Comments for If Not “Under God,” then What? at http://www.thecatholicthing.org , comment 1 to 13 out of 13 comments http://www.thecatholicthing.org Wed, 22 May 2013 22:30:57 +0100 FeedCreator 1.7.3 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/if-not-under-god-then-what.html#comment-13393 "..only four of us voted in the last presidential election." True-blue conservatives voted for John McMarshmallow in 2008 and George "have to abandon free market principles to save the free market. stem cell sell-out, zero down payment, Big Pharma pet" Bush in 2004 and 2000, Bob "Viagra" Dole in 1996, George HW "No New Taxes, Skull and Bones Eugenics" Bush, Ronald "hid the rape/incest abortions in the Hyde amendment, help the Soviet Union fake its own death" Reagan, Gerald "Rockefeller puppet" Ford, Richard "abortion necessary when you have a black and a white, ping-pong and detente with Communist tyrants" Nixon. Oh, and Dwight "forced repatriation of Russian POWs and Slime McCarthy, not the Fifth column commies" Eisenhower. At some point, it's time to see the controlled dialectic for what it is. "Elections in the USSR In theory, citizens selected the candidates for election to local soviets. In practice, at least before the June 1987 elections, these candidates had been selected by the local Communist party, Komsomol, and trade union officials under the direction of the district (raion) party organization. Voting took place after six weeks of campaigning. Though voters formally had the right to vote for or against the unopposed candidate, until 1987 all candidates usually received about 99 percent of the vote." wikipedia entry Voting participation has no relation to true democracy if the candidate choices are all socialist and controlled by one corrupt entity. What a blast it would be if every Catholic American wrote in a true Catholic for president, for once. Cardinal Dolan could invite just him for dinner. If that meant losing the Church's tax status, I'd be willing to trade our cathedrals for the catacombs if it meant we weren't selling out the faith. - Sue Fri, 14 Sep 2012 18:51:40 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/if-not-under-god-then-what.html#comment-13392 @Maggie. Chief Justice John Roberts was named by George W. Bush and wound up siding with Obama and the Democrats. Other than Ginsberg, the other justices aren't going anywhere for awhile. - Grump Fri, 14 Sep 2012 11:19:56 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/if-not-under-god-then-what.html#comment-13391 With possible four vacancies upcoming on the Supreme Court, the choice between Tweedledum and Tweedledee should not be difficult. - Maggie Louise Fri, 14 Sep 2012 09:34:51 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/if-not-under-god-then-what.html#comment-13390 Excellent column making the crucial distinction re "under God" in the Pledge. It is not a statement of theology, stemming from religious beliefs in a particular revelation, but a statement of political philosophy, stemming from a knowledge of nature that requires no revelation. This is made clear by the fact that the Knights of Columbus were the ones in the 1950s who led the national crusade to have Congress add "under God" to the Pledge. They succeeded, but it certainly wasn't because most Americans then agreed with Catholic theology! If "under God" in fact meant, "under the revelation of God as taught by the Pope in Rome," the additional words would have been rejected. But non-Catholic Americans in the 1950s were, like the Knights of Columbus, vigorously in agreement on the philosophical principle that man's rights come from the Creator, not the Communist Party. Still, in his limited space today the author wasn't able to make 2 important additional points: (1) under American law, no one can be compelled to speak the Pledge (whatever their objection may be). (2) Newdow went back to court, using children whose parents actually had custody of them, and in 2010 the 9th Circuit handed down a second decision awarding victory to the Knights of Columbus & their lawyers at the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, which made precisely this argument. The 9th Circuit adopted the argument, and the US Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal of the decision, just as it refused to hear an appeal from another Knights-Becket Fund victory over a Newdow suit in New Hampshire. Visit the Becket Fund's case page on the Pledge lawsuits for more information. - S. Walter Fri, 14 Sep 2012 08:17:21 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/if-not-under-god-then-what.html#comment-13389 @Mack. I'm still trying to decide whether to vote for Tweedledum or Tweedledee. - Grump Fri, 14 Sep 2012 07:34:54 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/if-not-under-god-then-what.html#comment-13388 With my modest contribution we have at the moment eight responders; statistically, only four of us voted in the last presidential election. Perhaps the rest of us were too busy talking. Democracy is not a spectator sport. - Mack Hall Fri, 14 Sep 2012 05:56:33 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/if-not-under-god-then-what.html#comment-13386 The author of the Pledge was one Francis Bellamy, a defrocked Baptist minister from Boston who identified himself as a Christian Socialist and who preached in his pulpit that "Jesus was a socialist." As author/economist Tom Di Lorenzo wrote in 2003 when the U.S. Supreme Court said it planned to review the "under God" wording in the Pledge: "Francis Bellamy said that one purpose of the Pledge of Allegiance was to help accomplish his lifelong goal of making his cousin's socialist fantasy a reality in America. He further stated that the 'true reason for allegiance to the Flag' was to indoctrinate American school children in the false history of the American founding that was espoused first by Daniel Webster and, later, by Abraham Lincoln." Bellamy considered the "liberty and justice for all" phrase in the Pledge to be an Americanized version of the slogan of the French Revolution: "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity." The French revolutionaries believed that mass killing by the state was always justified if it was done for the "grand purpose" of achieving "equality." Di Lorenzo concludes, "If the Supreme Court decides that the "under God" wording in the Pledge is unconstitutional, it will be doing the right thing for the wrong reason (it does not "establish a religion"). The Pledge itself is an oath of allegiance to the central state, and the "under God" language only serves to deify the state. From the perspective of a Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, or James Madison, nothing could be more un-American. After all, they and their contemporaries had fought a long and bloody war of secession to sever their forced allegiance, complete with loyalty oaths, to another overbearing and tyrannical state, namely the British empire." - Grump Fri, 14 Sep 2012 04:01:56 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/if-not-under-god-then-what.html#comment-13385 Deacon Ed, Your thoghts are very provoking, Thank You! Jack - Jack,CT Fri, 14 Sep 2012 03:56:43 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/if-not-under-god-then-what.html#comment-13384 The way forward is not going to be through the courts. - Dennis Fri, 14 Sep 2012 03:42:41 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/if-not-under-god-then-what.html#comment-13383 When it comes to the matter of God in our civic life, I have recently wondered about what transpires in our courts of law. It has been the practice that when one gives testimony, one swears to the truth of the testimony to be given. It was assumed that the swearing was addressed to God ("...so help me God"). One was voluntarily placing what was said under God's authority such that if it were not truthful, God's justice would be called upon the person so swearing. If God is removed from all sworn oaths, under whose judgement are we placing ourselves? Our own? It begs the question of who has authority over us. In our secular culture where God has no place and we are our own judge about matters such as truthfulness, then all is relative. In such a culture we cannot rest on the truthfulness of any testimony because the ultimate authority over us has been removed. Is it the government that we now swear to, as if it has ultimate authoirty over us? But governments come and go. Quite a dilemma as I see it. We need a discussion about what it means to swear an oath. - Deacon Ed Peitler Fri, 14 Sep 2012 03:14:08 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/if-not-under-god-then-what.html#comment-13381 1954 was the height of the Cold War. We wanted to distinguish ourselves from atheistic communism. It predates Vat. II and Roe v. Wade. If you are going to have the Gov't cooperate in 50 million abortions, the subjects being aborted cannot have souls and they cannot have been created by "God". The fresh remains of US military were recently discovered in a landfill in PA. What, no Gettysburg Cemetery anymore? If they do not have souls as fetuses, they never acquire them. In the upscale area where I have my offices, they do not even have funerals when they die, just cocktails and eulogies. An IL state senator voted four times that a baby who survives an abortion must be left to die.That senator, now our President, will be swapping jokes and pats on the back with his host, CDL Dolan at the Al Smith Dinner in a month. - Manfred Fri, 14 Sep 2012 01:37:27 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/if-not-under-god-then-what.html#comment-13380 I just heard a group of children were kicked out of a Walmart for singing "God bless America",proves the point we are way to "PC"! - Jack,CT Fri, 14 Sep 2012 00:14:18 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/if-not-under-god-then-what.html#comment-13379 We have become so PC it is really sad,if atheists do not want their kids pledging allegiance to their country tell them not to participate! One gets tired of all this sillyness. I bet if there was still a draft people would have no problem with pledging allegiance to "OUR" Nation. - essJack,CT Thu, 13 Sep 2012 23:20:05 +0100