Michael Newdow slams Foxnews host on Pledge/under God issue

[VietnamVet-BRIGHT]

Foxnews clip ...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzVxHF8T0Hk

This is a total slam dunk by Michael Newdow on the patronizing, totally clueless Fox host.

BTW, in 2001, with my daughter in elementary school, I had several meetings with local school board members and their attorney (Hillsborough County, FL) about the unconstitutional religious promotion, "under God," in the pledge. My goal was to have the (at the time) voluntary (each school principle decided on their own) pledge ritual removed from daily practice since the board or school principles could not change the congressionally codified (in 1954) religious wording.

My argument hinged on the fact that elementary school children were not highly analytic, critical thinkers but impressionable and the pledge ritual (led by their role-model teacher) acted as powerful religious indoctrination. Especially given that this ritual was administered 187 times from the first day of any given school year to the last. By the time a 5 y/o starting in kindergarten had completed 6th grade, she would have solemnly affirmed that this was "one nation under God" 1,122 times! That is clearly an unconstitutional establishement of religion (there are millions Americans, who, even religious, do not subscribe to a monotheistic, Abrahamic worldview that the government required pledge endorses/promotes; ie Buddhists, Scientologists, atheistic Jains, native American shamanists, Wiccans, polytheistic Hindus, etc.)

However, in 2002, buy-bull thumping Florida (Republican) lawmakers pushed through a law mandating this ritual with these specific words be performed in all state K-12 public schools.

That's where our work is now on this issue as Newdow has another case about the pledge working its way back to the Supreme Court.



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[Whitney]

I wonder how hard he had to bite his tongue to keep from asking the fox news host if she was retarded?

[Will]

It's not a complex issue, really. While the pledge has been in classrooms since the 1800s, "under God" is new and was added in to facilitate a sense of camaraderie with other Americans against the "godless" communists. We won the cold war, so it's time to return the pledge to what it was before.

[McQ]

All she did was shout him down, misrepresent the Constitution, Supreme Court, Atheists, Christians, History, and simultaneously embarrass the Human Race, and intelligent beings everywhere.

I fail to see the problem.

[G-Roll]

It's not a complex issue, really. While the pledge has been in classrooms since the 1800s, "under God" is new and was added in to facilitate a sense of camaraderie with other Americans against the "godless" communists. We won the cold war, so it's time to return the pledge to what it was before.

Really? I was about to state that I thought I was the only atheist in the world who didnt care about the "under god" pledge debate.
People of faith are the majority, but Ill say the pledge any damn way I want. But if they changed the pledge from what it was originally that changes everything.

[Will]

Well to be honest saying a pledge of allegiance is propaganda itself. I don't really feel it's necessary to pledge my allegiance to anything; if I'm loyal to someone or something, it's because they've earned it.

The fact that the US government felt it was necessary to drag religion into their us vs. them-ism with the USSR still makes me sick. It may have happened before I was born, but here we are in a nation the consistently votes to give homosexual second-class status, that has a violent minority that wants to kill people because a woman has a right to choose, and that clearly has a litmus test for office. We got Reagan and George W. Bush instead of real leaders because they courted the extremist religious people that were enabled by the propaganda. More than half of us don't think evolution happens.

It's what those two words, "under god", represent that I have a problem with.

[knight]

When I was a Christian, I honestly didn't see the problem with "under God" in the pledge. I naively though atheists were being selfish trying to insert their beliefs into the school system. That's what I had learned from my dad, anyway. Now the table has completely turned. I now find the phrase bluntly unconstitutional and completely unnecessary. Many Christians demand their beliefs be given top priority over all others. Had the pledge said "Under Allah" or "Under Buddha" the Christians would be in uproar, but since they agree with it, they don't care that it offends a significant portion of the population.

In the area I live, I'm happy to say that many students elect to not say the pledge. In fact, the number is decreasing rapidly every year, to the point where now only a handful of people actually say it, while the majority just stands politely (with a few others who simply sit). Now it just feels like routine, but it means nothing. The pledge doesn't improve patriotism, it demeans it. I've said the pledge from grades K-9...by grade 9 I was just reciting words like a mindless drone.

[Tom62]

Check this blog out, it gives lots of food for thought about the topic of this thread: http://www.flame.org/~cdoswell/Vows_and_Morality.html

[Big Mac]

Wow, here's Fox News slamming Mr. Rogers for telling kids that they were special and good as they were (the vultures are claiming he taught them not to try instead of learning to be okay with themselves). You know it's sad when people on your station kick a man when he's buried in the ground for telling kids to be themselves and that it is okay to be angry sometimes and it's not bad to have feelings or my favorite "You won't go down the drain...you won't go down the drain."

How can any sane person find a problem with a message like that?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=29lmR_357rA