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Old 06-19-2004, 06:31 PM   #94 (permalink)
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Quote:
Originally posted by pan6467
I appreciate the questions Pigglet and thank you for the chance to explain.
Pan, thank you for the response. In reading your reply, I see that I think that we are simply going to disagree on some points in this particular situation, although I agree with what I consider to be the basic underlying stance you are taking. As I stated earlier, I simply think that this is not be the place to stand. In fact, in feeling as though I would like to take a similar stand, I end up on the opposite side of the argument. Funny, eh? If your concern is the undue influence that relatively well-funded, highly vocal groups are having on our society (is this essentially your issue, or am I misunderstanding you?), then I would agree with you...at least when the influence is to successfully further objectives which are unconstitutional, or which unduly infringe on the rights of others. In the current case, I see it the following way. There is an increasing vocal, well-funded group of people who are very interested in the phrase "Under God" being removed from the Pledge. There is also a vocal, well-funded group who is very interested in the phrase "Under God" being retained in the Pledge. My guess is that the majority of Americans probably wouldn't pursue this issue on their own, nor would they develop a strong position if neither of these groups were pushing their agenda in the issue. This is the way most issues are argued in society. When confronted with this situation, this specific situation, and asked where I stand, I have to fall on removing the phrase from the Pledge, for the reasons I stated above in my earlier post. I don't see the point in repeating them, but...

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1. While yes, God to many may mean the Judeo-Christian God, in my opinion it is the value you put on it. If I say or read "In God we trust", in essence I put MY value of the meaning on the word there. Noone can tell me what value to place for God. As for, what others mean by the word, that is their decision, and does not affect my understanding of my higher power (or God). This is a conscious decision by me.



Here is the first place we will have to agree to disagree for now. You seem to feel that you can say the phrase "Under God" and have it be inclusive to various forms of spirituality, and have it take on various meanings through parental counseling of the child or expanded consciousness. However, in my opinion, you fail to recognize that some parents and their children apparently do not want to have to do this. They just don't want to say the phrase "Under God" in the Pledge, neither do they want to feel singled out by not saying "Under God" in a classroom of their peers (and do you remember high-school / middle school peer pressure? God it was awful for some people). Saying the Pledge is mandatory in some places, I know because it was where I grew up. Over ten years ago. There is no doubt in my mind that saying the phrase "Under God" has no effect on you, and I commend you for your mental flexability in being able to render this phrase to mean whatever you want it to be. However, I do not think that everyone should be forced to warp the phrase away from it's original intention in order to be able to tolerate it, in a Pledge of Allegiance to the United States. Once again, this singles out people for no apparent reason that I can understand or justify. The inclusion of the phrase "Under God" was not the default - remember it was added merely fifty years ago, and I just don't see how a mandatory Pledge of Allegiance which includes the word God (which presupposes, at minimum a belief in some sort of monotheistic god, and for reasons which I think have been eloquently argued by previous posters, strongly insinuates a Judeo-Christian god (language, historical circumstances surrounding the group that originally lobbied to include it, etc)) can not violate Separation of Church and State.

As another point, remember that this is a Pledge of Allegiance. It's not a pledge to be a good kid and not stick bubble gum under the desk, under God. It's not a Pledge to show up for detention if you get caught trying to peek in the girl's shower, Under God. It's a pledge of Allegiance , to the United States, Under God. You don't think that if you don't believe in a God, that pledging Allegiance to one could be somewhat uncomfortable, or dare I suggest a violation of your constituational rights? I just don't understand that. Not to mention that even if every single kid in public school was a Christian (hypothetical - eliminates the need for any interpretation of the word God.) and wanted to say the Pledge with "under God", I don't really know how I feel about them making that Pledge in a public instituation devoted to the shaping of their minds and, at least partially, their world view, regardless of their views on sprituality. Is that really appropriate, technically?

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If you tell your children that the "under God" is just for the Christians and has no meaning to you, then you are effectively teaching them that God can only have that value. Whereas, if you teach your children there are more than just one view of God, and everyone has a differing view, then they will not be troubled by the word.


So if you're choice was to teach your children that the concept of God was a load of horse dung, and that all this stuff was a bunch of hocus-pocus that has no more metaphysical reality than, say, Mickey Mouse in Fantasia , and thus they decided not to say the Pledge because it went against their relgious beliefs, which either 1. Got them in detention Hall (where I went to school, for instance, this could happen although it was rarely enforced), or 2. Singled them out from other kids, particularly uncomfortable in say, small town S.C. middle-of-the-Bible-belt land, or if they did say it, forced them to say something they don't believe in, in essence making them hypocrits. You don't think it's easier just not to have it in the Pledge of Allegiance to the United States (not the Pledge of Allegiance to the Land under the provence of a Collection of Loosely-Defined Any Spirtual Belief You Like So Long as It Has a God), and let the kids of various religious faiths pray elsewhere when they like?

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As for your example with the word "nigger" I truly feel that it is in the context of use. The way you use the word and the value the target has on it is in direct correlation to the response you'll get. The main reason one would say this is to be inciteful to begin with.



Of course, that's exactly what I said. In this case, the context is a bunch of kids being forced to recite a Pledge of Allegiance which specifically includes the ideological concept that you are pledging allegiance to a Nation which is under the provences of a God, in a clearly state-supported instituation and setting. In may not incite anything in you, but don't it might incite some feeling in an Atheist child?

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2. Like I said it's not so much the pledge, but these people will not stop. They take and want more. It's the pledge, then it's the money, then it's the holidays, then it's any mention of the word in schools and government. Then they'll clamp down on the prayers in Congress and so on. It is not ever going to stop until people like me say enough. Live with it. We are still the freeest country and have the most liberties,

Well, I probably will live with it, at least for now. I'm not going to go out and spend my time and energy on these issues, personally, as there are other things that I need to do. However, I support those that are fighting these issues, and while we're at it, I'm glad you brought up the issue of money and prayers before Congress, because I agree - hopefully they will eventually go after that. As far as the $$$ goes, it's probably best just to not ask you to explain why "In God We Trust" is there, because of course it's the same issue and there's no need to diverge the current discussion. As for prayers before Congress, I don't know enough about it to have an informed position on it, but I would say that a mandatory prayer before the meeting of one of the most powerful governmental bodies in the world sort of sends a message. For the holidays and so forth, I already explained how I, at least, see that - and I haven't really heard so much about holidays being cancelled as much as I've heard about them being added.

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but by your demanding things your way you are taking rights away. Because every lawsuit, every law passed is an erosion of more rights for the majority.


I just don't see this, in this context - in fact, I feel as though by this statement you are essentially hoisted upon your own petar. To wit, everyone is this discussion is insisting on things being their own way - if they weren't, we wouldn't be having a discussion. Pot, meet kettle. If it wasn't that way, I'd be saying "Take the 'Under God' business out," and you would be saying....

Nothing, because you wouldn't be insisting on having it your own way. Secondly, I don't think that anyone is trying to take away your right, or anyone's right to say God anywhere, including school. I think that they are trying to preserve the right of kids not to say that they believe in some concept of a God, when in fact they may not...and certainly not to have them pledge allegiance to a God in a publicly supported instituation.

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If people don't realize they are wasting tax dollars, clogging the court systems up with ridiculous lawsuits INSTEAD of educating themselves and trying to compromise, then eventually we will have no rights, because we have proven we can't handle the responsibilities.


I don't know that civil rights cases are the ones clogging up the court docktets. I think that there are a lot of frivolous lawsuits, but I would guess the court system is more clogged with blue collar legislation, transactional cases, and other legal matters than these cases. I could be wrong, but this is the feeling that I get from my friends who are attorneys. In fact, I think that using this as a justification for wanting this particular suit is pretty much a strawman argument. It sounds good to me, but when I think about it I tend to think that of all the money wasted in our society, in court cases and in other areas, that the money going to fight this case is probably minmal. Not to threadjack, but of the top of my head I seem to recall that we paid some cat in Iraq about $350,000 / month to not do what we said to do and give us bad intelligence. I don't want to get into a discussion of that - I'm just saying that a lot of $$$ flows in our society, for a lot of reasons - and that attaching that stigma as a reason to throw this case away seems invalid to me.

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I just have had enough. Instead of taking rights away, if these people truly wanted what was best for the country, they would work with government and the schools around them and find common ground. But they won't, they want what they want and everyone else be damned.


Once again, I can't really speak to what attempts were made, if any to address this issue prior to the court case. I'm not trying to challenge you to quote sources here, as I've not included any either (we seem to be having an ideological debate, not a source-related what happened debate) but do you know that they didn't attempt to approach the school systems about this? I'd be curious to know. Once again, I don't see how anyone's rights are being taken away.

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Look what they are doing to broadcast media right now, not to mention Ashcroft's war on porn. Instead of educating and working to keep the rights, these groups would rather take away the rights of all for their purpose.
I agree with you 100% here; I just don't think that the two groups lobbying for removing the Pledge stuff and the people fighting to keep porn are the same camp. This really isn't a freedom of speech issue ( as no one is saying an individual can't say the word God on school grounds or anything) - it's a Separation issue, which I would think would actually be trying to protect people's civil rights. They don't happen to be yours in this issue, as far as I can tell. I don't mean that as an attack, I just think you'd have a different take if you couldn't make the phrase God mean whatever canopy of spiritual belief you hold to.

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It might sound radical, might sound like I'm way out there. Perhaps, time will tell. But we have to take a stand on all these groups and say enough. No matter how stupid the object of the stance appears we have to look at the whole picture. And right or wrong this is my stand to say enough.
I don't think you're radical or out there - I just think that you may have chosen the wrong stand. As I said before, if you were talking about the nativity scenes and all that, then I would agree with you. If you were arguing that Jewish kids shouldn't be prevented from wearing the little beanie hats to school, then I would agree with you. If you were arguing alot of other things, I think I would tend to agree with you, espeically given what I've seen of some of your posts in other threads. Just not here. In any case, thank you for your responses. As you can no doubt see from this post, I still don' t understand your point about the phrase "Under God" having some dubious, relativisitc meaning - that is so ill-defined that you can make it mean whatever you want it to. If fact, if the meaning is that open to inpretation, it kind of seems like a crappy thing to have in such an official declaration. What if God to me meant "North Korea"? Or "Satan"? Or the "Hot Chick Living Next Door Whom I Regularly Spy On While She's In The Tub"? It's not much of a Pledge if it's so wishy-washy. I agree that special interest groups are, and have been, taking advantage of polical influence, primarily derived from $$$, for too long. I just think it's funny that two people who see that issue the same way, come down on exactly opposite sides of this position.
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