How to make the Pledge of Allegiance acceptable to liberals

I prefer Matt Groening's version:

I plead alignment to the flakes of the untitled snakes of a merry cow; and to the Republicans, for which they scam: one nacho, underpants, with locirice and jugs of wine for owls.

Me too.

One nation, under God

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Several nations (Aztlan, Black liberation, UN nation, etc.) under a religion-free, atheist government

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No memtion of Hillary or Bubba as an alternative to God? You have to be kidding. Lenin is also excluded from the alternative pledge of the Dumocrats. No mention of the hammer and sickle flag although you covered the gay and black national variaties. You have the right spirit but you are just too easy on the liberals.

THE ATHEIST / MATERIALIST / OBJECTIVIST PLEDGE

I pledge allegiance to myself,
the united atoms of Me,
and to the self-awareness* which they support:
one will,
beholden to none but my own desires,
and to hell with the rest of you losers.

* strict materialists, please substitute "illusory self-awareness" here.

My, I'm posting a lot today. Well, since this is the newest and shortest thread on the Pledge issue, I'll post my thoughts here.

First, only the Congress can violate the First Amendment. A local school board or even a state government can no more violate the First Amendment than a parent who forbids his kids to use the "f"-word. Of course, with the transformation of the Bill of Rights from limitations on the Federal Government into positive guarantees, that will be the next "violation" to be struck down.

Now, the really bizarre thing about this whole thing is that in order to rule, the Left has to have our recognition of their authority. Yet the American Left (unlike the Left in every other country, which appropriates and exploits nationalism and patriotic feelings) doesn't seem to realize that it in attacking the symbols of American governmental/state power, it is attacking its own authority. For example if the Declaration of Independence is unconstitional because of its reference to the "18th Century," deist "nature's 'gxd,'" then the entire United States government, including every post filled by a leftist and their fifty-something years of construction, are legally non-existent. If it is "oppressive" to pledge allegiance to the government in theory, why should anyone owe it any loyalty in practice? Yet these people who attack the symbols of the goverment are the same people who attack "anti-government" attitudes. Apparently they feel the country and the government of the United States are so opposed to each other that some form of instrumentality will be left to them to enforce their decrees even as they attack the symbols of citizen loyalty to what is ultimately themselves. What are they going to do? Call the military they hate so much to enforce their wishes on the rest of us?

Some posts on this topic do highlight a weakness of American society. The descendants of the (mostly) English settlers who created this government in the first place are singled out for a sort of forced abstractionism while the equally strong nationalism and religious fundamentalism of "guest populations" is celebrated. Perhaps instead of insisting on an abstract American status for all citizens Anglo-Americans should themselves acquire an ethnic identity like every other community in the United States. Then, as a member of the "gorgeous multicultural mosaic" they will perhaps be able to celebrate their ethnicity and religion as do everyone else. But of course, if our people did withdraw from acting as the abstract host population into an insular, quasi-self-governing ethnic community, who would perform the necessary functions of an abstract host population???

Maybe these judges would like to try their hand at it!

They won't be happy until every American flag is on fire.

"it’s MY choice"

I agree with a lot of your sentiments, but one thing that "liberals" do not stand for, IMHO, is giving people choices. They want to direct everyone in what to do, in detail, for the sake of "fairness."

On the other hand, our right and ability to make choices, IMHO, is what our founders wanted for us.

Funny that you say that, because it seems to me the position you all are taking is to DENY any choice to the American people regarding the belief in a creator.

The ruling was only against the phrase "under God", and did not suggest replacing that with "under NO God" or "under Aetheism". The intent was merly to eliminate any bias towards a given belief system. Obviously, you want to see that bias remain, and by implication, our government to demonstrate an official doctrine of belief. And since our government is (theoretically) representative of the people, that means essentially imposing a mandatory belief in God upon American citizens.

So, there goes our freedom of CHOICE. My CHOICE not to have my child attend a public school where he'll have this bias imposed on him has been eliminated (yes, he can choose not to say the Pledge, but he would nevertheless be influenced by the teacher and his peers who are saying "under God").

Of course, you're all thinking "Good! He should be influenced in that way.", as is your right. But don't be so arrogant and obtuse as to think that your position has anything to do with FREEDOM. The whole point of religious morality is to RESTRICT freedom - the freedom to engage in acts that are considered to be sinful. I'm not saying that some of these restrictions aren't necessary to maintain a civilized society, but make no mistake, you are advocating the elimination of a specific freedom (the freedom to not have one's children exposed to a State-sanction religion). To think otherwise is pure hypocracy.

You are forgetting that to many people not saying anything regarding a deity is exactly the same as saying "there is no deity".

I'm not quite sure how the logic works in making that assumption, but people seem to believe it.

"it seems to me the position you all are taking is to DENY any choice to the American people regarding the belief in a creator. "

Hi 1freethinker. I expected I might get flamed for my reply, but not from this quarter. I must not have made myself clear.

My agreements with the sentiments of the article are my agreements with the ideals of patriotism and the ethics of Christianity.

However, I see the article as being unintentionally ironic as it does seem to disparage the right to choice, in the name of conservatism. Compiling a list of hypothetical, distasteful, unpatriotic and foolish choices that a "liberal" might make, as this article does, is not only not an argument against free choice, IMHO, it is in direct conflict with the principles laid out for us by our founding fathers.

When we must be patriotic or religious because the law dictates it, then we can no longer call ourselves a free people.