You know, just for the HELL of it!
Posted on 09/14/2005 11:51:27 AM PDT by Rightwingmom
SAN FRANCISCO — Reciting the Pledge of Allegiance (search) in public schools was ruled unconstitutional Wednesday by a federal judge who granted legal standing to two families represented by an atheist who lost his previous battle before the U.S. Supreme Court.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
I can not believe just how ignorant some posters on this thread are.
The Consitution of the United States was designed to limit the power of the Federal Government.
It was never designed to limit individuals, local or States (excpect in those rare occassions an issue crossed state lines).
The Consitution prohibits the Federal Government from establishing an official church (such as the Church of England).
You only need to read the founding fathers papers and observed how they acted in public to see that they at no time wished religion be removed from the public square.
And yet here we are after 50 years of attack by the ACLU we are debating if the words "under God", make the pledge of Allegince unconstitutional. BS.
We never should have gotten to this point, the battle is almost lost when you have otherwise sane (and I presume conservative) posters agreeing with this decision.
I guess if this is upheld by the Supremes we deserve the country we get.
I would think banning the pledge from being said at all would be unconstitutional, much as it should be allowed for individuals to pray in school.
Banning the school from leading the pledge however should not stop the students from reciting it on their own accrod.
I would think.
The BoR does apply to the States as noted in the various Amendments. "Supreme Law of the Land". Just because someone steps onto your property does not make them your slaves. Ect... The basic human Rights protections thus enshrined extend to all US citizens.
However, 1st Amendment states "Congress shall make no law" which explicitly limits Federal action. The operative clauses are freedom of religion, freedom of speech, and freedom of the press. Pledging allegiance via somoene elses God isn't an abridgement of this freedom as you can insert your own deities name, or drop the clause from that pledge altogether, however you want to. There is no legal requirement to say "under God" per se. As such, this is not an "establishment" of religion.
California's 9th circuit needs an ass whoopin'. Religion should be inclusive in the "public square", not excluding all religion from public life.
Unfortunately, this is the difference. Idaho would never put up with this. Here in California, the left wing crazies that populate and run our public school system will exert every effort to impose a no-exceptions, rigid police state enforcement of this latest bit of insanity issued by our looney-tunes and nearly hopeless courts. They will go to any lengths to enforce this, aided and abetted by the ACLU and all of the usual suspects. All with the enthusiastic approval of the crapweasels in Sacramento.
Wasn't it ruled that the 14th amendment applied the Bill of Rights to the states? Given that, you have state run schools requiring the pledge, which is probably a reason for the ruling.
I'm willing to bet that even if they removed "under God," the radical Leftists would object to students being required to pledge their allegiance to the republic.
Sickening.
The answer is that because they recognized in the 50s (perhpas relearned or rediscovered is a better term) that this nation was founded on those principles and has everything to do with, from its founding, the idea that there is a God in Heaven, regardless of persuasion, that watches over the affairs of man, and who endows upon mankind their unalienable rights.
Without that knowledge, it is impossible to understand the basic founding principles of this Republic and the resulting civic responsibility. John Adams said it best:
"We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge, or gallantry, would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate for the government of any other."- John Adams, Oct. 11, 179
That Adams quote was 1798.
He stated flatly that this case effectively declares atheism the State Religion.
Tell your friends. Tell your Congressmen and Senators. Tell the White House and tell AG Gonzales.
The battle is joined.
We don't want Christianity, or Judaism, or Islam declared the State Religion, but we also don't want atheism imposed on us. Stop denying us the freedoms guaranteed in the first amendment!
I have appeared before in Judge Karlton's court room. Just for reference, he is a former ACLU lawyer who was appointed by (you guessed it) Jimmy Carter. He is the same guy that ruled it discriminatory for the prisons to prevent HIV positive inmates from working in the prison kitchen.
The issue is whether those that passed and ratified the Biil of Rights believed they were making them applicable against the states. It is is irrefutable that, in 1792, no one believed that the Bill of Rights was binding on the states...other than a couple of posters on FR, I don't know anyone (or any case) that has ever claimed that. One the biggest objections that some of the Framers had to adding a Bill of Rights was that, because the new federal government would have very few powers, the Bill of Rights was unnecessary because it would be prohibiting the federal government from doing things it has no power to do anyway.
Some lawyers tried to argue that the Bill of Rights was applicable to that states a few times but that was always clearly rejected by the Courts...most notably by Chief Justice John Marshall in the case of Barron v. Baltimore.
While most of the Founders believed in a natural rights theory, the vast majority believed the identification of those rights and the extent of those rights would be left to the states themselves to decide. Moreover, every state had its own bill of rights...which served as a model for Madison when he drafted the Bill of Rights to the federal Constitution. It is important to remember that it was the Anti-Federalists who were pushing for the Bill of Rights to be added. Obviously, the Anti-Federalists who were strong states rights advocates and generally feared the federal government they were creating in the Constitution would never have intended to make their states' laws subject to that Bill of Rights.
The Bill of Rights is incorporated against the state by the 14th Amendment...but even that claim was rejected by the Courts for 79 years after the ratification of the 14th Amendment....for good reason. The argument is that the phrase..."no state shall deprive any person of life, liberty or property without due process of law" thereby incorporated the Bill of Rights against the states. It that doesn't seem to make sense to you...that's because it doesn't
Moreover, you would think that, because the basis of incorporation is such a cryptic phrase (I've always wondered why, if those who ratified the 14th Amendment really intended to incorporate the Bill of Rights...why didn't they just say so? Why be so cryptic? Were they just hoping that someday, a Court would figure it out?), there should be some strong clear evidence that the ratifiers really intended to incorporate the Bill of Rights against the states. But, in fact, there is almost a total lack of evidence and much evidence to the contrary
Incorporation is a fiction
I know a lot of State Highway Patrolmen, relatives of my wife, who will not enforce it, and I believe there are a lot of Sheriff's and Police who will not do so either.
You know, just for the HELL of it!
Which one would you raise to preeminence over all others as a basis for national morality?
Did karlton have to support the precedent of the 9th circuit court, since the SCOTUS didn't rule on the merits of the case?
This is what tolerance will get you!Tolerance creates weakness and America needs to clean out its scum or this will just get worse.These people need to be told to get in line or get out!
Moreover, the Supreme Court has held in Barnette that saying the Pledge cannot be coerced. Since it can't be coerced and since Barnette the Supreme Law of the Land as spoken by the SCOTUS, for better or worse, is that the POA is constitutional.
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has no such standing and Barnette is the precedent this particular Judge should have deferred to.
However, since the Fourth and Ninth Circuits are now in conflict and this will take the fast track to the SCOTUS yet once again, and this time by folks with standing, I welcome the lunacy.
I'm sure they would object to that as well.
So if the 14th amendment applied the Bill of Rights to the states, then if means that state legislatures cannot establish a state religion.
Big freakin' deal.
I am getting very intolerant of militant atheists.
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