The Pledge Thing

[the_gneech]

I guess there's no getting away from this bit of noise, so I'll go ahead and get this out of the way.

The court is correct, the pledge as written in unconstitutional, and has been ever since it was written in 1954 to help indoctrinate the kiddies against "those godless commies."

Just because you like the pledge, doesn't make them any less correct.

Just because your faith is important to you, doesn't make them any less correct.

The Fed gummint is specifically forbidden from establishing any kind of religion, or from preventing the free exercise of any religion. THIS IS A VERY GOOD THING AND MUST BE PRESERVED. Otherwise we'll have Northern Ireland on our hands, or the kind of crap that goes on in the Middle East, on our doorstep.

As long as schools get their funding from the gummint -- which is also a SUPER BAD IDEA -- then they must not include religious instruction or indoctrination of any kind. Period. End of story. Deal with it.

If you want your kids to say "under God," send them to a totally private school, where it's just dandy. In fact, I think that's a good solution to the whole problem: eliminate public schools. We did perfectly fine without them for a hundred years, and they've done nothing but screw kids up since they were started.

-The Gneech

Comments

[kevinjdog.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately, there is NO WAY to convince the idiots in Washington of this. The Constitution is just an old piece of paper, and atheists/agnostics/pan(en)theists are marginalized among the voting populace.

I just roll my eyes and am prepared for them to throw their "we want God in the pledge" tantrum and re-insert it. Pragmatically, I advise those who aren't happy with it to mumble the two words, or just not say them in the spirit of civil disobedience.

[mouser.livejournal.com]

What annoys me is that while the court is correct, they will undoubtable over rule it, until it gets to the Supreme Court.

Funny thing is, when I took my oath of enlistment, they made a big thing out of telling us we didn't have to say the four final words ("...so help me God.") if didn't want to. But (to the best of my knowledge) the Pledge of Allegiance isn't even required anywhere outside a school. And if you make that the condition of getting an education, then I doubt it's legal. "Under Duress" probably.

Sorry, rambling.

[vik_thor]

When I took that oath (for my VERY short career in the Navy) I substituted Goddess for God.

Gods, Goddesses and all their little Godlings. ;)

I Agree!

[katsunewolf.livejournal.com]

eliminate public schools. We did perfectly fine without them for a hundred years, and they've done nothing but screw kids up since they were started.

-The Gneech

I agree!
I was taken out of school due to medical/mental reasions. The latter i got -FROM- school.
I'v not only gone from Flunking, to High Honer Role (an now in "Whos Who of American Highschool students). But i'v also became reasionly better adjusted.
Public school system has become a Crock. From underpaid an stupid teachers who couldnt do jack squat without there answer books. Which in itself, wouldnt be /to/ bad, if the Answer books themselves had CORRECT information!
Also the fact, that many kids come from maladjusted homes, so they just get dumped into school, hopeing to fix them. Bah, it just spreads the mental virus.
Also, if the student is slower, or faster then the others, They get no special attention, there forced to go at the pace of the rest of the class. Only in rare lucky chances due the teachers actuly notice this an put them in special classes. Which even in there its laughible at times! While the rest just slip through the cracks.
I honestly never sang the pledge in school.
I dont detest America, but i dont support the intrudeing goverment, the idiototic systems, an the like. I respect the past that the Flag Represents, but the present is far to screwed up that i'm gonna give my pledge to.

As Kat once told me. "Welcome to America, Land of the Freely Stupid."

With of course, many exceptions. *nuzzles friends.*

[/rant]

^~Kat

Public schools...

[chipuni.livejournal.com]

At last: a place where we disagree strongly.

Let's face it; public schools are not even close to where they should be. (Bob Herbert wrote a scathing editorial in the NY Times.) But that doesn't mean that we should throw the baby out with the bathwater.

A strongly-educated workforce is vital for our continued prosperity. Most (more than half) parents couldn't afford to send their children to private school. Without public school, we'll have a generation of poorly-educated, undeveloped people lacking even more of the basic skills that our society needs. Therefore, for the strength of the U.S., we need to keep around public schools.

Mind you, I agree with the idea of competition: let parents choose from several schools in an area.

What would you do, instead of public schools for the majority of Americans?

Re: Public schools...

[the-gneech.livejournal.com]

Well, I don't particularly want to get into a political debate in my LJ, but I'm not against public schools because they suck (although they do); I'm philosophically and morally opposed to the concept of them.

Imagine for a moment that the powers that be decided that everybody should have a car, in order to provide mobility, job opportunity, and so forth. After all, poor people in urban communities can't afford cars, while all those rich SOBs have them!

So the gov't mandates that everybody CAN and MUST have a car, which the gov't will provide. The car will drive only to the places the gov't wants it to go, which is their perogative because, after all, they are providing it!

Of course, the money's got to come from somewhere, so to pay for the ones the poor people can't afford, the rich SOBs will fork over their hard-earned cash. To which they say, "Well, if I have to have a car, how about I just buy my own, that will go where I want it, and opt out of the gov't car program?"

The gov't replies, "If you want to buy your own car, that's fine, but you still have to pay as if you were getting a gov't car."

Somehow, the gov't cars are constantly breaking down, only go 25 MPH when they do work, and seem to be used as getaway cars by criminals a lot -- but they are constantly held up to be the most important, valuable thing that anybody could ever be provided with!

To answer your question as to what I would do, you can pretty much assume about everything, the following:

I am in favor of completely privatizing everything that possibly can be privatized. And those things that can't possibly be privatized, well, I'm in favor of privatizing them, too.

The second option, which is less preferable, is that all taxation should be completely voluntary. The concept of "tax fraud" should have no meaning. If gov't wants money, it can run a pledge drive.

That's the way it would be in a truly civilized society.

-The Gneech

Re: Public schools...

[unciaa.livejournal.com]

The second option, which is less preferable, is that all taxation should be completely voluntary.

Wouldn't that further the gap even more though? At least to some theoretical degree, taxes are used where needed [roads, police, yadayada...], regardless of the social standard of the area [again I say, in theory ;].
If only people who could afford to have security and other basic [arguable] needs could have them, how would that improve matters? People are selfish, self-serving bastards, I'd sooner expect a sealion to donate to tax than most of the population.

Re: Public schools...

[the-gneech.livejournal.com]

Your expectations are not in line with reality.

People in general and Americans in particular constantly donate to churches, blood drives, furry charity auctions ;), starving children in Elbonia, poverty relief, public television, cartoonist tip jars ;), earthquake relief for countries on the other side of the world, flood relief for Mississippi, lunch for a co-worker, think tanks, LiveJournal, EnergyShare, crackpot scientists, respectable scientists, college scholarship programs, museums, neighborhood watch programs, Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, Cub Scouts, Brownies, political campaigns, wildlife refuges, Calvin at Starbucks whose brother was killed in Sierra Leone, zoos, parks, televangelists, the Make-A-Wish foundation, Ronald McDonald House, people on the street who just ask for money, the Salvation Army, and all those people on the radio who ask if you have an extra car you'd like to donate.

Most people are a lot more generous than you give them credit for.

-The Gneech

Re: Public schools...

[unciaa.livejournal.com]

Yeah, but a lot of those are feel-good donations. They make them once or twice, maybe give a few dollars each month, which is a drop in the ocean compared to the sum taxes draw [and the blood and old clothes donated will hardly finance anything] and even totalled is nothing comparable to the cost of something like the cost of a highway.

I'm also curious as to how the privatization of schools would be beneficial; if people can afford it, they can already take a private school, public schooling is for those that can't afford better. Or was your point that the amount of money lost to finance public schooling is more than enough to finance private schooling if reimbursed?
/me skeptical. :)

Re: Public schools...

[the-gneech.livejournal.com]

Generally speaking, if there really is a need for something, somebody will step forward to provide it. Inner city kids may end up with the McDonalds of education that way, but it's not like they're getting anything great now.

The way it would be beneficial is that it would stop being funded by armed robbery. It's an ethical point, not a pragmatic one.

-The Gneech

Re: Public schools...

[unciaa.livejournal.com]

Yes, but what about police and crime rates? The poorer the populace in an area is, the more police you need to control the crime rate caused by social problems. How many wealthy people today do you know that are actively financing more than themselves?

It's not a problem of finding good people, it's a problem of finding good wealthy people. And that's a rare situation.

Re: Public schools...

[the-gneech.livejournal.com]

Wealthy people today are funding the whole damn ball of wax, at gunpoint!

What they might do voluntarily, we won't know in our lifetime.

I don't know that many wealthy people, but I do know a few, and they're all very kind, generous, industrious people, and it pisses me off to see them get dicked around the way they do.

On the other hand, I have grown up amongst several poor people, and while most of them are also kind, generous, industrious people, many of them spend way too much of their time trying to figure out how to get somebody else to subsidize their life, rather than trying to figure out a way to pay their own way. So I don't have that much sympathy.

Most of the stuff called "crime" right now shouldn't be, frankly. I would guess 85% of it takes place among consenting adults. So if you take that off the books, right there that frees up a ton of police workload.

And when things like drugs aren't illegal, there isn't a huge, incredibly-profitable black market for them any more ... which means there's no incentive for gun-toting gangs to be dealing the stuff. That leaves protection against property crimes (robbery) and assault ... which could be handled by a smaller police force, or by private security firms.

Dream scenario is that basic self-defense (including both unarmed and small arms use) is taught as basic curriculum at every (private) school, also. You want a scandal, how about why is it that people are taught calculus in high school, but never once over their school career taught how to behave sensibly in an emergency?

Yes, I know my ideas are not mainstream, and I don't have much expectation for society to move towards my model. If anything, history suggests the exact opposite. Eventually, we'll be serfs and overlords again, at which point the mavericks will all get fed up and leave again, which is how the U.S. came into being.

I just that by then we've found a good place to go.

-The Gneech

Re: Public schools...

[unciaa.livejournal.com]

Problem is, when it comes to monetary power, it's mostly posessed by corporations, not individuals themselves. And corporations by design have no moral conscience of any kind. Unless most of their stockholders decided to donate of their own free will, that would not change.

I don't know. I guess I just prefer a set of laws that at least in theory allow for equal opportunity at the price of little more than reduced living standards as opposed to just admitting there's no such thing and screwing some people from the get-go. At least this way there's room for improvement past hoping for the people in general to do the right thing.
Too much Star Trek as a kid, yep. :P

[raemonde.livejournal.com]

Oh my god. *sniff* I... I thought I was alone!!

*big hug (in a manly way)*

On a more serious note... let us also keep in mind that they are pressuring us to recite as rote a pledge from the age of five or younger for approximately twelve years straight. Can we say "brainwashing"? Who at five knows what they're even saying? I don't know about anyone else, but at five years old, I didn't even know what "republic" or "indivisible" even meant. (I wondered if there was some special power that would make US invisible to our ENEMIES if we prayed hard enough. Hey, I was five.) "Liberty" I had some vague notion about freedom, and "justice" to me meant "don't get caught by the cops".

Who as children even thought to question the government? The almighty power that was all around us even in school, that knew what was best for us and would protect us from our enemies and make life good for everyone?

Yeah, I'm just picking at problems. I have no solutions. None that would work in this world, anyway. Try this on: "everyone should be good to everyone else, help others in need, and work for the common good of all humanity and all the world". Now see how well that works.

Yes, I'm a pessimistic cynical idealist. =P

On paper, yes, we're the greatest, most just nation in the world.

But that's slipping.

.Rae

[murrrmaiyd.livejournal.com]

While I agree that the quality of education in private schools is far superior to that of public schools, I cannot agree that the public school system be abandoned. Private schools are very expensive, and any kid unlucky enough to be born into a family too poor to pay for one would be doomed to illiteracy, and complete lack of knowledge.

Public school may not be great, and granted, I could read better than my 7th grade english teacher, (truly! It was ridiculous!), but I went to public school my whole educational career and while I can see how it would have been better in a private school, I can also see how I'd be a lot worse off without what I did have. My parents weren't rich...we made enough to get by in reasonable comfort, but I just don't think they would have been able to afford to send both my brother and I to private school for years.

I agree with the philosophy that everyone is entitled to an education. I feel there is a whole lot that could be done to improve the school system, but the worst problem as I see it is that when things like the lottery profits are supposed to help finance the school systems, they aren't used that way at all! There is such a small percentage that actually does go to the schools....I can't remember what it is, but they love to say, "we'll use the money to improve the schools!" and everyone votes in the idea, and then they use a token amount for schools and the rest goes to line other pockets. *That's* what's really wrong with the system.

They are stocked with outdated material, underfunded, and too willing to 'just go along'. I've heard of teachers that'll just pass some kid because whenever they fail one the parents come in and bitch them out for failing their kid! Never mind that the kid can't read, can't add, and can't even speak clearly at 16 years old! Just pass them, then they're not my problem anymore. It's stupid.

I think it would benefit society more to fix these problems rather than only giving education to people who can afford it, even if that education is better.

Mur

[the-gneech.livejournal.com]

In a privatized system, there would also be competition, which would drive the price down. Right now one of the reasons that private schools are so expensive, besides the fact that they're seen as a "service for the rich" (which is stupid), is because they have a ton of hoops to jump through to operate -- hoops put there by the gov't, which doesn't want private schools in operation but can't come up with a legal way to get rid of them that will fly.

Affordable schooling would show up.

-The Gneech