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Reply to ""In God We Trust""

quote:
Originally posted by Renegade Nation:
quote:
Originally posted by beternU:
Renegade Nation,

You quoted the first amendment as though it proved YOUR point, which it decidedly does NOT.

I can not for the life of me understand why anyone wants to trust the government, in the form of local public school administrators who ARE, without question, an element of GOVERNMENT, to decide when school children shall pray, where they shall pray, what form of address they shall make to the Deity (and which deity, for that matter), and what to pray for or about. THAT is not the role of school administrators or teachers. Yes, they got away with that in many schools for many years, but that does not make it constitutional. The First Amendment, which you quoted, is what prevents government from prescribing the times, places and contents of student prayers in public schools. If you wish to say a prayer, go ahead right now and thank your God that the Constitution prevents such government meddling in the spiritual lives of school children.


And yet another example of beternU missing the point and failing reading comprehension.

This issue like many others were originally to be left to local communities specificallybecause the founders did not trust the government.

The issue isn't whether or not I want school prayer or whatever, it's about government accountability. The founders understood that the more the government was decentralized the more accountablility the people would have. The more centralized, the more power is transfered from the people to the central government.


Whether as a result of decentralization of government or for some other reason, the evolution in this nation of the practice of allowing public school administrators and teachers to prescribe and control the conduct of religious exercises in public school classrooms was wrong, and was unconstitutional.

You said this:

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise rhereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

You chose to highlight ""prohibiting the free exercise thereof,"presumably because you consider the conduct of public school classroom religious activity by public school administrators as some kind of "free exercise" of religion. I can think of no other reason for your wanting to emphasize that clause. Now you tell me, Oh champion of individual freedom--
what kind of freedom of expression did Doug, Seymour, or Joan, the little Jewish kids in my 4th-grade public school classroom, have during the reading of the New Testament and the recitation of a Christian prayer, as they, Jews from traditionally Jewish families, were required to stay in that church-like atmosphere of the classroom while a religious exercise was underway that was contrary to their beliefs?

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