Dude’s bearing false witness again
Trump again pretending to think Democrats are mean to “God” and that he gives a shit:
Before playing golf on Saturday, Donald Trump took time to spread a false claim about God on Twitter.
“The Democrats took the word GOD out of the Pledge of Allegiance at the Democrat [sic] National Convention,” the president wrote.
“At first I thought they made a mistake, but it wasn’t. It was done on purpose. Remember Evangelical Christians, and ALL, this is where they are coming from – it’s done. Vote Nov[ember] 3!”
It should be where they’re coming from, but it isn’t. It should be because school children are forced to say the pledge, and nobody should be forced to make avowals about god, including children. But the Dems are never interested in resisting forced religion, least of all now.
Politifact says it’s not true.
“Some Democratic caucus members omitted ‘one nation under God’ from the Pledge of Allegiance during [convention] meetings,” the fact-checking website wrote. “But the line was not excluded from any of the convention’s primetime televised spots.
“On the first night … participants sang the ‘Star-Spangled Banner’ instead of saying the Pledge of Allegiance. On the second, third and fourth nights, ‘under God’ was included in the pledge.”
It shouldn’t have been. “God” is a fiction. Nevertheless it was.
Under the first amendment to the US constitution, church and state are formally separate.
“Formally,” meaning, actually we mostly ignore that and cheerfully force religion in people whether they like it or not.
The Pledge of Allegiance was written by a Baptist minister in 1892, but it did not then include the words “under God”. They were formally added in 1954, when President Dwight D Eisenhower signed them into law.
To show the Godless Communists a thing or two.
The pledge is widely, though not universally, recited in American public schools, which under a 1943 supreme court ruling cannot force students to say it.
In 2019, an 11-year-old student in Lakeland, Florida was arrested after refusing to stand for the pledge at the start of his sixth-grade day, because he believed the US flag symbolised the oppression of African Americans.
Police said the boy was arrested because he caused a disturbance. The case was eventually dropped.
You will explicitly state your submission to The God whether you believe in it or not and whether you choose to submit to it or not. We have ways of forcing you even if it is unconstitutional.
I remember reading that they added God because it would help them find Communists. They believed Communists would not say the pledge if it had God in it. It never occurred to them that Communists would have very little difficulty saying something meaningless to them if it prevented exposure and ruin.
I would think Communists would have more trouble with the idea of the pledge in general, with or without God.
Also, when the words “under god” were added to the Pledge, they were inserted between “one nation” and “indivisible”. I don’t know if the irony was intentional.
When I was in elementary school in the 60s I dutifully mouthed the words, without of course having the slightest idea what they meant. Now that I do I would not promise loyalty to a flag. That would be silly.
Yeah, Peter, that’s what’s so crazy about the whole saying this thing in school bit. Kids memorize and recite, but how many know what allegiance means? Or republic? Or indivisible? Let alone all of them put together. I said the words, just like I said “Now I lay me down to sleep…” I didn’t really know the meaning of that, either, but was terrified by “If I should die before I wake, I pray the lord my soul to take.” That sounded pretty…frightening. I had nightmares about it. (No nightmares about the pledge; it took me a lot longer to understand what that meant, and even longer before I realized what it stood for).
Ironically, the “under God” stuff only survives court scrutiny because judges pretend that it’s just “patriotic” jibber-jabber and not literally an invocation of God. Which sure would come as a surprise to all of the politicians and members of the public who positively FREAKED OUT when the 9th Circuit issued a (since-vacated) ruling that it was unconstitutional.
That pretense just drives me nuts. “‘God’ doesn’t really mean ‘God,’ it’s just ceremonial, just a placeholder, just a word for nicefeels…” – THEN WHY CAN’T IT BE A DIFFERENT WORD?
Yeah, what ticks me off is that usually the law is not that stupid. A lot of people think it is — they post stuff like “hey, what if put a keg of beer on my lawn, and charge people $5 for a cup? Only it’s just for the cup, see, the beer is free? Then I’m not selling alcohol without a license, I’m only selling cups?” And then lawyers have to explain that yeah, there’s a word for people who try “clever” shit like that: “convict.”
But then an issue like this comes along, and judges know that (1) they can’t really reconcile “under God” in the pledge under existing precedent; but (2) people will go apeshit if they strike it down, so they suddenly pretend to be stupid and fall for one of these disingenuous arguments.