CSPAN Wednesday AM — Use of "under God" in pledge. Your opinion?

[prolesunited]

Will be interesting listening to calls on this.

What's your opinion?

[SheepyMcSheepster]

1. take it out.

[prolesunited]

2. OMFG!

God is a terrorist! :wtf:

[Renew Deal]

3. I heard that.

:crazy:

[bhunt70]

19. best call of the morning.

it was a silly point but I found it funny.

[prolesunited]

21. Problem is

I think that guy really was serious. :scared:

[rfranklin]

4. Insert "under _________" (choose deity of your choice)

under Yahweh, under Buddha, under Krishna, under Osiris, under Pele, under Zeus, and so forth.

[BigMcLargehuge]

5. my opinion - yank it

and yank "In God we Trust" off the money too.

[ihaveaquestion]

6. Remove it and all references to god in government.

[teach1st]

7. Take it out... NT

[July]

8. Go back to the original pledge, if we must have one.

But I'm against its use in schools.

[truthspeaker]

9. If there is a God

I doubt he likes being invoked to endorse human nations and political boundaries. Take it back out. The pledge that was good enough for soldiers in WWII is good enough for me.

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religon..." Seems pretty straightforward to me.

[Enraged_Ape]

10. Get rid of it. It wasn't there to begin with.

I thought I heard it was added by wingnuts during the McCarthy era.

[rock]

11. Doesn't belong in it

It's a super simple rule. By the way, I believe SCROTUS will decide to leave it in.

[mmonk]

12. Wish it hadn't been added anyway

Especially at this jucture in our history and fundamentalist religious zealots are gaining power

[TahitiNut]

13. The "Divine Right of Kings" has long been a cover for tyranny.

It's "one nation of the people," not "under God." There's absolutely nothing "divine" about a necessary evil. Government must always been viewed as obtaining its sole legitimacy from the informed consent of the People, not of anything divine whatsoever.

No child below the age of consent should ever be coerced into the recitation of a pledge of any kind. Such coercion is the ethical equivalent of child abuse. Parents who coerce "promises" from their children are misguided at best. There is nothing ethical or moral about imposing a contract or promise that's not freely subscribed. Children should be trained, above almost all else, to prize their own integrity ... an integrity premised on honoring one's self and one's own commitments freely undertaken.

[leesa]

14. Get rid of the entire pledge. Why engage in forced nationalism?

[prolesunited]

15. Why oh why

do you hate America?!?!? ;-)

[Az]

16. This is about freedom of thought

The oathe attempts to impose a religious belief on children. It uses pressure to insinuate a belief on those who are least able to decide for themself what they believe. Children are processing new information all the time and are reliant on authority figures to help them sort the information until they can synthesyze their own world view. The clause Under God in the pledge constitutes a governmental invasion of religion and thought in this matter and must be removed.

[Lugnut]

17. "Under God"

Wasn't in it when I first learned the pledge in the early 50s. I think it's recitation should be eliminated from schools altogether.

[sweetheart]

18. end the brainwashing

End the mindless repetition of lies in schools.

Take out under god, take out the whole pedge as it it is a lie.

There is no justice for all in the US, nor is there liberty for
all. Why lie.

[havocmom]

20. Haven't been able to recite the pledge since Ford pardoned Nixon.

I choke on the "and justice for all" line every darn time I try.

[Kathy in Cambridge]

22. Caller: "There's a Terrorist in the White House"

[terisel]

23. It should state "one nation indivisible"

When "under god" was inserted we lost the power of the phrase "one nation indivisible."

[Az]

25. One nation, under god, gotta choose one or the other

It can't be both. We are either one nation, or we are under god. Pick one and the other becomes false.

[KharmaTrain]

24. Isn't This False Idoltry???

A fundie acquaintance brought this up years ago about the pledge (and other things "government")...back from the days when the church stayed far away from those sleezy politicians. It was that bowing to a flag or a symbol or "pledging" to an individual (pResident) is bearing "false witness" and worshiping to an idol. He felt that any vow of this sort is like praying and is only worthy of god and jesus, not a flag or a man-made document or a mortal.

Personally, I think of first grade attempts at reciting the pledge...for Richard Stands???....and aping it without any concept of what it meant. I suspect many who say it have no clue as to what the words other than the "under god" noise means.

[TN al]

26. It wasn't in the original pledge

and should be omitted along with "In God We Trust" from the money. Having a coin that simply says "Liberty" says it all I think.

[TahitiNut]

27. The French serve as a model: Liberty, Fraternity, Equality.

Our "allegiance" should and must be to our nation (of people), not to a government and not to a piece of cloth.

[prolesunited]

28. Here's a good article about that

The Strange Origin of the Pledge of Allegiance

http://archive.aclu.org/news/move/pledgeorigin.html

In 1892, a socialist named Francis Bellamy created the Pledge of Allegiance for Youths' Companion, a national family magazine for youth published in Boston. The magazine had the largest national circulation of its day with a circulation around 500,000. Two liberal businessmen, Daniel Ford and James Upham, his nephew, owned Youths' Companion.

One hundred years ago the American flag was rarely seen in the classroom or in front of the school Upham changed that. In 1888, the magazine began a campaign to sell American flags to the public schools. By 1892, his magazine had sold American flags to about 26 thousands schools.
<snip>

Perhaps a team of social scientists and historians could explain why over the last century the Pledge of Allegiance has become a major centerpiece in American patriotism programs. A pledge or loyalty oath for children was not built around the Declaration of Independence -- "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal..." Or the Gettysburg address -- "a new nation conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal..."

Apparently, over the last century, Americans have been uncomfortable with the word "equality" as a patriotic theme. In 1992 the nation will begin its second century with the Pledge of Allegiance. Perhaps the time has come to see that this allegiance should be to the U.S. constitution and not to a piece of cloth.

[kskiska]

29. The pledge isn't exactly steeped in history

It was not until 1942 that Congress officially recognized the Pledge of Allegiance. One year later, in June 1943, the Supreme Court ruled that school children could not be forced to recite it. In fact, today only half of our fifty states have laws that encourage the recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance in the classroom!

[Kali]

30. Ditch it

Money too, oaths in court, my word isn't good enough? How is invoking some diety I don't believe in gonna help? And why do I always have to vote in some freakin' (christian) CHURCH????

And I totally agree about brainwashing children with this BS -though when I was a kid it was just something we mumbled every morning like one big long word - never had a clue what it ment!