Outsider to lobby for OLPC Down Under

The problem is we exported all of our democracy, so there's none left at home.

come and get me, TOS coppers!

TC --

;0)

PS -

I don't think it's a TOS violation unless the loss of democracy is God's fault.

Did we export it or did we outsource it?

> The UN almost seems to work compared to my own government.

You see more of your own government than you do the UN, number6x. If you could see them side by side, I'm afraid the UN would come out the worse, though probably not by a significant degree.

jdixon -

I suspect that the UN would come out worse, but probably less annoyingly so. Local government is responsible for lots of the things that make our everyday life go round: road repair, trash pickup, schools, law enforcement, etc.

The UN does some useful things, too, but is burdened with the yoke of international diplomacy -- ie, everybody's got a different national agenda -- and large sums of money made available -- and no accountability.

At least your local government is run by people who have to stand for election.

Quoting:The problem is we exported all of our democracy, so there's none left at home.

*sigh* Forgive me for being annoying... However, I need to point out that we are not a democracy (or rather, are not supposed to be). We are (supposed to be) a Constitutional Republic.

a Constitutional Republic:

for which it stands: one Nation under God, indivisible, With Liberty and Justice for all.

Anyone taken this apart yet to see where it got broken?

It's broken where if manages to exclude all of those people who are atheists

the following is the original pledge

I pledge allegiance to my Flag, and to the Republic for which it stands: one Nation indivisible, With Liberty and Justice for all.

Much more inclusive, as it also, by leaving out any mention of God at all, manages to include those who worship many Gods, or none at all.

tracyanne -

You must be confusing us with some other nation. No atheists are excluded here. It's the law.

and yet the current pledge includes only those who believe there is a God. No Atheist can honestly take that pledge, as it requires that one believe there is a God. Atheists don't belive there are such things, so they cannot believe that any nation is a Nation under God, they are excluded because the pledge assumes that anyone taking the pledge believes a Nation can be a Nation under the very thing an Atheist does not belive exists. That is why the original pledge is more inclusive.

So while it is true, to my knowledge that the US does not exclude Atheists, the current pledge by it nature is broken, as it does.

The "under God" bit was added in the '50s. The original pledge didn't include it. Our tax dollars and glorious elected representatives at work: http://www.slate.com/?id=2067499

thenixedreport, you are being annoying :). If you haven't heard the horrid phrase "exporting democracy" at least a million times in the past few years as an excuse for all manner of abuses, you haven't been paying attention.

TC...

That was added to keep those dern Godless communists from steeling our precious bodily fluids!

Now we borrow money from the communists to keep our government afloat! So maybe we should add a new line to the pledge to thank God for the communists!

I don't know how this got around to God ... but back to Mary Jo Foley. She's gotta be in bed with MS if only because that's what she's covering. But I find her to be very fair and critical enough about the way MS does business.

You can't expect her to be flying any sort of FOSS flag while covering the world's largest-by-far proprietary software company.

I think of Mary Jo as a 'Microsoft Insider'. She has an inside track and she won't print anything nasty about MS to compromise that.

But she's not quite a shill either.

Andy Inkhato used to be like that for Apple. I think the Performa line and a few other disasters at big red knocked some sense in him and he lets himself say bad things about Apple nowadays.

Maybe Vista will wake Mary Jo up from MS fairy tale land.

> So while it is true, to my knowledge that the US does not exclude Atheists, the current pledge by it nature is broken, as it does.

Except, of course, that no one is required to give the pledge any more.

I'm a lot more irritated by "indivisible" myself. The usual definition of a union includes the idea that it's voluntary. But that's a battle which was lost a long time ago.

Quoting:Except, of course, that no one is required to give the pledge any more.

That's actually not the point, the Question Helios asked is where was it broken.

Quoting:Anyone taken this apart yet to see where it got broken?

I answered that question.

rijel --

It looks like Nietzche had a better understanding of religion's place in the human fabric than most.

I keep hearing about religion causing wars and all kind of nastiness. The comment on the power of money transcending religion could as easily be expanded to the power of land, the power of , um, power, etc.

People have an uncanny power to corrupt anything for their purposes.

Quoting:So the great atheist and the son of God agree on something...if only people could see it more clearly.

I'd like to correct correct the unsupportable assumptions contained in this statement, but that would get us even further of subject.