Quote from: AdmiralSpanky on October 23, 2012, 02:35 pmI really want to answer the original question in a thoughtful, clear way. But then I start thinking about what I was promised as a child and what the reality is and I get so angry that I can't properly articulate my thoughts. Much of what I would say - or try to say - has been said already fortunately.Yes, that Pledge of Allegiance was more-or-less mandatory at my schools growing up. Nobody even so much as thought to argue about it, because we were all children and we trusted our authority figures. I have to say that even at the age of six or seven I can remember just simply repeating the pledge without attaching any sort of religious-type significance to it. As I got older, I cared less and less what it meant as I grew more and more distrustful of those in positions of power.By the time I was 16, most of my teachers in my public high school actively disliked me because I challenged their authority at regular intervals. "Why?" was my favorite question. I never accepted that "this is the situation because we say so." If something made no sense, I spoke up. Granted, it never got me anywhere positive, but at least I wasn't a mindless drone participating in some Two-Minute Hate every morning.From those experiences, I learned that I needed to educate myself and turn off the rest of the noise, propaganda and interference.My father's America was a very different one from mine, and because I am both my father's son and because my father was very involved in my upbringing, I was lead to believe that to be American was something to be proud of since "we are the best." As I became an adult, I saw the world more for what it is: corrupt.And it has ALWAYS been corrupt. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. I don't know what it would be like to be British, for instance, but I can't imagine that things are all that much different there. Perhaps some things are less corrupt, and perhaps other more so. But all Western governments - and probably all governments everywhere - are the same: they seek power and to do what it takes to maintain that power.Just recently, one of the major news channels - I forget which one, but they're all corporate-controlled machines, so it really matters not - asked the very insightful question: "Which side are YOU on?" As if there were only two ways to vote or feel about politics. It's disgusting how brainwashed our society has become, and even more disgusting how hopeless it is that people will ever wake up en mass to see just that. If the populace is only given a small subset of ideas to debate over, they are effectively controlled. Just like the limiting and editing of the language in 1984. If you can control what people think and debate about, then you've effectively enslaved them.Places like the darkweb give me hope for humanity though. At least there are other minds out there who also reject the bullshit around them and strive for better things.//sorry for the rant.Don't be sorry for the rant. You expressed yourself eloquently. +1