically covered by the terms "sovereign" or "potentate", that's why I was wondering why particularily "prince" - if you want to specificaly adress monarchy, the term "monarch" would be more fitting

Please excuse me while I take a short detour down nostaligia lane. <sigh>

Maybe because some states are technically "principalities" and ruled by princes? I'm thinking of Monaco, for example.

I don't know the protocol for slapping labels on dynastic heads of state, maybe there's some kind of technical difference between a prince and a potentate and they didn't want to leave any loopholes. :06:

A King is the ultimate Prince. I don't know about today, but in older times it was characteristic for the King of England to refer to himself as a "Prince", and there are speeches recorded in which Queen Elizabeth (the original) actually called herself a "Prince".

Yeah, and then she went with that weird squiggly thing for a while and everybody just called her "the monarch formerly known as a 'Prince.'" It never did catch on.

Hmm.. well... he is the the one who I have to thank for introducing me to heavy/death/black metal, so yeah... he just might be the Death Eater... quite awesome. Does that make me the lil' death eater? :hmmm:

Since you explicitly marked the words "under god", and due to your general question, you may find this site with some historic background of the matter useful, make sure you check all pages:

http://bmccreations.com/one_nation/index.html

I thought PPS stood for Pistolet pulemjot Sudaeva? :O:

Back OT: In high school we never had to say the pledge, we just had to stand and take off our hats. Even if we did we did not have to say the "Under God" part if we did not want to. ;)

Intresting. I got about 90 of them right.

I would mark this as an Incomplete answer... ;)

I thought we were a republic? :hmmm:

Isn't that more of a question of a opinion? Wouldn't someone from a country where they religion is suppressed perhaps think our freedom of region is more important?

46. Which countries were our enemies during World War II?
Germany, Italy, and Japan
I would mark this as an Incomplete answer... ;)

It is incomplete, but I think they meant Axis powers in general


78. What kind of government does the United States have?
Democracy
I thought we were a republic? :hmmm:

So did I...

I did the test without preparing for it, and except answers on present, contemporary names (I do not know all senators of states by name) that I could not know from here - why should I - I got it right. But:

that test is hilarious. It is even more stupid than the German integration test for foreign migrants that was introduced some time ago over here. And like then german test it fails its purpose because beside answers for questions on colours and numbers of stars it is all too easy to guess what answer they want to hear. and I would not even agree on all answers being correct. It has no educational and also no identificational value, therefore.

Or maybe the test is not to be called dumb, but incredibly naive.

I missed four of them. But the test itself gets some wrong. Yes, it's poorly written as well as being stupid.

Constitution in a 12 round decision. :)

The Pledge: extracting loyalty oaths from six year-olds since 1892. I had to recite it every damn school day for 12 years.

By that reasoning, school-led prayer should be constitutional, because there's no legal requirement to partake in it. But it is unconstitutional, because it boils down to the government promoting religion, regardless of the presence or lack of any requirements to partake in the prayer. Likewise, the Pledge is unconstitutional.

What happened to the Equal Protection Clause?

So it's ok to force kids to state that there is a god, and that their own country exists under it? Wouldn't you (rightly) have a problem with the phrase "...one nation, unfettered by all imaginary gods..."?

Or they'd just like to see the states obey the law of the land for once. I don't think that's a lot to ask.

When the balance of the Supreme Court swings back, maybe laws requiring the current Pledge will finally be struck down.

Hehehe. I was thinking something like that every time I read the title, but decided not to use it. My line was 'Pledge of Allegiance by 3.'

I always thought it was a constitutional republic with a bicameral legislature and indirect democracy.

The pledge is not unconstitutional. God as used is not a specified deity, and thus does not violate the establishment of any religion. To some, the "God" in the pledge may be a judeao-xtian one, to others it may be the spagetti monster. To an athiest, "God" may be a non existent entity - so in that case they are saying "under a being that doesn't exist" - which conforms to their belief - so why should they have a problem with that?

There is a difference between the recognition of a myriad of beliefs and a note to that in the pledge, vs the establishment of a set governmental religion.

Very well said! :rock:

President Eisenhower disagrees. When he signed it into law he said "From this day forward, the millions of our school children will daily proclaim in every city and town, every village and rural schoolhouse, the dedication of our Nation and our people to the Almighty."[/quote]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critici..._of_Allegiance

The "under God" part was added at the exact time that "Godless Communist" was the favored epithet of those most concerned with the Cold War. If that isn't obvious, the fact that "God" is capitalized in the official version should be.

Can't go wrong with the classics :yeah:

:rotfl2: I love that bit.