California School District Approves 'In God We Trust' Classroom Displays

This has me seeing red. Absolutely awful, awful reasoning here:

I can't even begin to list the things that infuriate me here, but the modern conception of patriotism as a virtue unto itself rather than loyalty earned through good governance is always appalling to me.

To compound that mistake by conflating patriotism and the Christian faith is everything that makes me hate modern conservative politics.

I'm betting that by the end of the week the ACLU takes this to court. I can't even read the whole article because I get headaches when I deal with stupid/ignorant/etc. people.

That's the phrase that bugs me most. It's one of the most ignorant, self-righteous jingoistic crap I've heard in a long, long while.

There's something about people who believe the things advocated in the article that make me want to put a few knives in their faces.

*rubs eyes*

Did somebody airlift Alabama while I slept?

'In God We Trust' narrowly beat second-placed contender 'For Cthulhu We Wait' for the board's approval.

I would have voted "For Nothingness We Are Indifferent" myself.

There's your problem, right there. How can you trust anyone named Chad Vegas?

In Cthulhu We Trust.

I Pledge Allegiance To The Gods,
Of The Chaotic Realm Of The Old Ones,
And To The Gods,
For Which It Stands,
One Nation Under Cthulhu,
Indivisible,
Without Liberty And Injustice For All!

Well, Bakersfield is not exactly L.A. or S.F. It's a big hub for country music.

It shouldn't be there. That's what church (or whatever) is for.

Poison your kids with religion at home. School isn't the place for it, government shouldn't pay for it. You want to send them to religious school? Great, send 'em. If you can't afford it, then conservative logic dictates you're simply lazy and need to get a third job. Don't look for me to pay for it. Going to church (or whatever) on Sunday (or whatever) don't cost a damn thing (unless Xenu is in the mix). Get your God (or whatever) fix there.

Patriotism and religion - two really shitty tastes that are exponentially worse when combined. Democracy is founded on anti-patriotism and a fundamental distrust of one's country. Excessive patriotism is poisonous to democracy.

No.

Promote the truth.

If the true story of a country is worthy of admiration and respect, then admiration and respect will follow.

If it is not, then the solution is to make the country worthy of admiration and respect.

These people are fucking idiots.

What happened to 'E Pluribus Unum'? Did it upset the Libertarians too much?

Personally, I find No Child Left Behind and dullard outfits like Open Court / centralized learning materials production by cronies of the Bush administration / budget starvation to be a lot more offensive than God signs. We live in a country of infinite diversity because we're all basically illegal aliens (if you ask the Native Americans), so as a consequence to that there are going to be dominant and minority religions, and we all have to live with it and learn to deal with it, rather than pretending that these religious and ideological differences don't exist. Why pretend? If most people in Bakersfield are Evangelical Christians, a sign in a classroom isn't going to affect the overall social order - it's just more of the same.

This is an outrage of the most minute and unaffecting scale.

So should the students not be allowed to look at money while at school? Since "In God We Trust" is printed on that too?

The logic behind it is ridiculous -- indoctrinated patriotism is not patriotism at all -- but I don't think one phrase is going to be all that damaging. As a beach head, however, there's your danger.

Exactly. All the talk about minimal harm is missing the point. Yes, it's not a big deal. But, it's pretty much unconstitutional, and more importantly, it will affect the education of this next generation of children. Moreover, if its done one place, you can be certain it will be done in others. It also stands to reason that if they're going to take this sort of action, they're also going to be taking other sort of actions to indoctrinate the children of Bakersfield with these values. If public money weren't involved, I wouldn't care. But, this is an example of death by a million cuts, and we ought to be willing to stand on principle against it.

I find the comparison to No Child Left Behind odd, because NCLB is much less contemptible from a constitutional standpoint. That put aside, it's an easy program to get rid of...one act of the Federal Government, and it's a bad memory. Smaller, less noticeable issues like this are generally immune to that kind of action, which makes it all the more important that people be willing to fight them.

I definitely see a bigger picture in terms of the God signs being a beach head, but I'm saving my ire for the "intelligent design" debate. My citing of NCLB is that, to me, everything the Bush administration (and, to be fair, Reagan as well) has done to education in America has f***ed it more than a God sign has f***ed the Constitution.

Speaking of the Constitution, civics books across American public schools are made by only two publishers, both located in Texas, so named by Reagan. Is it any wonder that a percentage of this generation of lawyers and politicians have no understanding of the Constitution, with Gonzales going so far as to call it "quaint"?

As a person with two kids in public schools I can tell you that everything going on an an institutional level is anti-education, anti-learning and pro-homogenization. The best teachers my kids have had have been renegades who flout the mandates of NCLB and the McLessons they're ordered to teach whenever possible. Education in this country is in a deeply tragic state and people should just face up to the fact that kids' minds are more open to the advertisers bombarding them 24/7 and the worlds they enter in videogames than anything they might absorb in the classroom, and understandably so. Education has been beaten into a dull, blunt instrument that doesn't even have a passing acquaintance with the joy of learning.

So, the short answer is, I'd be much more apt to join a crusade if it had more to do with the quality of education in this country than a God sign in classrooms.