[Vision2020] One Should Have Right To Object To 'Under God'

[Taro Tanaka]

Tom Hansen thansen at moscow.com wrote:

[[ By your statement, P. Sushitushi, you support an argument (discussed in 
this
forum, V2020, last January) that the Moscow City council should NOT be
required to open each council session with the Pledge of Allegiance? ]]

I have learned not to trust my memory anymore, and I don't have time to go 
back and check that discussion in the archives, but I'm against the Pledge 
of Allegiance. I believe that (potentially, at least) the most patriotic 
thing is to NOT say it.

The reason why I add the qualifier "potentially" is because a person's 
motives for going against the flow need to be taken into consideration. 
*Why* a person does what he does is at least as important as the objective 
behavior. For example, it is possible that a man could be actingly very 
gentlemanly toward a woman because he's looking for an opportunity to get 
into her pants. In that case, he's not a gentleman but a cad. (That would 
have to mean that most men are cads at one time or another, but anyway.)

So without commenting on directly on what happened last January, let me 
simply say that I'm against anyone saying the Pledge of Allegiance because I 
think it promotes Statism, and, as a separate but closely related issue, I'm 
particularly against Christians saying the Pledge of Allegiance because it 
is idolatrous.

But remember, it is simultaneously true that I think favorably of 
Trinitarian test oaths. Oath-taking is pretty much inescapable in society. 
It seems pretty clear to me that by placing their hands over their hearts, 
people are taking what amounts to a self-imprecatory oath . . . not that 
anyone ever formally proclaimed that "this is the meaning of the symbolism 
in the Pledge of Allegiance." But I think that is a fair conclusion to draw 
from it.

[[ "I love my country but fear my government." ]]

They came in the middle of the night for the author of that statement . . .

-- Princess Sushitushi

_________________________________________________________________
Express yourself instantly with MSN Messenger! Download today it's FREE! 
http://messenger.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200471ave/direct/01/