Let's Be Honest, Pledge Is A Stretch

Hartford Courant ^ | June 29 2002 | Stan Simpson

[2Trievers]

Having to recite the Pledge of Allegiance as a youngster often gave me the willies. Thought it was a damn lie. Still do, though I stand patiently at attention and wait for the disingenuous routine to end.

Unlike the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, I have no problem with the "one nation under God" part of the pledge. A heathen like me is all for more spirituality. I just have difficulty mustering any conviction for the part about "with liberty and justice for all." I find that to be a bit of a reach.

[TADSLOS]

He fails to understand the difference between committment to an ideal and a gaurantee of social justice. I suspect he will die a bitter man.

[VRW Conspirator]

I think everyone is missing the point. The firestorm that developed after this ruling has little to do with the pledge, or "under God", but the feeling that our culture is under attack, and has been for many years...

You got that right. The 9th court has tipped their hand for everyone to see. Unless some of these activists leave or are removed (impeached) from their positions, the shananaghans will continue. All in all, this spells trouble for the left. While they have made in-roads with their various agendas, they have realized a awesome redoubt of resolve when they strike to close to the heart of America.

...The pendulum has swung way to left since FDR. I am hoping that this will later be seen as the turning point, as the pendulum begins to swing back in the other direction.

IMHO, the pendulum will continue to the right for about five to eight years. Then the baby boomers will start retirng en masse. The result will be a huge sucking sound coming from Medicare and Social Security. As more retire, the demand for these will increase while services and funds dwindle. There will come a point where the politicians have a choice, raise taxes or cut benefits. Despite how conservative an elderly person may be, they will not let the politicians touch "their" benefits; IOW, they will vote democrat. So taxes will be raised. The Pubs will do what they always do, first try a reasonable approach to a solution, then capitulate. The Dem leadership understands this situation all to well and have drooled for such a crisis. They will promise the world to these senoir citizens. Democrats (leftists) will have the edge. Gen X, Y and Z will get the point of that edge. BTW, the biggest voting block has and will be senior citizens...game, set, match.

Please convince me that I am wrong! (sigh)

[Let's Roll]

As a child it gave me chills alright, the proud and patriotic kind. It still does. You either get it or you don't, I guess.

[B Ireland]

***Hi Bob. Hope all is well***

Hi, UB! ...all is as well as can be expected... thanks.

Looks like I just posted the text of your first link before trying it [above]... the second one appears - at a glance - to be the one I was looking for in my archives for gonzo.

Keep the faith... FReegards,

Bob I

[norton]

Pledging allegiance to the flag is a symbol, a reminder, it is not an oath and you can't go to jail for doubting some of the words.

It is fundamental thing that serves to tie citizens together in their daily lives, a means of reminding each of them that they are supposed to be a community.

Maybe it helps some to get through periods such as the eight years we recently suffered while knowing that the government was drifting, lying, and partying its way to perdition.

Maybe I wasn't too big on repeating it for a couple of years in the late seventies.

Nonetheles; every time a long standing, basic, symbol of community is attacked by the left or by any special interest or power group it is only for one reason and that is to reduce, eventually to destroy, that community. It IS a conscious effort and it is a familiar one: Post WW2 China went to such lengths as to destroy family cemetaries in order to break the link between people and community. It makes it so much easier for the government to increase its role as mother, father, protector, and master.

In this instance, pledging allegiance might actually reduce government's ability to dominate because it reminds people frequently what the plan is SUPPOSED to be.

[The Shootist]

To our servicemen on a battlefield fighting for our freedom, that "Pledge of Allegiance" means everything.

You don't know what the frell you are taking about.

[tuibguy]

>Constitution says Congress can't establish an official religion . That means one SPECIFIC SECT not that

The meaning of the term "religion" has many definitions, the American Heritage dictionary's sub definition 1. is

"Belief in and reverence for a supernatural power or powers regarded as creator and governor of the universe.

"A personal or institutionalized system grounded in such belief and worship."

This has nothing to say about the specific beliefs in monotheism, largely grouped as Islam, Judaism and Christianity. Any religious belief is protected by the establishment clause because the framers decided it is not up to the government to decide what is good or bad religion. Whether they were Christian, Deist or FreeMason, they understood the dangers inherent in making a decision for the people on how to believe.

For Congress and Eisenhower to cavalierly add the phrase "under God" to a pledge to the symbol of our union was to enter a wedge between monotheists and practitioners of a minority belief. It contradicts the phrase "e pluribus unum" because it says in effect that unless you believe in the same God as we do, then you can't be faithful to the flag. The Goodwin opinion cites specific instances in the debate over adding "under God" that this is the intention of the phrase. Goodwin also makes careful and considered use of the Lemon test, the three prong approach to determining whether a law violates either the establisment clause or the free excercise clause. The "under God" phrase fails the test.

Patriotism without thought is jingoism - recitation of the pledge is empty if it is enforced by peer pressure. Further, adding a belief in God, ostensibly to "weed out the commies" ignores the whole premise of freedom.




>If they had only said "denomination" instead.

Indeed, they would then have been thinking like Chaplain Ogilvie, and reverse the intent of the whole 1st Amendment.

[tuibguy]

>Remember, it's Freedom OF Religion, not Freedom FROM Religion!

Sorry - it is both. It is not up to the government to dictate religious beliefs. The bill of rights that protects atheists is the bill of rights that protects christians.

eroding the freedom of those you don't like erodes your own freedom.

[rustbucket]

Good post. Those who have gone ballistic over the pledge ruling need to step back and think a minute.

Pledge supporters would never allow a public school to lead children in a voluntary chant that there was no God or that Christianity was evil. That would be indoctrinating children with religious beliefs. On the other hand, they fail to see that "under God" in the pledge is also religious indoctrination.

[MosesKnows]

I just have difficulty mustering any conviction for the part about "with liberty and justice for all."

If you view the pledge as a result rather than a goal, you will very likely become and remain disappointed?

[max61]

I can assure you they said many a prayer on that battlefield. I can also assure they were thanking GOD they were still alive, and able to raise that flag.

I would agree, but these person still did not state the PoA with the words "under G-d" in it.

Use your brain in a constructive manner and stop wrapping it in twisted legal theory and paper like dead fish!

My reasoning is quite simple, return the Pledge to it's original wording, and nobody has any room to bitch regardless of what they, you, or I believe. It was quite fine the way it was. Yet another fine example of Congress creating a problem where none existed.

There is no reason that every American, regardless of belief system should recite the Pledge and be in defiance of their beliefs.

There is no excuse for wrapping the flag around yourself and using it as a hammer to force everyone to believe what you do, and that's exactly what this comes down to, forcing everyone to believe what someone else wants.

---max

[Mike Darancette]

I have no problem with the "one nation under God" part of the pledge. A heathen like me is all for more spirituality. I just have difficulty mustering any conviction for the part about "with liberty and justice for all." I find that to be a bit of a reach.

The author should go to Zimbabwe where he can be a part of dispensing justice without getting the willies.

The Zimbabwe pledge surely wouldn't be under God, there would be no mention of indivisibility and it goes without saying that the phrase "with liberty and justice for all" would not be needed either.

[mindprism.com]

There is a point in that, by pledging allegience to a symbol and a republic, and then describing what that republic is supposedly 'like' -- we are at odds with the Declaration of Independence and mans right to abolish governments.

Ideas above nations, don't fixate on the symbols or the contractual republic because it will evolve into 'your favorite little monster'.

[wku man]

Neither. I answered only one question of the form, the one which asked how many people lived at that address. I told them one. When they sent a census taker out to question me, I told him I had already answered the only question I was required to by the Constitution. He left with a stupid and confused look on his face. I have been known to check both the Caucasian and Native American boxes on various forms, though.

Scouts Out! Cavalry Ho!

[CIB-173RDABN]

Then the baby boomers will start retiring en masse. The result will be a huge sucking sound coming from Medicare and Social Security. As more retire, the demand for these will increase while services and funds dwindle. There will come a point where the politicians have a choice, raise taxes or cut benefits. Despite how conservative an elderly person may be, they will not let the politicians touch "their" benefits; IOW, they will vote democrat.

---

As someone on the front edge of the baby boom (born in the late 1940s) I do plan on retiring in a few years. Social Security does not even enter into the equation of what I expect to live on after I retire.

I honestly do not think Social Security as we know it today (a ponzi scheme) will exist in a few years.

I hope my fellow baby boomers have taken steps for their retirement, if they are counting on SS they may be surprised.

[B.R. Burton]

simpson@courant.com

[B.R. Burton]

the author's e-mail above

[Prodigal Son]

The problem comes in when you have a tyrannical minority that demands the rest of us shut up. That's what bugs me and, frankly I think what bugs me worse is the happiness this minority exihibits when they successfully gag the rest of us via judicial activism..

That's what bugs me as well. I grew up with the pledge. We were a small rural town back then (they've grown much since) and we had two Jehovah's Witness children (siblings) in our community's school. Starting from first grade onward they always left the room for that couple of minutes in the morning. It was kind of an odd thing at first (but then, so was school). But by the time you got to fifth or sixth grade, you didn't even think about it anymore- that's just what the kid and his sister did.

I've got to admit, there were times when I was daydreaming (or just still sleeping) when my mouth moved to form the words for the pledge. But I can also honestly say that as a child I spontaneously sang gospel hymns and patriotic songs for no other reason than it felt good to do so. Some of the hymns and songs gave me the cold chills, even as a child and I didn't properly understand why then like I do today, but it was a powerful thing- this feeling that God is watching over me at all times and that I belonged to a nation of heroes who had given their lives for the freedoms I enjoy. This is all the truth.

Now, today, those same songs still give me the chills even though I can most properly be described as an agnostic libertarian. When I was on guard duty in Bosnia, I regularly occupied myself with singing religious hymns for the comfort I found in them even if I wasn't certain about my actual belief at that point. It was something ingrained in me from going to church three times a week since my earliest memories (until I was old enough to decide I didn't want to). In short, it was part of my culture and even if I didn't technically believe in the religion itself any longer- the songs and the culture I was raised in still meant, and to this day mean, something to me. That goes for the patriotic songs as well and the pledge and celebration of the day we declared our Independance from the tyranny of a king.

The pledge has become a part of our culture and as part of "American Culture" I do not believe the court would be correct in telling Americans they cannot have it. What would be next? The National Anthem? What about the President? If he goes to church, isn't he, as the executive of the gov't endorsing whichever church he goes to and therefore lending the prestige of the United States Government to that church? We need to hold firm on the pledge or else we'll see those other cases in the court one day.

I grew up in a great nation, and I grew up with the confidence that the values I was instilled with would be valid when I was old enough to take on the mantle of my forebears. The court has no right to strip us of our culture. None. By God, we have a right to be Americans and that has certain implications. We have a right to grow up in and celebrate our American culture- not somebody else's across the ocean and certainly not some liberal fool's in a black robe who just can't get his mind around his own culture and would celebrate anybody else's but his own.

[gonzo]

Thanks for the links, guys. Stay well armed and vigilant........FRegards