He didn't today. It was right to die, refusal of treatment, euthanasia issues for the most part.

I'm waiting to hear the Dems get into this one. Political harakiri.

I turned on the TV after being out all day, saw the crawl across the bottom of the screen "Federal Court Rules Pledge Unconstitutional," and I blurted out, "Oh, the Ninth Court, of course..."

"One Nation, under God..."

I am regularly astounded when people don't see at least the explicit Deism in this official statement about our relationship to our country. What does such a statement say about the relationship between atheists and agnostics and our country? It puts us in the position of being outside the pledge is what it does and it establishs that this country exists "under God", thus violating the fucking establishment clause. This is such simple logic that the failure of intelligent people to acknowledge the logic is deeply unnerving.

Which God, thus which religion is being referred to vonK?

vK:

I think it's more of a traditionalist thing that a religious think - like having "In God We Trust" on our money. It's been that way for generations, and there's no real harm in it (atheists snort, agnostics wonder, secular humanists ignore it, and religious adherents may be mildly comforted by it).

In cases like this (such as Christmas parades and decorations), it is difficult to avoid reacting like Foamy the Squirrel, who captures the WTF nature of the conservatives' complaint.

Of course the message that one sends to the religious community is that a pretty innocuous statement is so offensive that it must be stricken whereever it appears in the public sector. Easy to understand why they would feel alienated.

I might add that the judge was a Carter appointee.

Just doing my share.

oops - first line should read "than" rather than "that."

Brew - True, it does not indicate which version of the one true God is being invoked, but it is clear that God, not Gods or spirits of nature or the creative force within us all, is being invoked as a fundemental part of our allegiance to the nation. I suppose it could be Allah, but that seems unlikely.

Geoff - I agree with what you say, it is a non-issue for me, I just get flummoxed by the logical inconsistency. That being said, you can extrapolate from your statement:
"One Nation, under God..."

I am regularly astounded when people don't see at least the explicit Deism in this official statement about our relationship to our country. What does such a statement say about the relationship between atheists and agnostics and our country? It puts us in the position of being outside the pledge is what it does and it establishs that this country exists "under God", thus violating the fucking establishment clause. This is such simple logic that the failure of intelligent people to acknowledge the logic is deeply unnerving.

To understand how the strident response to the removal of a pretty innocuous statement would be deeply alienating to the devoutly atheist. The vast majority of people in the US are at least avowedly monotheists, but that is not supposed to matter in regard to the establishment clause.

Just so we're all clear, here's the establishment clause vonK is referring to:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.

So, vonK, which law did congress pass that established a religion?

Way loose shit.

The text from "One Nation..." to "unnerving." should read:

Of course the message that one sends to the religious community is that a pretty innocuous statement is so offensive that it must be stricken whereever it appears in the public sector. Easy to understand why they would feel alienated.

Brew - From the first site that Google returned:

In 1954, Congress after a campaign by the Knights of Columbus, added the words, 'under God,' to the Pledge. The Pledge was now both a patriotic oath and a public prayer.

So now our official pledge of allegiance to the nation establishes that we are a nation under God, that the pledge is also a prayer and that to recite the official pledge of allegiance one must acknowledge not only that a God exists, but that our nation is in hierarchical relationship with this God. Get it?

"Brew - True, it does not indicate which version of the one true God is being invoked"

The God referred to is the Judeo/Christian God. The words were added as a result of a drive by the Knights of Columbus. I admit to laying a logic trap for you but you seem to have accidentally avoided it :)

Be that as it may, as there is no religion being established here there should not be any constitutional problems. The 9th circuit has found a solution where no problem exists. Now, if saying the pledge were compulsory by federal law you might have an argument. Maybe.

It wasn't the 9th Circuit, that's appeals. It was a Federal district court. The 9th is next on the list, though.

And how shocked was I that this came out of San Francisco, the home of Gay Pride, overpriced housing, and a pervasive Hippy stench? Not surprised at all, that's how much.

"It wasn't the 9th Circuit, that's appeals"

You're correct but the 9th's previous decision was given as precedent for today's ruling.

Yes, do concentrate on your bigotted stereotypes, it will help mitigate the cognitive dissonance you'd feel if you actually tried to think about the issue.

We've been throught this so many freaking times with the same boring arguments. All we need now is Ardolino to check in all PMS-ing on us.

Forget the Knights of Columbus. That's a non-starter. There's no freaking way the Knights said "Let's put MY God in the Pledge!" It was a straight shot across the bow of godless communism, which was getting too close for their comfort. It had nothing to do with popery or incense or any of that shit.

He's right Monty.
There are no more hippies and gay people in San Francisco as there are in, say, Bowling Green, Kentucky.

'than' there are.
sheesh

Yes, do concentrate on your bigotted stereotypes, it will help mitigate the cognitive dissonance you'd feel if you actually tried to think about the issue.

Some stereotypes are quite true.

Are you really going to claim the judge who ruled on this case doesn't have the typical San Fransisco liberal mindset?

Sure, he could be a very conservative judge who takes a strong-version view of the First Amendment, but it's more likely he's just a standard left-liberal.

You're always, ALWAYS on about this, VonKreedon. I've got to say you sound like a perfect idiot at times. You continually insist that we cannot make any sort of deductions about a person's politics based upon their statements or beliefs, and that's just moronic.

In point of fact, most people are easily categorized into a political camp, and 90% of their opinions will be congruent with the consensus of their political tribe.

Again and again you make big hay out of the fact that 10% of political beliefs aren't dictated by basic political tribe.

Well, bully. While you focus on that, I'll focus on reality.

The percentage of "hippies" and gays in San Fran is relevant to the issue in what way? And supposition that these people all smell has what relevance to the application of the establishment clause?

I don't know the political hue of the judge, and apparently neither do you, but somehow the fact that San Fran is full of smelly hippies and gays has relevance.

You guys are weird.

Well, not a whole lot of hippies unless they are very, very, wealthy hippies.

As an atheist I'd just like to throw in that this Newdow fellow and his ilk are more anti-theist.
Me? I couldn't care less.

Von Kreeden, I suspect because, once you start stripping all references to God out of our governmental language, you've wiped everything from the Declaration of Independence to the Presiden'ts Oath of Office. Religion just permeates our founding documents, to an extent that clearly shows the FF's didn't intend the First Amendment to scrub all reference to religion from political discourse.

Interesting to me that, apart from some state documents (and, incidentally, it is perfectly constitutional for individual state governments to impose a religion, as some of the early ones did) it's just a vague, deist sort of religious sentiment. Practically Unitarian. Amazing, really, considering the roots of this country and the generally higher level of religious feeling back then (though the FF's had more of the Enlightenment than the Puritans about them).

I'm an atheist. I'd find Jesus references in government a bit creepy, but I think you have to work pretty hard at it to be offended by the vague, benevolent God of the Founders.

Back up, Ace. It wasn't San Francisco (the MSM, as usual, is wrong), it was Sacramento (Eastern District, No. 05-00017). And the judge is right, he is bound by the (stupid) decision of the 9th Circuit. Also, it's not the Pledge that was ruled unconstitutional, it's a state law requiring the pledge to be recited (actually, it doesn't even do that -- it just says "patriotic exercises"). Just think of the judge as you with an idiot for a boss, and you get the real picture.

But if you read the footnotes, it's pretty clear that the judge personally is on the side of the anti-religionists.

Just to be clear, this is about whether the government can force kids to say the pledge in schools as it is currently amended with the "under God" wording, not about whether people in general are allowed to recite it.

This is about big government forcing people to think a certain way, vs. liberty and freedom from governmentally imposed behaviour.

I'm absolutely positive, VonK, that when lefties refer to conservatives in phrases like 'inbred biblethumping rednecks,' you forcefully admonish them about stereotypes, and straying off the topic.

We've been throught this so many freaking times with the same boring arguments. All we need now is Ardolino to check in all PMS-ing on us.

Present. I'll just say to VonKreedon:

Amen, brother. AMEN. It amazes me that people can't accept even the logical premise that there is a very strong legal argument against the pledge.

And I'll add a boring argument from one of my comments on Goldstein's old threads:

One day, when you are old and grey, and demographic shifts perhaps cause a fundamental change in current common religious attitudes, and your great-grandkid is forced to pledge allegiance to the pantheon of triple-horned goat Gods as a part of his daily affirmation of being American, maybe your short-sighted take on the mattter will retroactively crystalize, and you will mouth into your pureed plums “Bill was right. that goddamned bastard from INDC was right. If only i’d fully supported the logically consistent application of the Establishment Clause of the constitution, little Johnny wouldn’t be smearing goat blood all over the refrigerator and fucking the cat in tribute to Tiamat. I’m sorry, Bill from INDC, I’m so sorry!”

I could PMS it up a little, if you'd like.

This is such simple logic that the failure of intelligent people to acknowledge the logic is deeply unnerving.

Having money that mentions god must be similarly distressing for you.

You can send it all to me and have a clear concience.

I'll even roll an egg on your chest to excise the demon god.

Having money that mentions god must be similarly distressing for you.

Ah, the failure to recognize passive vs. active communication. Money can probably sneak under the radar with the classification of "ceremonial deism," whereas your child being compelled to pledge allegiance to God, an oath of faith in a public setting, does not.

your child being compelled to pledge allegiance to God, an oath of faith in a public setting

Your child can't be compelled to pledge to anything. Not since 1943, in fact.

"One day, when you are old and grey, and demographic shifts perhaps cause a fundamental change in current common religious attitudes, and your great-grandkid is forced to pledge allegiance to the pantheon of triple-horned goat Gods as a part of his daily affirmation of being American, maybe your short-sighted take on the mattter will retroactively crystalize, and you will mouth into your pureed plums “Bill was right. that goddamned bastard from INDC was right."

I sooooooo hate to agree with Bill. Because he's an arrogant little prick who banned me from his site with no good cause. (He is fantasizing that I called him a fascist, which never happened.) I've politely emailed him about it, and he still refuses to admit that he was wrong. So, just to be clear, Bill is a total asshole in my book.

Still, Bill has a point here. From a purely Christian perspective, I agree with him.

Just look at the Anglican church in England, or the Lutheran church in Sweden. These are state-sponsored entities that have become hollow shells of what Christianity is supposed to be. People go to these churches for culturally required baptisms, marriages, and burials. Otherwise, they are irrelevant to their lives.

Like Bill, I am pretty hard-core on the separation of church and state. For the sake of the church, not the state.

I believe that the Knights of Columbus were inspired by the phrase “under God” because Abraham Lincoln used those exact words at the end of his Gettysburg Address, which was meant to be an inclusive, uniting speech. We had to memorize and recite the Gettysburg Address in elementary school. Man, we were subversive and unconstitutional little monsters.

VERY LOOSE SHIT BILL - Allah beat me to flailing you.

Do you make your "facts" up on the fly all the time, or only when its about some pet closet lefty project of yours?

I never said the pledge in school (laziness rather than protest) and not a damn thing ever happened to me.

Can you cite a single incident where some kid caught official school shit for not reciting?

Face it you're a closet Ruth Ginsberg admirer and panty sniffer.

"Do you make your "facts" up on the fly all the time, or only when its about some pet closet lefty project of yours?"

Bill would never lets facts stand in the way of an opportunity to be an asshole. Don Myer and Richard Bennet are his role models.

Your child can't be compelled to pledge to anything. Not since 1943, in fact.

I should have been more clear - I am fully aware that children can abstain from taking the pledge, but I believe that putting a child in a position to publicly abstain from taking an oath in front of 40 of their peers is practical coercion.

Most children would rather face a firing squad than expose themselves to ridicule. And they are minors, which tends to throw a lot of the "well butch up then and be an adult" semantics out the window. Seriously - do you not think that it's coercive when the choice is "hey 12 year-old: stand up and recite a pledge with everyone else or loudly declare that you are a Godless heathen to the pack of wild dogs that are your merciless classmates?"

(And in case you don't believe that I knew this, a full exposition of my position from last year can be found here, subsequently mocked by Goldstein here.)

Do you make your "facts" up on the fly all the time, or only when its about some pet closet lefty project of yours?

As you can see, I was not making up any facts, you just saw an unclear, partial portion of an opinion. (which is my fault for notproviding the set-up)

But don't worry, I'm sure you'll get another orgasmic chance to think you've busted me on making shit up another time.

As for Brewfan ..

Bill would never lets facts stand in the way of an opportunity to be an asshole.

"Pot maligns personal projection of the darkest kettle."

I wonder how many of us actually agree that "under God" steps over the line but just refuse to align ourselves with the kind of horses asses who actually give a shit about something so trivial.

I swear most of those who care about this crap are the kind who just don't have the balls to tell you to your face that your god is a joke. So they scurry in and out of court instead.

Fuck 'em. I'm not going to fight them on it, but I do think they say more about how petty and gutless they are than I could ever do.

And before anybody gets all personal about it, I've read about all BA has to say on this and while I see a little of the guy I'm talking about there, I also find BA's thougts well reasoned. As usual.

Michael -

(He is fantasizing that I called him a fascist, which never happened.) I've politely emailed him about it, and he still refuses to admit that he was wrong.

You really are an odd duck, huh? That's what you took away from our e-mail exchange? That I refuse to admit I was "wrong?" I thought and think

And I indicated that the fascist comment was paraphrasing your bitching about my comment policies. There, now I've cleared that up in a public forum. He did not use the word "fascist," he just whined about my commenting policies like a teen that gets her first period.

Fucking missing tag.

Loose shit.

Seriously - do you not think that it's coercive when the choice is "hey 12 year-old: stand up and recite a pledge with everyone else or loudly declare that you are a Godless heathen to the pack of wild dogs that are your merciless classmates?"

I stopped saying the Pledge for a while as a kid. I think I was 7 or 8. I guess we'd just done the Sunday School module on taking oaths or something. That, or it was the late sixties and I was seeing all sorts of bad juju on the TV news at night. Anyhow, neurotic little baggage that I was, I decided I needed to think it through before I kept making a promise to the flag every morning. So I'd stand up with my peers, put my hand on my heart and mouth, "munah, munah, munah, munah." Completely painless for all concerned.

In the end, I decided I was pleased to make that promise. In fact, I later decided -- as hokey as stuff like the Pledge is -- it's important to share rituals like this. For America more than most countries, as we are not ethnically homogeneous. The only thing holding us together is certain core beliefs, and I'm not keen on rattling them just because I like the noise it makes.

Thanks spongeworthy.

As to your point - I think that there are two arguments to be made about keeping "under God:" one is practical and one is legal/procedural.

The practical argument against removing "under God" is relatively strong, the practical one disguised as or that assumes a strong legal argument - not as much.

S. Weasel -

In the end, I decided I was pleased to make that promise. In fact, I later decided -- as hokey as stuff like the Pledge is -- it's important to share rituals like this. For America more than most countries, as we are not ethnically homogeneous. The only thing holding us together is certain core beliefs, and I'm not keen on rattling them just because I like the noise it makes.

A well-said point, but also one that could easily be used to bolster the argument for removing religion from the oath. The people that care MOST about the ritual that is the pledge - and do not believe in God - are the exact individuals that feel excluded. Why is allegiance and patriotism tied to faith in God? And yes, that was the explicit purpose of the law that was passed to alter the pledge 50 some-odd years ago.

Why do you think so many atheists are loud progressive shitheads that "buck the trend." Is it because the two personalities go hand in hand, because their conclusions about faith have been rebuked by the system (of course not solely from, but including the pledge), or both?

You wouldn't think of an oath that slights Jews as being Constitutional, yet proportionally they are 2% of teh country while atheists are about 4%. So if the pledge is a unifying aim, they never should have added the theism in the first place.

(Granted, there is a good practical argument to be made that removing it NOW will cause some unneccessarily divisive social/political schisms)

I can't get too worked up about the "under God" thing either, although it bugs me that Newdow makes such a screechy issue out of it.

The people that care MOST about the ritual that is the pledge - and do not believe in God - are the exact individuals that feel excluded.

I'm kind of embarrassed to keep saying this (because, basically, who cares?), but I'm also an atheist. I don't feel a bit excluded. As I said somewhere in this thread, I think you have to work very hard to be offended by the nebulous god of the pledge. And people who work hard to be offended by things piss me off. As do people in a tiny minority who insist the vast majority bow to their comforts. Greatest good for the greatest number, and all that.

It's no good pretending the pledge is the only place in American civil life that god sneaks into. It's in everything from the Declaration to oaths of office to money. Civic architecture. Memorials and public sculpture. It isn't state religion, but religion is an undeniable part of our history. And people who think we can change history by vandalizing it piss me off, too.

Like those bozos who insist that "B.C." be replaced with "B.C.E." It's spite, not justice.

Some of us have more patience for slippery slope arguments than others, but I would like to see the case for abolition of "under God" rest on something besides social compulsion or whatever we're calling it.

It's not much of a stretch from there to a right to not be offended. After all, why should my child be placed in a position of having to avert his eyes from the cross over there on that church? The cross offends us as atheists and even though we are not compelled to view it, looking away draws the attention of our vicious Christian neighbor boys which effectively compels my kid to gaze lovingly upon that which offends me. Er, offends him, I mean.

I've always wondered why atheists get so twisted up about this (full disclosure: I'm agnostic). Saying 'Under God" when you believe there is no God seems like a non-binding 'oath' - you're saying 'Under Nothing' to yourself. Unless you're allergic to the word 'God."

"Pot maligns personal projection of the darkest kettle."

Perhaps. But my assholish behavior has a much narrower scope (you, Cedarford, and the odd troll) then yours (everybody except Cedarford).