Basically: In some countries, the pledge is with the constitution or the people, but in others (like constitutional monarchies), its a pledge to the (constitutional) monarch and their successors.
What is your opinion on this loyalty pledge? Do you believe it’s a reasonable request?
(For context: My mother and older brother had to do the pledge to gain [US] citizenship so the idea of deportation isn’t looming over our heads. I didn’t have do it because I was under 18 and my mother’s citizenship status automatically carried over to me according to the law.)
Citizenship is different than residency. A citizen has roles and responsibilities beyond that of a resident. I don’t think it is that unreasonable to ask a naturalized citizen to be loyal to their new country.
Then should it not be automatic for people who were just born there, or to citizen parents, as the case may be?
In the US, children are made to participate in the pledge of allegiance daily at school. To answer your question more broadly, in many cases, if a citizen commits certain crimes against a country, then it is considered treason. Maybe it’s considered that a citizen born in the country understands that, but someone naturalising must acknowledge it.
Tbf, the school pledges are voluntary under the first amendment. The naturalization oath is manadatory, you aren’t officially a citizen until you take the oath.
If only someone had told that to my schools in the 70s and 80s. I spent so much time in trouble for refusing to participate. It wasn’t even that I was raised that way, it just seemed really creepy and antithetical to everything the US is/was supposed to stand for.
Voluntary does not mean there isn’t a heavy amount of pressure to conform, from what I’ve heard and read.
Unless fascism wasn’t part of the deal perhaps.
If one wants to become citicen of a fascist country, there are bigger problems
I mean unless their original country was fascism x2, then, reducing fascism by half doesn’t seem that bad anymore.
Seriously tho, you think you find a bad enough country, then you look deeper, there’s a country even worse. Then just as you think you found the worst country, there’s still an even worse country, like there are more thsn 200 of them (including unrecognized ones) and you can almost certaintly keep finding worse and worse countries, you never know where someone is from.
Immigration is always a scale of balance: How much does the situation becomes less shitty vs how much xenophobia you’ll face. Sometimes, if the xenophobia isn’t that strong at the time of you deciding to move, so you can still have more to gain from the country being less shitty than your previous one, despite having to deal with racism.
There are not really many “good” countries, mostly it’s just: shitty countries vs less shitty countries.
Edit: And if its a bad country vs worse country sceanrio, I think people would just “take the oath” symbolically, but never actually intended to fullfill the actual obligation to the dictator or whatever.
Edit 2: Or you could be in a Snowden-tyoe situation. I mean… the US was after him… Snowden then became a citizen of russia, but I doubt he actually cares about loyalty to putin.
Sometimes a country isn’t fascist until it is though.
But the signs are very obviouse. Even with the OG nazis and facsist the signs were there and people knew whats coming. Just like with USA rn or britain
Wonder what you consider “the signs” to be?
Yeah, but then they are in the same boat as other citizens.