Posted by panch from pool0096.cvx25-bradley.dialup.earthlink.net (209.179.216.96) on Thursday, June 27, 2002 at 8:24AM :
One has to wonder why ..."under god" was added in the fifties...wasn't there originally. The 50's had a lot in common with right now. America has been stuck in its zits and blackheads for a long time...a sort of arrested growth. This nation zoomed ahead of all others in the beginning because it was made up of people who were European in every way, except they had been set free of the bonds that shackled reason and inquiry and political development in the Old Country. Europeans let loose in the wilds of America, but who were essentially filled to overflowing with the riches of that culture...put their education and cultural awareness to good use...all things considered. It was a bold country then.
Then they forgot where they came from...revelling in the fact that they were a "new people"...owed no allegiance to anyone, had no past, no history etc. Big mistake.
Americans were as scared in the 50's as they are now...as easily manipulated and eager to be lied to, to be lulled to sleep. "God" was added to the pledge because the politicians of that day knew we were getting ready to move further away from him.
The argument against having "god" in the pledge when it's plastered on our money and congress and the president and the Supreme Court invoke his blessings and oaths are taken in his name...is that these are children we are talking about...that they are being unduly and unfairly influenced and pressured by the State, where religion is concerned.
No kid, left to his or her own devices, would come up with this harebrained concept of a god...a sort of national cheerleader. Children indeed sense the vastness and the mystery of life and the big questions...but the answers we and them prophets supply them just about kills human reason and development.
It will probably be overturned...but I am glad I live in a part of the country that isn't trying to kiss every Republican's ass. God IS Republican....I asumed we all knew that.
-- panch
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