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| The Pledge |
excon |
03/27/04 |
Hello experts:
Before the words “under God” were injected into the Pledge (1954), it read quite smoothly and coherently from one thought to the next. It made sense. There were no contradictions. You didn’t have to figure it out, because it meant what it said. It used to flow from one nation [to], indivisible, [to] liberty and justice for all. The last word is the most important.
When a sentiment, like “under God” is inserted, those who don’t believe in God are not included in the word “all” anymore. But that can’t be, because all means all - doesn’t it? And if “all” doesn’t mean “all” anymore, instead of removing the words “under God” we should change the word “all” to “most”. And, of course, we’ll have to remove the word “indivisible”, because religion divides us (as it should – we are diverse).
The Pledge of Allegiance, however, should be available for “ALL” of us to say, and “NONE” of us should have to mumble over “ANY” of its words.
Or am I nuts?
excon
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Clarification/Follow-up by excon on 03/28/04 11:27 am:
Thanks, PW.
You’re right, it isn’t about the two words. It’s about how we view our society and what we’re prepared to do about it. I see the same moral decay you do, but the question is, what do we do about it?
Certainly, it IS the government’s job to clean up the mess. That’s what government does best, haul trash. Once a person’s moral compass has strayed, the government steps in, as it should.
But whose job is it, to stop the mess from occurring in the first place?
That’s the job, frankly, of the church. And the church is failing. How, indeed, can the church lead in moral matters when the church itself is caught up in a moral crisis? I don’t think it can, but that’s another issue. In the absence of moral leadership, it’s easy to call upon the government to fill the gaps left by the church.
But that’s not the job of government. It IS the job of government to secure a man’s earthly rights, not ensure his heavenly pursuits. I think Jefferson said that, and if he didn’t, I did.
excon
Clarification/Follow-up by voiceguy2000 on 03/29/04 1:09 pm:
excon wrote: I read Safire too. He's the one who clued me in on the last word being the most important.
He says Newdow is right. I agree. I disagree with him when he says changing it now would be a slippery slope. Since when is doing the right thing the beginning of a slippery slope? Easy. In 1943 (and subsequently), the Supreme Court said that the problem of disagreement with words in the Pledge was solved so long as people with conscientious objection to those words were free to decline to recite the Pledge.
Now, however, Newdow is claiming a right to be free from even hearing the offending words spoken by others. In other words, though his illegitimate daughter is free to decline to say "under God," and indeed free to stand mute during the entire Pledge if she wants, he claims harm because she has to listen to others reciting the words.
Once a court says that one offended student (or, derivatively, that student's father) has the right as a matter of religious belief (here, nonbelief) to stop the recitation of certain words from the Pledge in the classroom, then there is nothing to stop the Jehovah's Witnesses from coming back to court once again and having the entire Pledge of Allegiance banned from classrooms. The analysis would be precisely the same.
And that's the slippery slope.
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