General Discussion
Showing Original Post only (View all)God should not be taken out of the Pledge of Allegiance. [View all]
The Pledge of Allegiance should be taken out, period. No such thing should be required to recite in schools. Especially not a pledge to a piece of cloth, which anyone can wave and claim for themselves. That kind of shit belongs in totalitarian systems.
Schools should educate about democracy generally and in particular the form of government in the United States (democratic or not). Students should be learning the Constitution from Preamble to Bill of Rights, the history of the amendments and major court decisions, their rights and privileges and duties and requirements as citizens generally, the means for organizing to protect their rights, how to get involved in and influene the politics that affects their lives (not only inside the voting booth), why it's important...
EDITING TO ADD POST #39 HERE:
http://www.firstamendmentschools.org/freedoms/case.aspx?id=442
Writing for the SC majority in 1943, when Jehovah's Witnesses refused to say the pledge, Justice Robert Jackson:
If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein.