Evil GOP Bastards

Since the New Deal, Republicans have been on the wrong side of every issue of concern to ordinary Americans; Social Security, the war in Vietnam, equal rights, civil liberties, church- state separation, consumer issues, public education, reproductive freedom, national health care, labor issues, gun policy, campaign-finance reform, the environment
and tax fairness. No political party could remain so consistently wrong by accident.
The only rational conclusion is that, despite their cynical "family values" propaganda, the Republican Party is a criminal conspiracy to betray the interests of the American people
in favor of oligarchic and corporate interests and absolutist religious groups.

For one who doesn't adhere to a particular religion, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals' ruling on the Pledge of Allegiance only restates the obvious. Use of the term "under God" in the Pledge imparts a religious meaning to a political act, i.e., the affirmation of allegiance to the United States.

Does a majority have the right to impose its religious beliefs on others by using the coercive powers of the state?

Does a pledge have real value as a civic act if part of that pledge has no meaning to the individual uttering the words?

Of course, for most fundamen-
talist Christian absolutists there is no difference between the political and the sacred. They're motivated by the dream of a Taliban-style theocracy -- witch trials, stonings, sharia law… even slavery (it's biblical).

Readers should remember that the Pledge wasn't penned by Madison or Jefferson. It was written by a (gasp!) socialist clergyman in 1892, and the offending phrase was only inserted in 1954 as a Cold War propaganda counter to godless Communism. Nothing has changed, except there are no more godless commies for the GOP to confront, only domestic political opponents.

Just as with school prayer and abortion, the Republicans are eagerly exploiting this issue for the approval of one of their largest and safest voting blocks. Ignoring the reasonable Constitutional issue at the root of the flap for cheap demago-
guery, House Majority Leader Dick Armey proclaimed, "A judge who believes the Pledge
of Allegiance is unconstitutional doesn't belong on the bench." RNC spokesman Steven Schmidt immediately got the spin machine into overdrive in a memo emailed to GOP flacks to "..call on every school board to ignore this decision," and to blame Senate Democrats in general, and Tom Daschle in particular, for "blocking" action on Bush's judicial nominees. Predictable.

What wasn't predictable was the one-upmanship being played by the Democrats in this game of Panderama. Distasteful as it is for them, the Dems don't want to be murdered in November for what most of them consider in-
consequential, when there are serious political issues at stake.
Of course, the infotainment press had to get in on this circus. CNN's Connie Chung suggested to the plaintiff in the case (who'll no doubt assume

the late Madelyn Murray-O'Hare's mantle of "most hated person in America") that to oppose the insertion of "under God" in the Pledge was somehow "un-American."

Religious rationalizers and GOP propagandists argue that
the offending phrase has no real religious significance -- that it's just some kind of meaningless political boilerplate. This
is a revealing argument. It simultaneously reveals the superficiality of their religious beliefs, as well as how surreptitious their politics are.

Why should any minority be forced to acquiesce to the imposition of the majority's religious beliefs? It's clearly unconstitutional, but the real objection concerns the most basic American tradition -- much older than the Pledge and much more fundamental to our national identity -- the right
of the individual to freedom of conscience.

State-imposed religion has been a disaster wherever it's
been established. Surely the Taliban hasn't been gone too long to remember that theocracy is the ultimate form of totalitarianism.

GOP-dominated court continues
assault on Constitution
In a one-two punch on the US Constitution, the Supreme Court allowed the random drug testing of the high-school students least likely to use drugs. Remember when we used to have 4th-Amendment protections?

In a separate case, the Supreme Court approved the transfer of public-school money to religious schools. Is it coincidental that this will please the religious right, while burning the public-school teachers -- one of the Dems'
core constituencies? It's a "two-fer" for the GOP.