the Case of the Freeper FRiva Feva is under scrutiny - super-sleuths are welcomed
come resolve the way to yesterday's Target Post, you're not out of the running yet
win your registration fees to the FRive Las Vegas Conference if you dare
Posted on 06/27/2002 12:09:45 PM PDT by toenail
June 27, 2002 Libertarians applaud federal court ruling striking down mandatory Pledge of Allegiance WASHINGTON, DC -- Libertarians are applauding Wednesday's federal court ruling striking down the mandatory Pledge of Allegiance, because a nation in which a government can coerce religion or patriotism is no longer free.
"America is made great by its freedom, not by a flag," said Steve Dasbach, Libertarian Party executive director. "Our children should have the freedom to pledge or not to pledge, and the freedom to worship or not to worship."
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Wednesday struck down a California school district's policy of requiring teachers to lead children in the Pledge of Allegiance. The court found that the reference to "one nation under God" -- added to the pledge by Congress in 1954 at the height of the Cold War -- amounts to an official endorsement of monotheism.
Though the ruling specifically addressed only the religious aspect of the pledge, the debate quickly broadened to one over the pledge itself as America struggles with the war against terrorism. On Capitol Hill, Republicans and Democrats universally deplored the ruling. The Senate unanimously approved a resolution expressing support for the reference to God in the pledge, and House politicians gathered on the front steps of the Capitol to recite the pledge en masse.
"Libertarians have enormous respect for the values that the U.S. flag represents, and we understand that the way to honor those values is by preserving liberty, not by limiting it," Dasbach said. "Real religious freedom includes the right to not be religious, and true political freedom includes the right to not pledge allegiance to a political symbol.
"Politicians who rail against this ruling and claim they're defending the flag are confused by the difference between a symbol and the freedom for which it stands."
Dasbach conceded that during a national crisis, it's natural for politicians to sacrifice individual freedom in favor of government coercion.
"Interestingly, politicians were much more tolerant of dissent before September 11," Dasbach noted. "In 1998, for example, a proposal to amend the Constitution to ban flag burning garnered 114 'no' votes in the House, and was killed in the Senate. But today they're unanimous in their protection of the flag. Have that many politicians suddenly discovered 'patriotism' -- or are they trying to exploit an anguished American public?"
After all, politicians frequently try to use national crises as an opportunity to expand the power of the government, he noted.
"One way to do that is to suggest that anyone who criticizes a government action -- such as a government-mandated pledge in a government-run school -- is somehow unpatriotic. But there's a big difference between criticizing your government and criticizing your country, and it's a difference that politicians would like for you to forget.
The way to quell the controversy over the Pledge of Allegiance in schools is to extricate government from the schools, Libertarians say.
"It's no accident that the lawsuit that led to Wednesday's decision involved a government-run school," Dasbach said. "Naturally, parents get angry when their tax dollars are being used to force their child to do something with which they disagree vehemently.
"But no such problem exists at private schools. Parents who want their child to attend a school where religious worship and political pledging are mandatory are free to do so, and have every reason to pay the tuition. Parents who are opposed to such policies don't have to resort to a lawsuit to get what they want; they can simply find a school that shares their values.
"But as long as all Americans are forced to fund government-run schools, we will be forced to watch the Pledge of Allegiance controversy -- and forced to watch opportunistic politicians try to cash in."
the Case of the Freeper FRiva Feva is under scrutiny - super-sleuths are welcomed
come resolve the way to yesterday's Target Post, you're not out of the running yet
win your registration fees to the FRive Las Vegas Conference if you dare
To compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves is sinful and tyrannical. -- Thomas Jefferson
Another crowd-pleasing decision added to the planks of the Libertarian party. Still wondering why these guys don't get elected?
Perhaps one day the 0.5 percenters will buy a clue.
Actually, their ranks are growing, and flowing over onto FR.
Look at what they do, not what they say. Jefferson signed a bill giving land to missionaries so they could build a school and convert Indians to the Christian faith. He also expressed the wish that not one person in American would die before becoming a Unitarian. At that time, in Massachusetts and Connecticut, the Unitarian church was funded by state taxes. Jefferson attended full church services, taxpayer funded of course, held in the House of Representatives and a 4 hour communion service at the Treasury Department.
I believe the Constitution of the United States does not at all proscribe religious expression from our civic life. Nor does it require it. But as the founders clearly stated, without a civic moral foundation this Republic is doomed to fail and recognition that the rights on which our liberties are based derive from a higher power is basic to preserving them.
The forbidding of religious expression to avoid "offense" to someone is clearly not what the founders intended nor probably could have conceived.
Yeah.
And what happened to those missionaries?
The Indians exercised their "right of free 'expression.'"
However, they have no authority to decide if this is "constitutional" unless they are specifically referring to the state constitution of California.
And as far as that's concerned, allowing religious expression is obviously not the same thing as establishing a state religion.
Reciting the pledge is an act of free speech and free religious expression ... both enumerated and vouchsafed in the same Constitution and eloquently puntuated by John Adams long ago.
"We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge, or gallantry, would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate for the government of any other."- John Adams, Oct. 11, 1798 Address
IMPEACH THE RASCALS! ROUTE THE VIPERS OUT!
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