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[personal profile] cyrano
"Our founding fathers must be spinning in their graves. This is the worst kind of political correctness run amok."
— Sen. Christopher Bond, R-Missouri


Hmmmm. It's odd that our founding fathers saw no need to include God in a Pledge of Allegiance. Maybe they're just slapping their foreheads and saying "D'oh" in their graves because they forgot.
The phrase "under God" was crammed into the Pledge by Tailgunner Joe to protect the world from the infection of Communism about 150 years after we protected the colonies from the infection of Imperialism. It's done its job, and it's earned a cushy retirement.
Despite claims from the Congress and the layman that removing these two words will cause rioting and anarchy. But we established a republican democracy without it, we fought 'The Great War' and won without it, we bought the Louisiana Purchase and expanded to the Pacific without it, we abolished slavery without it. We got Watergate and Iran-Contra and Operation Desert Maxi-Shield and Bill Clinton's Hummerfest with it.
It's not the final sign of the apocalypse. I think it's a sign that we are having troubles staying whipped up into a frenzy over terrorism.

Edit
Now that it's not early in the morning, I'd like to rephrase my main point in more coherent fashion. (After all the commentary has been finished....) "The worst kind of political correctness run amok" is where people actually suffer--kids suspended from school for having a bottle of aspirin, a city councilman called upon to resign for using the word 'niggardly'--not because two words are taken out of a loyalty oath that had been tacked on fifty years ago. And using those two words as a political vehicle to take a joyride around the media is inexcusible given the number of actual problems--things that actually need to be dealt with--we have facing us currently.

Date: 2002-06-27 10:11 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] tahnan.livejournal.com
"It's odd that our founding fathers saw no need to include G-d in a Pledge of Allegiance."

In fact, our founding fathers saw no need to write one at all; it was written in 1897 and printed in a magazine for youth. According to one web page, the original version was:

"I pledge allegiance to my flag and to the Republic for which it stands -- one nation indivisible -- with liberty and justice for all."

The page goes on to explain,

"The original Pledge was recited while giving a stiff, uplifted right-hand salute, criticized and discontinued during WWII. The words 'my flag' were changed to 'the flag of the United States of America' because it was feared that the children of immigrants might confuse 'my flag' for the flag of their homeland. The phrase 'Under G-d' was added by Congress and President Eisenhower in 1954..."

Just to be exact, you know. :-)

Date: 2002-06-27 08:26 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] cyranocyrano.livejournal.com
Well yes. I've also heard tell that the author was a big fan of Karl Marx, which I found very interesting.

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