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Pledges undermine Accountability and Scrutiny |
Pledges undermine accountability and scrutiny of the State by the citizen owners of the State. A pledge implies that the citizen will remain loyal to the State regardless of the behavior of the State in the course of its duty to serve the people. This act of state dominance has a chilling affect on those who would stand up to acts of injustice by government and prevent citizens from acting to stop the government from committing illegal acts.
One of the Church of Reality's sacred principles is the Principle of Scrutiny. We are a doubt based religion that believe strongly in scrutiny and accountability. We believe that without accountability we run the risk of corruption and we hold as one of our religious beliefs, that humans make mistakes and that through scrutiny and accountability we can correct those mistakes. It is our position that state sponsored patriotism discourages scrutiny and public criticism and inhibits the nation-state from healing itself. This diminishes the nation and undermines the efforts of true patriots to build an ethical society that is responsible to the people.
Since state sponsored patriotism undermines true patriotism, we have to take the side of patriotism in substance rather than patriotism in form. We are, after all, the Church of Reality. To deny us real patriotism and require false patriotism forced us to live the lie.
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