The Journey Continues December 18

Submitted by Bill St. Clair on Fri, 28 Jun 2002 12:00:00 GMT
From firingline:
God made us in his own image.
Thomas Jefferson made us free.
John Browning made us equal.

Without Browning, we might not know about the other two...

The Two Towers: Teaser Trailer - a 6 meg QuickTime preview for the next Lord of the Rings movie. The Journey Continues December 18th.

I've been reading the second and third volumes of The Lord of the Rings trilogy to my kids since they saw the movie of the first volume. We're nearly finished. The ring has been destroyed, and it's time for partings, the trip home, and the scouring of the Shire. Wonderful books to read aloud! [madogre]

Someone challenged me on my "should be impeached and imprisoned" pronouncement yesterday. Here's his query and my response:

firstly, I really like your blog. However, I was surprised at your position that the judges' ruling re. the pledge of alliegance to the flag being unconstitutional, required their impeachment & imprisonment.

You didn't go on to state why but to me their ruling seemed valid, regard the use of the phrase "under God" in the pledge. I am biased, since I'm an atheist, but the constitution does appear to wish to separate the state and religion, and the pledge in it's current for most certainly entwines the two.

I'd appreciate it if you'd elaborate as to why you feel the phrase under God is a necessary part of the pledge?
I'm not fond of kids being forced to say the pledge at all. But the first amendment says, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." This has nothing to do with separation of church and state. There is no such concept in the constitution. It simply means that there will never be a Church of the United States, as there is a Church of England. There will never be any official state-sanctioned religion. All this hogwash of forbidding people to say prayers in school is just that, hogwash. The United States is a Christian country. Its constitution guarantees that it will remain tolerant of other religions or non-religions, but it is a Christian country.

Courts have no business saying anything whatsoever about what people may or may not say anywhere. If they want to pray at football games, fine, it's not the government's business. That's what freedom of speech means. That's why these judges should be impeached and imprisoned.

Now if kids were forbidden to remain sitting and silent while the pledge was being said, they would have a case. Then they are being coerced, force has been initiated. But being inculcated into the normal culture of the country with only normal social conditioning is not a problem. It is to be expected. Parents who don't like it may teach their children to resist.

Note that I am not a Christian. I practice a form of Raja Yoga called Sahaj Marg under the auspices of the Shri Ram Chandra Mission. I don't do it because of any belief. I do it because it feels good.

This is from a guy who didn't even notice the pledge in grade school. I stood up at the beginning of every day and said it, but I wasn't listening to the words, just like I usually don't hear the words when I listen to a song on the radio.

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