From: qqqq@7600.net   
      
   Morphy's ghost wrote:   
   > "Dissident"  wrote in message   
   > news:3FDD9BF3.1040201@7600.net...   
   >   
   >   
   >   
   >>But now we enter a classroom where the Pledge of Allegience is   
   >>being recited.  If I participate, I must say the words "under   
   >>God" or I will stand out, and most likely suffer some form of   
   >>censure, ostracism, perhaps overt punishment.  This is no longer   
   >>an issue of "freedom from religion", this is blatant and direct   
   >>imposition of a specific religion by the government.   
   >   
   >   
   > It is?  Which religion?   
      
   Christianity.   
      
   >>It is the same as if your freedom of speech (and thus, my lack   
   >>of freedom _from_ speech) was suddenly turned around to require   
   >>me to repeat the tenets of your party ("One nation, under Bush,   
   >>with neo-conservatism, no welfare, no homosexuality, and no   
   >>divorce for all") instead of simply giving you the right to repeat   
   >>them to your heart's content.  That's when it becomes fascism.   
   >   
   >   
   > Fascism?    I don't think you know what fascism means.   
      
   Well then, how about a simpler term: government coercion.   
      
   >>And the Pledge of Allegience, as it stands today, is religious   
   >>fascism.   
   >>   
   >   
   >   
   > Frankly, I could care less whether little children recite the Pledge of   
   > Allegiance in school or not.  But if you object to the school as a   
   > government organization imposing it's views upon students, surely you should   
   > realize that you should object to the WHOLE pledge, not to the two little   
   > words "under God."   
      
   I am free to differ with the policies of the government piecemeal.   
   For instance, I am free to support the war in Iraq while continuing   
   to condemn the War On Drugs, without violating some supposed   
   consistency principle that requires I decry all government   
   interference, or none.  But here, there is a specific difference.   
   The Constitution contains no language instructing the government   
   one way or another in instructing children in matters patriotic.   
   It DOES, however, protect us from government interference in   
   our religious beliefs, including whether we choose to believe   
   at all.  That language is being violated in the very form the   
   Pledge was mutated into in 1954.  If that language is to remain,   
   then at a minimumj deceny requires it be changed to read:   
      
   "One nation, under God, Allah, Gaia, Buddha, Brahma, the Horned One,   
   and all other powers known and imagined by us..."   
      
   But that will never happen of course.  Because it's a Christian   
   prayer, and the Christians want to keep it that way.  And they   
   have the votes to do it.   
      
   It's just lucky women got the vote less than a century ago.   
   Otherwise men, after recognizing they can pretty much put   
   whatever they want in the Pledge, fairness and Constitution   
   be damned, might have made it read:   
      
   "One nation, under God, with pussy and beer for all"   
      
      
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)