I don't think it's a federal law to recite the pledge.

Correct... Sorta. The wording of the Pledge is at the Federal level. At the State level, I believe that all public schools in the 50 states must lead students in reciting the pledge. A quick Google search showed this to be true for several states, but IANAL. Of course, nobody is required by law to join in, but the schools themselves are, I believe, legally bound to lead the recitation. If I'm wrong with the lawyer stuff, I welcome any corrections.

As to your minority/majority thing, who is STOPPING the majority from doing ANYTHING? People are free to say "under God" but, by the letter of the law, Congress is not free to make reference to religion in our laws.

I do think it's silly to be alienated by such a benign phrase, but based on our laws, that phrase should never have been there. Now that people have become accustomed to it, taking it away will alienate the majority.

But this is moot, because there is NO WAY this ruling will survive the wrath of Congress, who is viciously defending the Pledge as it's written.

Imagine an American going to a school in India and demanding that they stop using the word 'Allah'. Do you think that would be reasonable?

Do I need to respond to this? Or does everyone see what is wrong with this statement?

Ok I thought so.

Yz33d, you really shoud read more before you start typing.


edit: wow, i guess i was a little late on that one huh?

edit: wow, i guess i was a little late on that one huh?

It's the thought that counts.

> And what you're talking about is what makes America a great country, that we DON'T (or shouldn't) push any one particular religion, because our people are a mix of all faiths. The fact that other countries do it doesn't mean we should.

Furthermore, why do you think India has so much bloodshed? Their government has historically been very pro-Hindu, and the BJP party that has power there now has taken it up a notch and caused even more problems not only for the significant Muslim minority, but Christains and other religions as well. The government's pushing of one religion has split the country along religious lines and is the root cause of most of the horrible violence that the country suffers from. With the exception of the issue of abortion, there has been almost no violence in this country along religious lines, and the seperation of church and state is a major reason for this.

In reply to:

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Nobody is forced to say the pledge. Nobody is forced to pray during the moment of silence. Nobody is forced to say "under God".

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Bullcrap. In my grade school it was forced. Some kids once got into all kinds of trouble when they left out the "under god" bit after being told not to.

I am also more than a little offended by "In god We Trust" on the money. I hope the reform of that comes on the heels of this.

But let me ask you a question. If this is a democracy where majority rules,

Well, it isn't a democracy where the majority rules. It's a Republic. And if the majority ruled, then there'd be a different President.

and the majority of people want to keep and say the pledge, why should we allow a minority of the population to stop the majority from doing what they wish


I don't think that anyone has a problem with the concept of a pledge - only the 1954 amendment to it that definately breaks the rules on separation of chuch and state.

Remembering that the Colonies were founded by people escaping state-sponsored religon, and that the War of Independance was over (amongst other things) taxation, I find it ironic that US citizens today have to pledge to a nation under a monthesistic deity, and pay higher taxes than before Independance.

With the exception of the issue of abortion, there has been almost no violence in this country among religious lines, and the seperation of church and state is a major reason for this.

Best statement made in this thread so far.

The current events on this planet underscore the unchanging truth of a rather icky part of our nature: Organized religion is responsible for an illogical amount of the blood shed throughout human history. Our country's efforts to keep government separate from religion should be an applauded example, not reviled.

Now on the particular issue of the PoA, I couldn't care less whether "Under God" was in there and I think we should be focusing our resources on more important problems. My first reaction to this was, "haven't we already covered this before?"

I think a more important issue is... why do we even need to make our children recite a daily pledge of fealty in the first place? It's always sounded rather fascist to me, with or without the God reference.

Ninti:
Furthermore, why do you think India has so much bloodshed?

tfabris:
Organized religion is responsible for an illogical amount of the blood shed throughout human history.

XTC
Dear God, sorry to disturb you, but..
I feel that I should be heard loud and clear.
We all need a big reduction in amount of tears
and all the people that you made in your image,
see them fighting in the street
'cause they can't make opinions meet
about God,
I can't believe in you

Ugg, Focus on the Family is already making their voice heard about this. From the local paper here in Colorado Springs:

The ruling by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco does not affect Colorado, which is outside its jurisdiction, but the message it sends worried such people as Tom Minnery, vice president of public policy for Focus on the Family. He called the decision "as shocking in its own way as the attack on the World Trade Center."

"If the Pledge of Allegiance is unconstitutional, then certainly the Declaration of Independence is unconstitutional because that mentions God three times and the pledge only mentions God once," Minnery said.

Hmm, well the Declaration of Independance is a written document that was created more then 200 years ago. The pledge is a spoken event that occurs in most schools to turn us all into good little patriots, started during the Wolrd War II mess. The "under God" part was added to fight communism. To me, the pledge is a fine idea, but it should represent a true pledge to the country, and not a religion. It should not be forced on anyone and instead just be an optional thing as it sits in my school district. Here in District 11, it's not even really said outside of elementry school. And I did remember a few people who opted out of participating, mainly due to the ovidious religious content. Now the big mess is the outcome of this. The person who brought it up is stating he is getting death threats, and Bush is saying he will put judges on the bench that will overrule this. Anyone else see a problem with the second part of that? I thought justice was supposed to be a process of fact finding and rulling. But when the highest single person in command admits to fixing the system, something definitly needs to be done to correct the broken system.

Do I think we should spend tons of effort on things like this? No. But right now I can't become president of this country without declairing God on my side.

School vouchers seems to be another sticky issue right now. Some people here are saying that this issue does violate church/state issues. Why? The vouchers allow students to be educated the way their parents want, even if they don't have the money to do so. Here is a perfect example where the state is giving choice, including religious choices for education. Don't want your student to be taught the work of the devil, aka evolution? Well do something about it.

Ugg. Anyone own a large island? Lets go set up our own empeg loving nation :-)

Heh, I did a parody of that song. (It's at my web site if you wanna see it.)

Ugg. Anyone own a large island? Lets go set up our own empeg loving nation :-)

Word! We'll call it Empegonia. Hugo will be our leader, with the rest of the Empeg guys having cushy government jobs and living off our tax dollars. Except Patrick, whose tuner-making skills are far too important to have him in government. He'll get his own three-story lab with a full automated factory for producing tuners.

So when are we moving? I'll pack my bags.

Heh, I did a parody of that song. (It's at my web site if you wanna see it.)

haha, good stuff.

"And Steve Ballmer too."

tsk tsk.

haha, good stuff. "And Steve Ballmer too."

ROFL, you are the FIRST person so far who's gotten the reference in that line. I was SOOOOO proud of that one. Now I feel vindicated.

That's the risk I take when I parody a not-so-well-known song. The best parts of a parody are the ones that are only funny if you know the original song well. So the more obscure the source song, the less likely someone will get those jokes.

"Ugg. Anyone own a large island? Lets go set up our own empeg loving nation :-) "

Heh, I don't think that would work as half of us would probably kill the other half. That's one reason this board is so cool: we disagree completly on issues like this and yet most of us are very intelligent people who respect others viewpoints. I don't think we'd ever agree on any government on said island (and surly those with many empegs would constitute the upperclass while us single empeg owners would be reduced to poverty levels. . . and if a Neo owner got there acciddently. . .)

and if a Neo owner got there acciddently. . .)

Nah, we'll just set up a penal colony to send them to. We can call it "Australia" or something.

<ducks>

> School vouchers seems to be another sticky issue right now.

I'm sure the religious right as not really sweating this small victory for the constitution, since they are well on the way to turning this country into their little Christian paradise. While the 9th Circuit is trying to uphold the separation of church and state, the conservative Supreme Court is tearing it down. As of today, your tax money can be used to support religious schools. They will almost certainly overturn this pledge of allegiance ruling as well.

Hmm. I was on board with you before, but I actually have no problem with tax money being used towards religious schools as long as it's the same amount of money that was allocated for your public schooling (I believe that's the case.) Parents already have a right to send their kids to religious schools, and these schools typically cost more than their public counterparts. To me, this is in effect the parent paying for the "religious portion" of their education, thus I don't have a problem with it.

If they wanted to get real technical with the separation (as the 9th circuit court did in the other ruling) I would be happy with an arrangement where the religious education in these private schools were accounted for and funded separately, with no tax funds going towards those specific accounts (with the rest of the education being partially paid for by these vouchers.) That way, no money would be going to paying for religion. I realize there are all sorts of technicalities there and things that could be exploited, but since these schools already cost more than public schools, it doesn't seem to me that religious education is really being "paid for" by tax dollars.

Or am I missing something?

My problem with school vouchers is not so much the potential religious issue (which does bother me slightly, but I'll get over it), but the fact that it provides yet another benefit to affluent families.

First, let's assume that private schools are better than public schools. Since they existed previously, and people paid for them outright, that doesn't seem like a hard jump to make.

Since private schools do cost more, most poorer families will still not be able to send their kids there, as they don't have that extra money. So, for that reason, vouchers only benefit families with extra money.

Since private schools are still private, the administration can reject whatever applicants it wants. Imagine an inner-city black family that decides that they should spend a large portion of their money to send Junior to a private school in hopes that he'll get a better education and get out of the ghetto (an exaggerated, somewhat stereotypical circumstance, I'll grant). The school can still decide that Junior doesn't fit their entrance criteria (maybe based on the fact that he ``wouldn't fit in''). If these voucher-ized schools were required to accept anyone who could pay the entrance fee, then I'd be more okay with it (except, see my previous point). But I don't think that's going to happen, as I believe that many of the families that send their children to private schools do it specifically to get them away from those inner-city kids.

Anyway, just my 2 cents. And it's way off topic now.

All extremely good points that I hadn't considered, Bitt. I think someone needs to come up with some way to give religious but non-affluent families the ability to send their kids to their chosen school without contributing to the rich getting richer. Not sure what that would be, though.

Oh man, the pledge of allegiance and vouchers, I don't know where to start.

The Pledge: Forcing children to recite religious phrases in a school that they are by law forced to attend (unless they can afford otherwise... we'll get to that) should not be allowed. Allowing children to say it? Sure. By force or coercion? Nope. The pledge of allegiance is about the country, not about god.

Vouchers: I've been to both public and private schools, so I know the difference. I've visited downtown oakland schools with one white kid in a class of 30. I spent middle school in a class with 20 odd white kids and one black kid. (This is the reason I love Token on south park...). The fact that amazes me the most is that private schools charge LESS tutition than public schools get per student. There are very few people in private schools for whom the tutiton isn't some sort of hardship, yet their parents make the choice that it's worth it. There are some for whom $12,000 doesn't seem like much, but those are few and far between.

Public schools are a mess of beauracracy, and letting kids who can't afford private schools attend private schools seems fine with me. Perhaps a few of us spoiled rich kids would get the discount too, but we do pay the taxes that go into supporting schools, right?

Matthew

Okay... did everyone do their homework and READ THE RULING??? I've told everyone who wants to argue with this about me here in the physical world to forget it unless they read the thing and know what they are arguing about. Haha... so far, only one person has taken me up on it.

Hell no. I didn't even click the link. I am satisfied with the biased summary that was delivered to me through the tv. Even tv is starting to take too long. They need to invent something to where you can just inject the knowledge directly in your veins with a needle and have it go straight to your brain. That is the wave of the future.

In reply to:

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As of today, your tax money can be used to support religious schools.

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OK, so say if a woman with no job and eight children is on welfare and uses her food stamps to buy kosher pickles, would you be against that?

Ok, I just clicked the link. And as soon as I saw that little scroll bar was about a half of a millimeter long, I immediately hit the back button.

Exactly. So shut the F up lest ye scroll that millimeter.

i don't have time to read that crap. The knowledge that I will gain from reading it doesn't outweigh the benefits I will gain from doing absolutely nothing in the same time span. If was going to read something right now, I'd read something I'm more interested in. I have very little patience for reading large documents on a computer screen in this uncomfortable computer chair.

I have very little patience for reading large documents on a computer screen in this uncomfortable computer chair.

Then don't start spouting nonsense about Allah in India. I don't care what you choose to read, but here's a little tip: only use facts that you don't make up.

...Unless, of course, you are Mr X. I can hear those molemen yelling at you now.

Greetings!

I have read it. I still find that I disagree with both sets of judicial opinions. It is definately a constitutional issue, and will be debated. Most notable was the text of the original introduction of the phrase, based on a deliberate act which may alone be enough cause to strike the phrase. I still stand by my personal opinion that, deliberate as the original insertion may have been, I do not personally think that it is a government endorsement or enfranchisement of any religion any more than striking the phrase would be an endorsement of atheism.

Of course, your milage and opinions will vary, as well they should. I find it significantly better to see people actually paying attention to the pledge and to the constitution, even if I may not agree on some topics.

" I do not personally think that it is a government endorsement or enfranchisement of any religion any more than striking the phrase would be an endorsement of atheism. "

I couldn't agree more, not just with the above statement but with your entire post.

I wasn't going to respond, but....

First, there's the problem that it doesn't respect that fact that many religions (including atheism itself) do not have a god, and many others have more than one, calling both of those groups into question.

Second, it obviously refers to the Christian god, since it is obvious from the context under which it was originally endorsed, and secondly, because it is capitalized, a distinctly Christian thing.

Interestingly, and to lighten the mood a little, did you know that the original inventors of the teletype were aware that they could only support either lower case or upper case letters and they did a small study to see which was better? They came to the conclusion that lower case was easier to read and generally more attractive and were set to go that route, but then their boss vetoed it because if it were all lower case, then it would be impossible to ``spell our Lord's name correctly'' (or something like that -- I'm paraphrasing). Thanks, guy!