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Berzerker
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topeka, kansas,USA
May 1999
time: 23:26
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Imran - quote:
So, wait. Let me get this straight. It is OK for parents to coerce children, but not for society? |
"Society"? Don't you mean the Christian majority? That's right, a parent has the right to raise their child with their belief system, "society" doesn't have this right.
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Why do parents get coercive rights when society doesn't? Are kids SLAVES to parents? |
If I had said children who are coerced into reciting the pledge were slaves, would you consider that a serious argument? Me neither. Rights belong to individuals, not "society". Parents have this right because their children are under their care. The right ceases to exist once the child is no longer under the parent's care.
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And when did I say it wasn't coercive? EVERY social construction is coercive. |
You continually argued the pledge is voluntary, it isn't.
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Yet, I don't see you complain about the inherant coerciveness of the 'free' market (where people are coerced into working) or the law (where people are coerced into behaving a certain way. |
I'm not coerced to work for an employer, nature requires me to eat food to survive, employment is just a means to obtain food. And where did I condemn all coercion? As for the law, if you want to call acts of self-defense "coercive", then obviously I support some forms of coercion - when it is used to preserve freedom. But since the definition of "coercion" includes, or at least implies, an attempt to nullify free will, a law that prohibits coercion is not coercive since free will belongs to us all and one cannot use coercion without violating someone else's free will.
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You treaty coerciveness like it is inherantly a bad thing, while supporting coercive institutions. |
How does that allegation stand up when I've already argued in favor of a parent's right to coerce their children?
How do you know? And how is that relevant when even by your argument, some wouldn't wear the star of David for fear of persecution?
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Why do you think Jews were persecuted for so long? |
Why is that relevant? You think Jews are more religious than everyone else?
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If you really understood religious people, you'd know that they will not hide their religion in order to be free from persecution. What do you think relgious martyrs do? |
So you think all Jews willingly walked around wearing the star of David in Nazi occupied Europe? Anne Frank ring a bell? Some people would rather die than hide their religion, some would rather hide their religion.
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Imran Siddiqui
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The Potterverse
Jan 1970
time: 00:26
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quote:
That's right, a parent has the right to raise their child with their belief system, "society" doesn't have this right. |
Why? I'd think society has a better claim to have a right to raise kids.
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Parents have this right because their children are under their care. The right ceases to exist once the child is no longer under the parent's care. |
Who decides when a child is under parent's care? You are being inconsistant. Why this exception for a parent? No one can 'own' someone else in the US, I think you'll say, so why can parents 'own' children.
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You continually argued the pledge is voluntary, it isn't. |
Who ever said voluntary and coercive are mutually exclusive?
You don't have to submit to the coercion if you don't want to.
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I'm not coerced to work for an employer, nature requires me to eat food to survive, employment is just a means to obtain food. |
How does that lessen the coercion? If you want food, you are forced to work. Look, it's coercion!
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But since the definition of "coercion" includes, or at least implies, an attempt to nullify free will, a law that prohibits coercion is not coercive since free will belongs to us all and one cannot use coercion without violating someone else's free will. |
What a bunch of circular bullshit! A law that prohibits coercion is coercive to those that want to indulge in that behavior. It is nullifying THEIR free will.
Coercion is simply forcing someone to do something.
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You think Jews are more religious than everyone else? |
No, the Jews were quite simply the minority. They didn't bow to the coercion of the majority.
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So you think all Jews willingly walked around wearing the star of David in Nazi occupied Europe? |
So teachers kill people that don't stand to pledge alliegance? Interesting schools you went to.
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Berzerker
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topeka, kansas,USA
May 1999
time: 23:26
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Imran - quote:
Why? I'd think society has a better claim to have a right to raise kids. |
So what's the claim? "Society" didn't procreate your children, society didn't give birth to your children, and society wasn't there when your kid first walked or spoke. Nature has been designed with parents raising children, not society.
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Who decides when a child is under parent's care? |
Nature, and when the child is living in the parent's house.
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You are being inconsistant. Why this exception for a parent? |
How is that inconsistent? Why are you trying to equate parents with strangers and then using such an absurd equation to accuse me of inconsistency?
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No one can 'own' someone else in the US, I think you'll say, so why can parents 'own' children. |
It's not about a parent "owning" their children, it's about the task of raising children - a task assigned by nature. If a child grows up and leaves home, they are no longer subject to the will of their parent. Ever hear a parent say to their kid, "not in my house"?
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Who ever said voluntary and coercive are mutually exclusive? |
The dictionary.
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You don't have to submit to the coercion if you don't want to. |
That doesn't mean your choice was voluntary. If a school bully walks up and demands your lunch money, is your acquiescence "voluntary" or coerced. The same answer applies if you refuse the bully's demand. Resisting coercion doesn't mean the coercion doesn't exist.
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How does that lessen the coercion? If you want food, you are forced to work. Look, it's coercion! |
But the employer is not the source of the coercion, nature is the source.
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What a bunch of circular bullshit! A law that prohibits coercion is coercive to those that want to indulge in that behavior. It is nullifying THEIR free will. |
Does free will mean you can violate everyone else's free will? Of course not, we all have free will, therefore, since coercion violates free will, a law prohibiting coercion is not coercive in that no one's free will is violated by the law. Some people claim "absolute" freedom includes the "freedom" to run around murdering people and any law prohibiting murder violates their freedom. But freedom means the absence of coercion or constraint on choice or action, and murder is a constraint. So, how can murder be an act of freedom when freedom requires the absence of constraints? Just as with coercion, a law prohibiting murder is not a violation of our freedom because freedom, by definition, doesn't allow for the imposition of constraints. You call that circular BS, I call it logic based on what words mean.
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Coercion is simply forcing someone to do something. |
That isn't the entire definition, coercion is a means of subverting free will.
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So teachers kill people that don't stand to pledge alliegance? Interesting schools you went to. |
You said the Jews did not hide their religion from persecutors and I refuted that argument, if you find the debate too difficult to follow, you can take a breather. 
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Jack the Bodiless
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Converted underground reservoir tank.
Jan 1970
time: 05:26
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But why change it in the first place, and why the resistance to restoring the Pledge? That's what we're talking about here.
"Under God" does not belong in the Pledge. It was put there with malicious intent. What's so wrong about the original concept of "one nation, indivisible" which the change destroyed?
More examples of how the phrase "one nation under God" is commonly used, grabbed from Google:
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"The great strength of the United States is that we are and will continue to be, despite the liberal court's decision, one nation under God." - Roy Blunt, rep. Missouri |
From here:
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2001-FEB: Virginia: Pledge bill defeated. State Senator Warren E. Barry introduced a bill making the recitation of the pledge of allegiance mandatory for every public school in Virginia. In doing this, Senator Barry violated his oath of office, in which he promised to uphold the U.S. Constitution. The U.S. Supreme Court has interpreted the Constitution as implying that anyone has the right to refrain from reciting the Pledge. Under his bill, any student who refused to recite the pledge, without a valid philosophical or religious objection, would be suspended. Delegate Robert G. Marshall suggested that the bill be amended to require school buildings carry the national motto. The amendments were rejected by the Senate Education and Health Committee. |
From here:
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Sen. Buttars, the bills sponsor, said he cannot believe anyone would not want kids in public school to know and understand the pledge of their country.
Buttars said he would not try to take the controversial phrase out of the pledge.
"We've allowed the God haters and the value haters and the moral haters in this country to have center stage for so long that they've slipped the whole central moral platform of America off the stage," Buttars said. "We've gone too far. It's time to draw the line and start bringing it back."
Buttars said the United States is indeed one nation under God and he will pass the bill. |
Note the foaming-at-the-mouth rhetoric: it's "the pledge of their country" (as if it has always been that way  ), and the "god-haters" hate values and morals (I assume we also hate Mom's apple pie too).
Ashcroft, being a moron as usual:
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"The Justice Department will spare no effort to preserve the rights of all our citizens to pledge allegiance to the American flag," Ashcroft said.
"We will defend the ability of Americans to declare their patriotism through the time-honored tradition of voluntarily reciting the pledge," he said. |
...So now the Evil Atheist Conspiracy is trying to stop people from voluntarily reciting the Pledge of Allegiance.
From ONE NATION UNDER GOD by Rev. Bill Banuchi:
quote:
Does this include Atheists? Good Question. The answer is yes, and no. Am I trying to sound like a good politician? No, not really. What I mean is that the American spirit is one which acknowledges the God of the Bible as being true and real, but also acknowledges that there are others who do not believe what we believe; others to whom the reality of Christ has not yet been revealed. We must love them, care for them and pray for them, because it’s God’s heart that none of them would perish but that all would come to the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ.
We must love and pray for the Atheists and Agnostics but we must never allow them into positions of leadership in our nation "under God"...
...So you see, an Atheist or Agnostic has every right to live here, and be afforded all the rights and respect due a human being created in the image of God, but we must never elect them to office or we sentence ourselves to bondage under godless tyranny.
That’s why it was not uncommon for the early colonies to require a belief in God, The Holy Scriptures and in the system of eternal rewards and punishment before one could hold public office. In other words if you didn’t believe in God or the Bible, you could certainly live here, but because you are not, in your own mind and heart, under the authority of God who rules over America, you are not qualified to lead in this nation under God. Our rulers must be men and women under God; otherwise we will not be one nation under God. |
It is taken as read that America IS "one nation under God". Not before 1954, it wasn't...
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Guynemer
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A number have polls have shown that 60% or more of the American public say that they would not vote for an atheist, period, end of discussion.
That, my friends, is bigotry. Plain and simple. The 1950s alterations of the Pledge and our currency have enshrined and reenforced that bigotry. And the histrionic, shrill defence of those alterations demonstrate just how ingrained that bigotry is in this country.
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ciaran
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Hey, let's hang on to the pledge because it's antequated and obsolete like religion and slavery. Let's prove to an alien race with vastly superior technology and xenophobic tendencies that we are not worth saving from extermination. Why don't we elect an ourangoutan to the highest political office in our political system, empower him with the capability to push complicated sets of buttons and make advanced transactions, and then argue about a bearded guy who was mounted on a pole and stabbed by another monkey who was then replaced by other people who thought that brainwashing our children with beliefs that they may or may not agree with--did they have the intellectual capacity to do so because Jane might well choose to be a Lutheran or something instead of an athiest or maybe she wants to be an athiest after all-- and wasting our legal dollars and television bandwidth when we could easily be reading a book, or making some money.
I mean, how important is this? Didn't EVERYONE kind of sleep through pledge? I mean, I didn't really care for this country when I was in high school. I cared about girls... and girls.
ciaran
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cinch
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Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
Jul 2002
time: 22:26
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Imran:
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I don't have a problem with not having freedom from religion, even though I'm not Christian. Why should you? |
That seems like kind of a strange thing to say, no? Just because you don't have a problem with something, he's not entitled to?
Personally, I've seen no solid arguments for keeping the pledge as is in this thread. It's mostly arguments about whether kids are bullied or not. That's not really the issue, though. The issue is the principle of the thing: freedom of religion IS freedom from religion. It has nothing to do with people saying "God" or practising their religion in the open, and everything to do with the state sponsoring monotheism in its loyalty pledge.
How is that justified?
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03-03-2003 01:15
) not saying the Pledge means you're not the same religion. Voila, instant persecution.
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