Lord Andrei's Blog

In talking with… okay…well, debating with people today… (As I’ve received quite a bit of debate, argument, guff, and support via AIM: lordandrei) over my opinions about the US Circuit 9 decision:
I define the first amendment
I react to my elected federal representatives
I make some generalizations in debate

In talking about this and thinking about it, I’ve come to an interesting opinion:
there seem to be a specific set of people:

1) People who strongly believe the God MUST be in the pledge; (or people that believe they must go along with this for their own well being)
2) People who are apathetic and believe it doesn’t really mean anything and no one should be upset about it
3) People who feel they can’t say the pledge because of ‘God’ (or people that support those with this opinion)
4) People who just don’t support pledging allegiance to a flag or nation

My problem is primarily with Group 1. So far I have heard stories of the Congress drafting resolutions that God must be included in the Pledge. Group one has said that God is part of our society, that this is the way things just are. This really makes me question our religious and personal freedom that we as a nation so direly pride ourselves on.

I have already received posts from people who’ve been told that they won’t get a job because they are wearing pentacles. I’ve known people who limit their display of their pagan heritage because they feel safer ‘going at it stealth.” I suppose I’m lucky because I’m in a job where my productivity and field allows ‘eccentricity.’ But in all honesty, my religious or philosophical beliefs should be of no question to anyone in this country as long as I am not in the practice of my own life getting in the way of their freedoms.

Personally, this kind of extends to my general belief of stop legislating the behavior in my bedroom. But this is another whole ball of wax.

Group 2 to me represents the biggest problem that we as a democracy have faced. The famous “Swing vote” people who are so detached from an issue, they’ll support whichever side has more flash, glitz, and draw. I think the pledge and the way it’s handled represents this. We don’t want our young to think, to decide, to process….we just want them to follow blindly.

Look again at the comments made by the people we voted into the congress and the presidency (we’ll a minority of you voted into the presidency 😉

They haven’t even stopped to think. One even went so far to say, “Well, anyone who values their job.”

You IDIOTS You are the people who put forth the laws that say, “To discriminate for a job against someone’s religious beliefs are illegal.” I hope the judge does run for higher office. I hope that Sen. Byrd is true to his word and tries to stop the man on the basis of his being an atheist. Because I really, and truly want to see a man sue the government for being denied a job on the basis of his religious beliefs.

Why is law and policy only good as long as it serves our needs. the moment that someone uses law in a way that we don’t like we jump up and shout foul. We go out of our way to complain. But unfortunately, the way we complain is to convince everyone who hasn’t made a decision that we’re right, they’re wrong and it’s a question of side vs. side.

Isn’t it time that we look at both sides of the issues? Pro and against. Figure out how to fix, not shove it in the face of one side or the other.

Stop calling it Pro life and Pro Choice. Would someone with some real brass stand up and decide what constitutes life. That way the abortionists, the animal rightists, the researchers, the fetal gene harvesters, and the vegetarians could all just sit down at the table and do their things.

I’m so tired of elections being a list of hot ticket issues vs. an elusive list of oppositions that claim they are not oppositions.

I think the key word I’m going for once again is

Indivisible.

Stop making the issues
Invisible.

A comment I made while happily debating on line:

My concern is that the fix doesn’t hurt anyone. To remove “under god” doesn’t blaspheme god, doesn’t mean religious people are less devout. And it makes the statement of indivisibility more believable for people who can’t say, “Under God”

Yes, you have a right not to say the pledge.

Where is the national unity in saying, “You don’t want to play my way, go home” ?

Other person: Where is the Unity in starting it in the first place…
like I said why cant they just leave it alone… It hasnt been a problem this long… why now.

Me: Now? Now people aren’t afraid to speak up. People aren’t afraid that they’ll loose their jobs, or their children as easily as they did 50 years ago.You don’t remember the effects of McCarthyism. I only barely do. Some still live with the scars.

50 years ago, people lost their children if they were Gay. People lost their jobs if they were Jewish. People today have their houses burned if they are black, Doctors are killed because they commit an abortion. Why now, because people begin to no longer fear what they believe in. We as a people are growing up, like any other entity.

So, the Circuit court made their ruling and the Congress went wild. And the president….well George continued to at least maintain the same character he has all along.

Before I make my comments I will make the following statement, “I am a monotheist” I believe in a singular, divine, conscious, transcended, entity, from where all things originate from. I choose to call this “God”

I make this because any response that comes in at any point telling me I don’t believe in God will be responded too appropriately.

I have to reprint some of these quotations because they really blow my mind.

“Our founding fathers must be spinning in their graves. This is the worst kind of political correctness run amok. What’s next? Will the courts now strip ‘so help me God’ from the pledge taken by new presidents?”
— Sen. Christopher Bond, R-Missouri

Personally, I’ve always been uncomfortable that Governmental oaths are taken in the name of ‘God”. The Jews (and anyone else who follows the 10 commandments) believe that God’s name should not be used in vain. And yet, we have allowed our gov’t to put us to the most personal connection with our own divine that we can find, by swearing oaths. Further, to break that oath to the US means condemnation for Sin. Neither of these are appropriate on any level in a country that professess ‘separation of church and state.’

Our founding fathers were the ones who realized that church and state must not get in each other’s way. Our founding fathers were the ones that wrote the Bill of Rights. Also, a small reminder, out founding fathers were the ones who decided that the Senate does NOT make the value call on what laws are and are not legal.

To you Christopher Bond, our FF are spinning, because you’ve lost sight of your own job.

Well, King George the Second, as always, couldn’t be smart enough to keep his mouth shut and think before speaking:
“Ridiculous.” … (this ruling is) ” out of step with the history and traditions of America,” and said it highlighted the need for “common sense judges that understand that our rights are derived from God.”

Allow me to pause for a moment to point to a portion of the current words of the pledge:

I pledge allegiance … to the Republic … one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

We are not one nation under God. No matter how many people who are out there who have their view of what god is. I dare them to prove to me that everyone else in this country shares their view, indivisibly, of what God is. I challenge the Catholics to tell me why they and the Protestants are NOT different. From each other, the Jews, and the Moslems, the hindus, the buddhists, the athiests.

Until such time that someone can prove to me that all these people truly believe the same thing about “God”, we shouldn’t be having our children propagate a myth that is down right descriminitory.

Note: Assuming the Monotheistic-God believer’s are right and they are simply, ‘helping’ those less ‘enlightened.’ Does this mean that the gov’t can now legislate teaching people how to think.

If (pardon the pun) by god, we monotheists are wrong; then we are all demanding people follow us and pledge thir following based on a misassumption. But we are the God Lovin’ U.S.A. and thus have a right to demand that the world think like us.

But it doesn’t end. Even the Theoretically liberal democrats have lost sight:
“That judge who shouldn’t be a judge in my opinion … let me say this, that I hope his name doesn’t come before this body for any promotion. He will be remembered. He will be remembered … I hope the Senate will waste no time in throwing this back in the face of this stupid judge. Stupid. That’s what he is, stupid.”
— Sen. Robert Byrd, D-West Virginia

To the dishonourable Senator Byrd. You are now overstepping your bounds. The man did his job. Despite the obvious political
opposition he most assuredly knew he would face. He made a decision. A decision based on logic that made him step away from religious edicts. And… if you choose to base your decisions on this man’s behavior; because you don’t like the way he called a battle you feel strongly about; then perhaps you are the one who should be re-evaluated.

The Justice decided what is legal and what is not, the legislative propose and design the law. If you are such the expert on law, why are you acting as Judge on behalf of someone who is?

At least we find one truly honest politician in the lot:
“This decision is so much out of the mainstream of thinking of Americans and the culture and values that we hold in America, that any Congressman that voted to take it out would be putting his tenure in Congress in jeopardy at the next election … It is no surprise that belief in God is something that a vast majority of Americans hold not only in a spiritual way but in a political way as well … ”
— Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa

Grassley has admitted, that we are not interested in a united, indivisible country. Just pleasing the majority. Which is in truth, really all that’s important in ‘true democracy”. Remember, at it’s core: Democracy is 4 wolves and one lamb deciding on lunch.

Personally, I feel that if you want a nation that is indivisible, then you can not put in exclusionary terminology. The Blacks wouldn’t stand for it, women wouldn’t stand for it, and eventually, people who don’t believe in “God” won’t stand for it. The gays will rise up, the athiests, the pagans, the polyamourists….People who are tired of having their lifestyles, beliefs, and core personallity challenged because they are “out of the mainstream”

We are not a democracy…we are a representational republic.

We are all human beings. Whether we seek to name the creator of us “God” or “Mom, Dad, and the back seat of the Chevy.”

Let us choose what we believe. It’s what our forefathers wanted.