Aureantes' Lair

At the present political moment, and with a plethora of "action alerts" and updates and petitions landing in my inbox every week, I have realized that I hate the word "pledge."

( Here's my rant and my reasoning... )
In this matter, I would encourage people to throw out all publically-advertised, overworn, overhyped and prewritten pledges from their lives, and to make their own promises in life as they themselves believe and vow.  No standard-issue boilerplate, no email soundbites, no virtual-community peer pressure, no secondhand sentiments adopted passively as one's own.  "Pledges" are BS, even from the best groups and for the best intentions....they may work for getting people off their asses, but they're only good for mobilizing masses -- not for employing or presenting individuals at their strongest and most potent.  And this is a time when I strongly feel that we cannot rely on the tools of uniformity to support the work of freedom and intelligence and circumspection, nor to solve by broad sweeps of simplistic subscription the problems and controversies of this world.

Not that I think anyone'll actually listen to me, but.....enh, I guess it's been known to happen.

_