How far should the US take separation of Church and State?

[syntax252]

I eat more potato than steak, I'm still not a vegetation. Surely your not saying bigotry is ok so long as you have a larger flaw in your personality?

 

I am saying that McCarthy tried to get people into trouble because he thought they were communists, not because they were atheists.

 

I provided the evidence of the occurrence. Now your just trolling. For the sake of the image of Christianity, please show some decorum or common decency.

 

Decorum and common decency? You are tooooooooomuch.

[Coral Rhedd]

So glad you decided upon this ad hominem approach. It is what I expected you would do and actually what I hoped you would do. It allows me to explain something about family dynamics which you clearly do not understand.

 

Well' date=' first of all, I would say that your daughter displayed the very principals that I have been saying that kids are quite capable of--she resisted something that she considered to be wrong.

[/quote']

 

Yes, and she was punished for this by a teacher with the backing of the principal with the implicit backing of the community. The meaning of this is clearly something you prefer to ignore.

 

Secondly, how is it that you were so inaware of this situation where your daughter was diciplined for 3 months and you didn't know about it? Are you going to tell us that the same daughter who stood her ground before her teacher was somehow too intimidated to even tell her dad about it?

 

First, I am a mother not a dad. Second, I was not "inaware." Instead, I was unaware. Third, I chose this anonymous small Mormon community to hide out in when my daughter and I escaped her father who was sociopathic, manipulative, abusive, and who had provided me with some very definite evidence that he was planning upon killing us. I knew a Mormon community, since I was an adamant former LDS, was the last place my ex would think to look for me.

 

My daughter was not confiding anything to me at that time because she had learned the hard way that telling the truth about people who misuse their power only ends up in upheaval. In short, she was both a frightened and vulnerable child. She wasn't even confiding in her therapist at the time and she saw me -- the protective mother -- as the person who had caused her to have to move three times. Of course, I did this out of fear and desperation. It was not my intention to traumatize my daughter. She had already been traumatized enough.

 

Third, the problem was with the teacher, not with the color of the frog. According to the logic that you are attempting to promote here, the way to solve the issue would be to outlaw blue frogs in S. America. Is that what you want?

 

Of course the problem is with the teacher. The teacher chose to abuse her power. As a devout religious person in a homogenous community, the teacher would have had even more latitude to retailate against my child had my child chosen to sit during the pledge. Allow me also to say every morning in that classroom the children had a moment of silence during which the teacher instructed them that it would be a good idea if the they prayed.

 

I later learned that every year that teacher chose a non-Mormon child to pick on. The next year it was the child of a friend of mine who got The Treatment.

 

forth, teachers are indeed powerful forces in children's lives, but if their parents are paying attention, they should be able to intervene into such nonsense as you discribe before any harm is done. I will not ask why you failed on this occasion, but clearly, you did.

 

Don't worry. I am eager to enlighten you. I had previously attended the school open house and I had spoken with the teacher previously about my child's academic progress and behavior. The teacher said my child was "slow" but did her work and that she was very quiet and nonsocial. Since I couldn't get the information from my child, who was I to get it from?

 

Be careful when you level personal criticisms against people you don't know. Remember that you also do not know their circumstances.

 

I know more from personal experience about the abuse of power than you ever will. I know for instance that most people would rather pass judgement than solve problems. When others are victimized, many people look for reasons to blame the victim rather than correct the injustice. I am quite familiar with people like this. As a former victim avocate, as a public speaker on the subject of sexual abuse, as a CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocate for Children), as an independent contractor working with people with disabilities, and as a member of the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill and an advocate for people with mental illnesses, I see the abuse of power, the casual judgements, the lack of funding, the blaming, the indifference and the manipulation that the holier-than-thou-but-don't-ask-me-to-live-my-faith types of people inflict on others all the time.

 

I have done extensive research into the subject of child abuse and I know how often children are actually blamed for not speaking up. I know the limits of the power of children. I know how often their lives are destroyed by parents, teachers, and ministers, youth advisors, social workers, and that oh-so-friendly guy next door. If children should not be a protected class, then who should be?

 

You, however, clearly think they should shift for themselves.

 

I suggest you do a little research in the area of child psychology so that you understand the difference in relative power between children and adults.

[Coral Rhedd]

Mormons? Coffee break? What's wrong with this picture?

 

You're right. It is I who like coffee breaks! I meant "coffee breaks" in the generic sense as in "work break." I can remember when my daughter had a Mormon babysitter who poured her thermos of milk down the sink because drinking cold drinks was forbidden.

[syntax252]

So glad you decided upon this ad hominem approach. It is what I expected you would do and actually what I hoped you would do. It allows me to explain something about family dynamics which you clearly do not understand.

 

 

 

Yes' date=' and she was punished for this by a teacher with the backing of the principal with the implicit backing of the community. The meaning of this is clearly something you prefer to ignore.

 

 

 

First, I am a mother not a dad. Second, I was not "inaware." Instead, I was [b']unaware[/b]. Third, I chose this anonymous small Mormon community to hide out in when my daughter and I escaped her father who was sociopathic, manipulative, abusive, and who had provided me with some very definite evidence that he was planning upon killing us. I knew a Mormon community, since I was an adamant former LDS, was the last place my ex would think to look for me.

 

My daughter was not confiding anything to me at that time because she had learned the hard way that telling the truth about people who misuse their power only ends up in upheaval. In short, she was both a frightened and vulnerable child. She wasn't even confiding in her therapist at the time and she saw me -- the protective mother -- as the person who had caused her to have to move three times. Of course, I did this out of fear and desperation. It was not my intention to traumatize my daughter. She had already been traumatized enough.

 

 

 

Of course the problem is with the teacher. The teacher chose to abuse her power. As a devout religious person in a homogenous community, the teacher would have had even more latitude to retailate against my child had my child chosen to sit during the pledge. Allow me also to say every morning in that classroom the children had a moment of silence during which the teacher instructed them that it would be a good idea if the they prayed.

 

I later learned that every year that teacher chose a non-Mormon child to pick on. The next year it was the child of a friend of mine who got The Treatment.

 

 

 

Don't worry. I am eager to enlighten you. I had previously attended the school open house and I had spoken with the teacher previously about my child's academic progress and behavior. The teacher said my child was "slow" but did her work and that she was very quiet and nonsocial. Since I couldn't get the information from my child, who was I to get it from?

 

Be careful when you level personal criticisms against people you don't know. Remember that you also do not know their circumstances.

 

I know more from personal experience about the abuse of power than you ever will. I know for instance that most people would rather pass judgement than solve problems. When others are victimized, many people look for reasons to blame the victim rather than correct the injustice. I am quite familiar with people like this. As a former victim avocate, as a public speaker on the subject of sexual abuse, as a CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocate for Children), as an independent contractor working with people with disabilities, and as a member of the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill and an advocate for people with mental illnesses, I see the abuse of power, the casual judgements, the lack of funding, the blaming, the indifference and the manipulation that the holier-than-thou-but-don't-ask-me-to-live-my-faith types of people inflict on others all the time.

 

I have done extensive research into the subject of child abuse and I know how often children are actually blamed for not speaking up. I know the limits of the power of children. I know how often their lives are destroyed by parents, teachers, and ministers, youth advisors, social workers, and that oh-so-friendly guy next door. If children should not be a protected class, then who should be?

 

You, however, clearly think they should shift for themselves.

 

I suggest you do a little research in the area of child psychology so that you understand the difference in relative power between children and adults.

 

Well, thank you for the update.

 

First the typo. On my computer keyboard, the "I" is right next to the "U"--need I go further? Ad hom, anyone?

 

I am shocked that a teacher in a public school would stoop so low as to reccommend to a student that they might PRAY.

 

It goes without saying that this teacher should by tied to the nearest stake and roasted over a slow fire.

 

Now, since you seem to be so well connected in the area, what with being appointed by the court as an advocate for abused children, how is it that you find yourself in such a helpless position? You would have us believe that you are so very well versed in all the various intricacies of child abuse, yet you completely overlooked the signs of abuse in your own daughter?

 

Look, the law is on your side. No teacher in a public school can force a child to pray, say the pledge, or use the term "under God" if they choose to say it.

 

So WHERE IS THE BEEF? If you know enough people to get appointed to an advocates position, certainly you know enough to get a teacher fired or repremanded if that teacher is abusing children.

 

No?

[Coral Rhedd]

Well' date=' thank you for the update.

 

I am shocked that a teacher in a public school would stoop so low as to reccommend to a student that they might [b']PRAY.[/b]

 

It goes without saying that this teacher should by tied to the nearest stake and roasted over a slow fire.

:

 

Are you one of those who would violate the current law which does not allow teachers to suggest prayer? I think you are contradicting yourself all over the place. You deny that peer or institution pressure exists yet you imply that your beliefs are such that you might -- if you were in a teaching position -- be one of those people who would apply such pressure. True or false?

 

Now, since you seem to be so well connected in the area, what with being appointed by the court as an advocate for abused children, how is it that you find yourself in such a helpless position? You would have us believe that you are so very well versed in all the various intricacies of child abuse, yet you completely overlooked the signs of abuse in your own daughter?

 

You don't understand the dynamics of child abuse. I am not criticizing you for your ignorance. Most people don't. What is not excusable is that, since you can't blame the child, you resort to blaming the mother. This is the behavior I was speaking about in my previous post. Curious? You don't seem inclined to blame the perpetrators of abuse.

 

You also seem to now want to overlook the fact that the teacher who punished my child was a perpetrator of institutional abuse.

 

When it comes right down to it most abuse is pretty much alike. Someone who has power gets off on abusing someone who does not.

 

Just for your own mental edification and for the enlightenment of the rest of us, just what do you think the signs of abuse are?

 

Look, the law is on your side. No teacher in a public school can force a child to pray, say the pledge, or use the term "under God" if they choose to say it.

 

You did not read atinymonkey's source:

 

http://www.ffrf.org/awards/heroine/1998_durkee.php

 

The girl in this incident was fifteen years old. What if she had been seven?

 

So WHERE IS THE BEEF? If you know enough people to get appointed to an advocates position, certainly you know enough to get a teacher fired or repremanded if that teacher is abusing children.

 

You overestimate the power of people who would speak for the victims. I offer recommendations to the judge. I do not make the decision. I often deal with outcomes that are not very pretty. In the rather small city I live in two or three infants or toddlers die every year from abuse.

 

No? :confused

 

After my daughter's abuse, I became active in these issues. Before I was like any other trusting wife. Remember the marriage vows. Honor and obey and all that.

 

After I fled my husband. I educated myself and I attempted to rear my daughter in safety. My mother told me that my daughter's father remarried a woman with two daughters and they had another of their own. My daughter and I lived a sort of underground life for 14 years. This, in itself, was traumatic for both of us. You cannot work if you cannot use your Social Security number. We lived in abject poverty.

 

I kept my promise to my daughter: She never had to see her father again. He never found us. The courts, if they had had their way would have had her visiting him unsupervised in a matter of months.

 

Since then I have met other women like me. Underground women. Mostly, overtime their strength is totally depleted. It is hard to live with an ongoing emergency.

 

After you tell us what you think the signs of abuse are, tell us how long you think the recovery process is.

 

If you reply to my post please address the issues I have highlighted in red. Otherwise, let us not pretend we are having a dialogue.

[Coral Rhedd]

My previous post was edited to provide color for emphasis.

 

But since then I have been pondering one sentence from Syntax:

 

Well, thank you for the update.

 

Note the BIG GRIN after he thanked me for explaining about the abuse in my/my daughter's history.

 

As an English major with an interest in small instances in which people reveal their intent in language, I wonder why that BIG GRIN was added. Could it be he found the story I related funny?

[Coral Rhedd]

In general, it seems to me that the relationship between the power to abuse and the exercise of abuse rarely goes unexploited in areas where institutional power exists.

 

Our democratic way of life in the U.S. and the Consititution that protects it was created from a deep understanding that our founders had about the tendency for government to tyrannize. It is true that when it was drafted that for census purposes slaves were only recognized as 1/5 of a person and were not allowed to vote at all. Nor were women allowed to vote.

 

Overtime these rights were added. First blacks got the vote after a bloody and divisive civil war and many years later women won this same right. Why did this take so long? Because the people that held power over these people did not want them to have this voice.

 

This nation is nothing if it does not continue to expand its constitutional protections to minorities. Atheists are a minority. Agnostics are a minority. No power has ever been lightly surrendered by those that hold it. At issue with the pledge is whether children (relatively powerless folk) who hold atheistic, agnostic, or religious view that do not encompass the word God are de facto forced to make this avowal by teachers and school systems and, by extention, the state and federal governments. This is an abuse of power. The words "under God" should be stricken from the pledge.

 

Some would argue that you cannot help being a woman or being born black and therefore protections for these people who sometimes suffer discrimination should remain. I would argue that as important as these protections are, nothing is more fundamental to us as individuals than how we think. If we cannot think and believe as we choose, if at a young age, when easily pressured and influenced, these rights are thwarted, then this is an abuse of power that needs to be corrected.

[Mart]

As an English major with an interest in small instances in which people reveal their intent in language, I wonder why that BIG GRIN was added. Could it be he found the story I related funny?

I think your post #130 is important. It's full of feeling. Some people find that uncomfortable or they just don't get it (immaturity, lack of relevant experience, etc). Also folk on this forum have all sorts of intentions. Some want to fool around and play trivial games others seek help with important issues. I think you're correct about the subtle way the use of language can reveal intention, somewhat like body language.

[Coral Rhedd]

Thanks Mart. I was hoping it wouldn't be seen as excessively vigilant. I always think it is nicer to have a dialogue than an argument.

[syntax252]

Are you one of those who would violate the current law which does not allow teachers to suggest prayer? I think you are contradicting yourself all over the place. You deny that peer or institution pressure exists yet you imply that your beliefs are such that you might -- if you were in a teaching position -- be one of those people who would apply such pressure. True or false?

 

 

 

You don't understand the dynamics of child abuse. I am not criticizing you for your ignorance. Most people don't. What is not excusable is that' date=' since you can't blame the child, you resort to blaming the mother. This is the behavior I was speaking about in my previous post. Curious? You don't seem inclined to blame the perpetrators of abuse.

 

You also seem to now want to overlook the fact that the teacher who punished my child was a perpetrator of institutional abuse.

 

When it comes right down to it most abuse is pretty much alike. Someone who has power gets off on abusing someone who does not.

 

Just for your own mental edification and for the enlightenment of the rest of us, just what do you think the signs of abuse are?

 

 

 

You did not read atinymonkey's source:

 

http://www.ffrf.org/awards/heroine/1998_durkee.php

 

The girl in this incident was fifteen years old. What if she had been seven?

 

 

 

You overestimate the power of people who would speak for the victims. I offer recommendations to the judge. I do not make the decision. I often deal with outcomes that are not very pretty. In the rather small city I live in two or three infants or toddlers die every year from abuse.

 

 

 

After my daughter's abuse, I became active in these issues. Before I was like any other trusting wife. Remember the marriage vows. Honor and obey and all that.

 

After I fled my husband. I educated myself and I attempted to rear my daughter in safety. My mother told me that my daughter's father remarried a woman with two daughters and they had another of their own. My daughter and I lived a sort of underground life for 14 years. This, in itself, was traumatic for both of us. You cannot work if you cannot use your Social Security number. We lived in abject poverty.

 

I kept my promise to my daughter: She never had to see her father again. He never found us. The courts, if they had had their way would have had her visiting him unsupervised in a matter of months.

 

Since then I have met other women like me. Underground women. Mostly, overtime their strength is totally depleted. It is hard to live with an ongoing emergency.

 

After you tell us what you think the signs of abuse are, tell us how long you think the recovery process is.

 

If you reply to my post please address the issues I have highlighted in red. Otherwise, let us not pretend we are having a dialogue.

 

 

No, if I were a teacher, I would not reccommend that my students pray, however, to harp on that as an act of abuse, in my opinion, speaks volumns about your lack of unerstanding as to what constitutes abuse.

 

I think this whole issue is blown completelt out of proportion in the hope that the general public will hear the word "aduse" often enough to actually believe that abuse is occuring.

 

The story about abused children will garner the sympathy that you and the rest of the anti religious community require to get your agenda passed into law, and it matters not to you and your kind that the truth is the only thing being abused here.

 

You obviousely have a problem with your ex husband, and I suspect with the court system because they didn't throw him into a deep dark dungion and throw away the key.

 

There is nothing that I or anyone can do about your previous problems, but you can be pretty sure that we won't change the constitutional right to practice our religions as we please, just because you made some bad choices in your past.

[Phi for All]

The story about abused children will garner the sympathy that you and the rest of the anti religious community require to get your agenda passed into law' date=' and it matters not to you and your kind that the truth is the only thing being abused here.

 

You obviousely have a problem with your ex husband, and I suspect with the court system because they didn't throw him into a deep dark dungion and throw away the key.

 

There is nothing that I or anyone can do about your previous problems, but you can be pretty sure that we [b']won't[/b] change the constitutional right to practice our religions as we please, just because you made some bad choices in your past.

Poke enough people with that insensitivity stick and I'm sure you're going to end up on everyone's ignore list. Ignorance is one thing, but choosing to ignore someone's opinions deliberately and continuing to argue without taking them into consideration is trolling. Please be warned.

[Mart]

No' date=' if I were a teacher, I would not reccommend that my students pray, however, to harp on that as an act of abuse, in my opinion, speaks volumns about your lack of unerstanding as to what constitutes abuse.

[/quote']

Give us one sentence (long if you wish) from one page in the volumes you speak about that shows evidence of a lack of understanding.

[syntax252]

Give us one sentence (long if you wish) from one page in the volumes you speak about that shows evidence of a lack of understanding.

 

I was alluding to the fact that she insists upon referring to the fact that kids in school might somehow be "abused" if their clasmates recited a voluntary pledge of allegience that included the words "under God."

[atinymonkey]

I was alluding to the fact that she insists upon referring to the fact that kids in school might somehow be "abused" if their clasmates recited a voluntary pledge of allegience that included the words "under God."

Clearly Coral did not state that.

 

Step off the anger bus, and relax. I think everybody should calm down a little, Coral has posted a lot of information to absorb and it's probably better to give it the due amount of time before posting a reply.

[syntax252]

Poke enough people with that insensitivity stick and I'm sure you're going to end up on everyone's ignore list. Ignorance is one thing, but choosing to ignore someone's opinions deliberately and continuing to argue without taking them into consideration is trolling. Please be warned.

 

Well, if the participants of this forum are sensitive enough that they can't handle a little opposition to their ideas, so be it.

[Coral Rhedd]

Poke enough people with that insensitivity stick . . .

 

Still laughing. You made my day. I am busy visualizing and it ain't pretty. Sometimes a cigar ain't a cigar.

[syntax252]

Clearly Coral did not state that.

 

Step off the anger bus' date=' and relax.[/quote']

 

Nobody is angry here that I know of except those who are not going to get what they want--a complete dismemberment of the Constitution.

 

Certainly I am not angry, Hell I enjoy this sort of thing.

[Coral Rhedd]

Certainly I am not angry' date=' Hell I enjoy this sort of thing. [/quote']

 

Oh yes. We can definitely tell.

 

But I want you to understand something: I could not possibly be angry with someone like you, nor can you hurt me. I already know you.

[syntax252]

I

 

This nation is nothing if it does not continue to expand its constitutional protections to minorities. Atheists are a minority. Agnostics are a minority. No power has ever been lightly surrendered by those that hold it. At issue with the pledge is whether children (relatively powerless folk) who hold atheistic' date=' agnostic, or religious view that do not encompass the word God are de facto [b']forced[/b] to make this avowal by teachers and school systems and, by extention, the state and federal governments. This is an abuse of power. The words "under God" should be stricken from the pledge.

 

.

 

No one is trying to deny atheists their rights. It is the other way around. It is the atheist that is telling the religious person that they must not exercise thair constitutional right to express their beliefe in God.

 

As I have said repeatedly, when and if the USSC rules that the words "under God" is a promotion af a religion, then that will be the case. Until then--they haven't and it ain't.

[syntax252]

Oh yes. We can definitely tell.

 

But I want you to understand something: I could not possibly be angry with someone like you' date=' nor can you hurt me. I already know you.[/quote']

 

What in God's name made you think that I wanted to hurt you?

 

Or anyone else, for that matter.

 

I am beginning to have a little sympathy for your ex.

[Mart]

I was alluding to the fact that she insists upon referring to the fact that kids in school might somehow be "abused" if their clasmates recited a voluntary pledge of allegience that included the words "under God."

If it was voluntary and there were no reprisals then no abuse. But if it was an expectation then it could be an indicator of abuse.

[Coral Rhedd]

I am beginning to have a little sympathy for your ex.

 

I knew you would.

[Coral Rhedd]

No one is trying to deny atheists their rights. It is the other way around. It is the atheist that is telling the religious person that they must not exercise thair constitutional right to express their beliefe in God.

 

You belief depends upon your ability to recite the pledge?

[Hellbender]

Fo you even know who Senator McCarthy was?

I ikinow enough, let me say that. SInce I learned about him in history class, and also read many of this alcoholic's quotes, I think I do know who he is.

[Hellbender]

"Member" syntax252 suspended for 3 days. Suggested use of time: shop for a heart, Tin Man.

 

Thank you. i was getting tired of repeating the same thing to this person over and over again in response to his one-sided argument.