Students at CA college ban Pledge of Allegiance

I pledge allegiance to the Flag
of the United State of America,
and to the Republic for which it stands:
one Nation under God, indivisible,
With Liberty and Justice for all.

I do recall being young and stupid... "SOUTHWESTERN THOROUGHBREDS",
postmarked Preemption Colo. Jul 29 1909

but I can't recall ever being this stupid. At Orange Coast College in California, the student trustees have decided that it's offensive to allow anybody at their meetings to recite the Pledge, so they've banned it.

Really good support for freedom of speech, kiddies!

Further, the excuses for banning its recitation are the most predictable, inexcusable pieces of crap -- the ones which keep coming up from the far left:

“That (‘under God’) part is sort of offensive to me,” student trustee Jason Bell, who proposed the ban, told Reuters. “I am an atheist and a socialist, and if you know your history, you know that ‘under God’ was inserted during the McCarthy era and was directly designed to destroy my ideology.”

Bell said the ban largely came about because the trustees didn’t want to publicly vow loyalty to the American government before their meetings. “Loyalty ought to be something the government earns through performance, not through reciting a pledge,” he said.

Further, they suffer from a really lame interpretation of the actual pledge. Precisely where in the Pledge of Allegiance does it say anything about fealty to the government? Oh, yeah. "And to the Republic..." Let's define that term, shall we? (definition's emphasis mine)

Republic:

1a. A political order whose head of state is not a monarch and in modern times is usually a president. b. A nation that has such a political order. 2a. A political order in which the supreme power lies in a body of citizens who are entitled to vote for officers and representatives responsible to them. b. A nation that has such a political order. 3. often Republic A specific republican government of a nation: the Fourth Republic of France. 4. An autonomous or partially autonomous political and territorial unit belonging to a sovereign federation. 5. A group of people working as equals in the same sphere or field: the republic of letters.

In the case of the United States of America, because we are a democratic republic, the "body of citizens" happens to be the voting public. In other words, by refusing to promise loyalty to the Republic, you are not merely refusing to support a government, but refusing to support your fellow Americans whose representative that government is. Duh.

The Pledge of Allegiance isn't about surrendering to the government. It's not about forcing everybody to believe in one single god in one single theological school of belief. It's about promising to uphold the American way of life. The promise is taken in the form of a salute and speech directed at the flag, a symbol of what this country and its way of life long have been. Of course, the silly little leftards were probably raised to think that the American way of life -- rule of law, fundamental freedom, human decency, and all that -- is a load of archaic crap, compared to the ever-successful socialist system that worked so well in Russia for all those years.

But let me try getting this through the thick skulls of those students and any nitwits who agree with them: YOU DON'T ACTUALLY HAVE TO RECITE THE "UNDER GOD" PART WHEN YOU RECITE THE PLEDGE. (Pardon my shouting. It just felt necessary.) I have been reciting the Pledge of Allegiance for nigh on 40 years, and for better than half of them, I've easily omitted the part where a deity is mentioned, because I have had doubts. Nevertheless, I guarantee others the opportunity to express their beliefs, at the same time. Barring another his right to speak these words is, uh, how can I put this clearly enough for these kids to understand? ... "directly designed to destroy [his] ideology."

I'm reading that Orange Coast College is a community college. That implies that it's taxpayer-funded. Hmm. If their students don't like being in our club, they don't have to receive federal money from those they have no apparent use for... try to deny your classmates the right to express their loyalty to their own countrymen, we'll yank your funding. Let the spoiled, silly leftist twits pay full tuition at a private school if they want to play against us.

Or, let them try the Russian/Cuban educational programs, if they dare.