[OrthodoxPresbyterian]

Jim Babka is president of American Liberty Foundation and RealCampaignReform.org both in Alexandria, Va. He’s a past Libertarian Party of Ohio state chair and was the press secretary for Harry Browne’s 2000 campaign for president.

[OrthodoxPresbyterian]

RazorMouth....

[OldFriend]

Contrarians are soo cute.....NOT!

[OrthodoxPresbyterian]

ping...

[truth_session]

If America is so Christian, than it's the "will of the people" to have Christianity taught in the public schools. So why fight the will of the people?

And how can a pledge be unconstitutional, it's a form of speech?

[truth_session]

By a raise of hands, how many in here think these judges ruled against the pledge because they thought it was socialist?

[truth_session]

"If “under God” is retained in the Pledge, will that really be much of a victory? If it makes 400 congressmen and the media happy, it’s probably not such a great thing. The need to separate school and state, the history and purpose of the pledge, and the lameness of the constitutional argument, lead me to believe that retaining those words is not only not worth a fight, but it’s also, ultimately, a loss."

A marvellous victory brought on by the grace of God. And the point is not to make senators or the media happy, ding-dong author. It's to make God and Christians happy or should I say "pleased." We all know that the liberal press is godless with or without the approval of the ruling. And we all know that the press as well as the politicians involved are never happy about anything, but are in fact doing what they do best, political pandering.

The need to separate school and state is ever so prevelant, if we are just speaking of opinions here and not of the Constitution. For the state or now the federal government, who is overstepping the states, has been for many years taking away our freedoms of expression, religion, and expression of religion. I think the federal government is establishing their religion, liberalism.

We do have the right under the Constitution to pray and speak of God in the public schools and will until the 2nd Amendment is ripped from the Bill of Rights.

Of course, above all else, we can have godless socialism in America, but put God into it, and socialism is all of a sudden evil.

[gg188]

Republican Party: A car in every garage.

Democrat Party: A chicken in every pot.

Libertarian Party: POT. Period.

[Illbay]

Ah, those fun-loving Libertines. Everything they do just makes 'em seem cuddlier and cuddlier, doesn't it?

[truth_session]

The Constitution endorses religion btw.

[Dogrobber]

Let me take a shot at this. What is bad about the pledge decision is not that it divorces Christianity from schools, rather it is bad because of two specific aspects of the ruling. The first is that it establishes an religion and the second is that it prohibits the expression of religious speach in a public context.

Regardless of what the No-God set like to think, atheism is a religion. These folks believe that there is no god. Of course, you cannot prove this and so it must be based upon faith. A religion as much as Christianity or Islam. In prohibiting a reference to one god the Courts are establishing a religion in godlessness. That is just what the Constitution prohibits.

Second, the current position on references to God violates the free speach rights of persons in government and the majority of those who wish to observe religious tenets together in the public forum. American citizens have been told that there is a whole section of their lives in which they are barred from observing when they are in the public sphere. This is a pernicious view and smacks of Stalin or Hitler or any number of mean little dictators.

American citizens should be free to speak about God in any forum and in any context. The current Court has enacted a series of laws (not Constitutional positions, new laws under the guise of legal cases) which rob the public of their right to the common community expression of share values and religious views. Those in the minority must accept that the view that they have is not shared by the majority and that the majority has a "god" given right to believe as it chooses. That right includes the public expression of those views in all forums, including one created by the other expression of commonly shared values and goals - government.

[Doe Eyes]

Wasn't the pledge by written by Northerners and directed against residents of Southern states after the the War of Northern Aggression?

[RnMomof7]

Good article.

I wonder why all the furror..men and women that do not think about God from one day top the next , men that trust in themselves ,want the right to their token acknowledgement of the sovereignity of God.

This nation IS under God ..but most Americans really do not understand , nor would the accept the ramifications of this truth.

They want " under God " in the pledge" because it is "tradition" and they want to live like this is the United States of Sodom

God is control ,perhaps it would be best to think on that than a couple words in a "pledge"

Rom 13:1   Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God.

  

Happy Independence day!

.

[Jerry_M]

"OK children, now that we have recited the Pledge of Allegiance, who wants to be the first to demonstrate to me how we put a condom on a banana?"

The sorry state of publick edumacation.

[Kevin Curry]

IOW, we're already three-quarters of the distance to hell anyway--why not gun the engine and finish the trip in style?

Loony libertarian logic.

[Anthem]

Bravo! to both articles.

NB, yours was loaded with facts, begging for reference footnotes (at least for me).

[x]

Who else, but to God do we, as Christians, owe allegiance? Should we swear allegiance to a plot of land or the state that controls it (Exodus 20:3-5, Matthew 5:33-35)? (In our country, doesn’t the state owe its allegiance to the people, rather than the other way around?)

Interesting argument about Christians and swearing allegiance, but the rest is a muddle here. It's not entirely clear just what we are pledging allegiance to. To the flag, which stands for the republic, of course, but what is the republic? A government? A form of government? The Constitution? The laws? A "plot of ground?" A people? The ambiguity is such that Babka can make pledging allegiance sound more ominous or senseless than it is. Our officials do have to swear an oath to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution and laws. It's not wholly off the wall that citizens might do the same.