The arguments in your article displayed fundamental ignorance about the history and governmental principles of our country: a nation intended as the pre-eminent pluralistic (i.e., secular) nation in the world, the most liberal of any previously known, a democratic constitutional republic dedicated to civil liberties with the specific mandate to protect and promote minority belief.

Historically, we were founded, not as a Judeo-Christian nation, but as a pluralistic one, which we are increasingly so. We were carefully created to be nation where diverse beliefs can flourish. To what benefit? Well, because of that, America is the most religiously diverse country in the world – with over 3,000 registered religions (which doesn’t even count the varieties of secular philosophies). The difference, you see, between the US and other countries where there are state religions (or even widespread religions) is that our country was founded in opposition to the idea that tradition rules the day, or that the majority is entitled to impose their beliefs on others, or that minority views may be steamrollered by the popular opinion of the day.

James Madison, the author of the Bill of Rights, inserted the religious clause of the First Amendment as a response to the attempt of what he saw in his State of Virginia. By the time of the Revolution, the Anglican Church, formerly the established church of Virginia, had to share space with Presbyterians, Baptists, Methodists and other smaller sects. It was in the interest of each group to have religious liberty for their own empowerment, especially that there be no religious tests for public office.

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion…” When Congress does exactly that, as it did in 1954 with the sectarian bill that added “under God” to the Pledge and the national motto to money, it is nothing more than strict interpretation of the Constitution that says the courts must then declare it void. That is their job description. Nothing activist about it. No personal belief involved. On the contrary, if Congress paid more attention to the Constitution (as should the people who elect the members), judges wouldn’t have the nearly workload in rulings over unconstitutional laws and practices.

It troubles me that, for many Americans, like yourself, their religions seem to be more important than their patriotism. This, even though it is the Constitution which, in protecting religions from government intrusion in the first place, continues to enable the practice of all faiths. There should be no question in any American’s mind which must come first.

Another problem is how a loud minority of Americans believe that the majority is entitled to ride rough shod over the rights of the minority shows the failure of our educational system to teach constitutional government and to teach the history of civil rights in this country. The Founders Fathers considerable experience with religion and government previous to 1787 led them to mistrust and to separate the two. At least, to the extent that you cannot expose children in public school to a declaration of faith (using the Pledge as a bully pulpit for religion), or promote any theological concept (there is a God that our nation is under) over any others on public property.

The only error that failed and tyrannical governments have had in common is not religion or atheism – for surely over 1,000 years of brutal and undemocratic theocracies and dictatorships, throughout the world, today and in the past, stand testament to that – rather it is that these governments have not been Republics dedicated to guard and protect the personal liberties of it’s citizens against the dogma of either the state or of a repressive majority (what the Founders called “mob-ocracy”). That any American can claim to be a friend of religion and not loudly rally behind every every effort to defend the liberal, pluralistic principles upon which our republic was founded is unimaginable.

http://members.cox.net/patriotismforall/

If you have problems in your country, you can come to the United States, but you cannot change the United States to be like your old country.

Muslims, Jews, and Christians all believe in God and should stand up against this god-less tyranny. You god-less heathens who try to change the pledge or any other Godly thing in this country should leave. The country will not change its ways for you. You are not important enough. So if you dont like it, leave and dont come back!

Kids suffer because of arbitrary rules by Jehovah’s Witnesses leaders,senile old men squatting in their insulated ivory tower.

I was born into the Jehovah’s Witnesses in 1957.I was the good little JW boy who got beaten up in the school yard for not saluting the flag and remaining seated for the Star Spangled Banner as demanded by my Jehovah’s Witnesses leaders.

This was the ‘better dead than red’ era of the 1960’s, I suffered much,only to learn that the Watchtower corporation is just another made up man-made club.
I now proudly fly the Flag at my home.

—

Danny Haszard

The “of” vs. “from” dichotomy, while popular, is false. The reality is much subtler. It doesn’t fit on bumper stickers.

As for the Declaration, it is not law of the land anywhere, so it has no constitutionality.

I’ve taught children and adults, and in my experience most students learn better after doing some examples, and then talking about why those examples worked, and what it showed.

Rote memorization plays a much smaller part now than it once did. And rightly so. Education should focus on understanding rather than on memorizing.

Bunk. How are you going to understand anything if you have to start over from first principles every single time? I used to tutor, and later teach, mathematics at the college level. The students who hadn’t bothered to memorize the basics from earlier classes were always behind. Nothing was more aggravating than having to reteach algebra or trig to calculus students because they hadn’t bothered to memorize the earlier material. (Those that hadn’t memorized the relevant material usually had never really understood it, either.) Memorize the formulae for conic sections, people, and the various translation rules for algebraic equations before taking calculus!

If memorization and rote work were good enough for Gauss, it should be good enough for anyone else.

That the nation is “indivisible” can absolutely be argued. Why else all the talk in the press after the last election about how ‘divided’ we are? And the pledge doesn’t put forth the notion that “all citizens should receive justice and liberty”; it says there is liberty and justice for all. Again, an arguable point.

An indivisible nation with liberty and justice for all is a fantastic ideal that I value. I’d just rather not have my kids brainwashed into complacency that this ideal already exists. I want them to think critically about things, strive for understanding and apply that understanding toward reaching that ideal.

I am saddend by this verdict, as it seems so clearly wrong-headed. However, I am more saddened by the triumphalist statements made be people who are opposed to the idea of a pledge of allegiance. It’s a tremendously valuable tool, and it’s better to use tools than to discard them.

Montag, the pledge is hardly Huxleyan in nature: what axioms are inherent in the pledge?

that this is one nation
that this one nation is subordinate to a Supreme Being
that the nation is not to be divided
and that all citizens should receive justice and liberty.

1 & 3 aren’t arguable. #2 is only arguable by those who belive that there is no Supreme Being (’cause if you believe in one, clearly said Being is above a mere nation), and #4 expresses what I consider to be a fine hope and promise.

I oppose the Pledge not just because of “Under God” but because it is, as you say, a “patriotic prayer” and amounts to, in my opinion, indoctrination. Reciting the pledge may not be “required” but I would argue that kids feel compelled to do so not the least by teachers and administrators attitudes.

I am most troubled that it starts in Kindergarden when kids don’t hardly know what it means yet (they’ve got more important things to think about — try regaling a five year old with your thoughts on the meaning of the Pledge and see what I mean.) By the time they reach the age where they start thinking about what it means and considering how they feel about saying it, they have already recited it close to 1500 times, and the words have already carved their channel in the person’s psyche.

It’s not quite 62,000 repetitions but I am reminded of Huxley’s Brave New World.

The students nodded, emphatically agreeing with a statement which upwards of sixty-two thousand repetitions in the dark had made them accept, not merely as true, but as axiomatic, self-evident, utterly indisputable.

“…not what a public classroom teacher is paid to teach” indeed.

On a more serious note, the issue most people focus on with this is the “under God” aspect, but should their be a “coercive requirement” to affirm allegiance to the State? Patriotism is fine and all, but is it something that should be forced onto children?

Call me a cynic, but the image of a mass of children chanting in unison a pledge that they probably don’t understand the meaning of seems a little Orwellian. Not that it is particularly harmful or oppressive. It just seems like something you would associate more with the Soviet Union than the U.S.

My personal view is that we should go back to the original. Or maybe a hybrid which just takes out the “under God” part. Bellamy may have been a Baptist minister. But, it seems self-evident from the original that he intended for the pledge to be secular.