Daily Archives: 19 September 2017

Our Pledge of Allegiance and God

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A Detroit teacher is forced onto leave now because she forced a student to stand for the class’ routine recital of our Pledge of Allegiance.  Used to be, such disrespect was handled in exactly this way, and quite properly so.

The boy actually had a good reason, though, even if he misunderstood what the pledge of allegiance is about:

God said don’t worship anything other than me, don’t worship any idols, and pledging to a flag would kind of be like worshiping it[.]

It’s certainly true that our pledge opens with a pledge of allegiance to our flag, then moving on to our Republic.  However, it’s no violation of God’s injunction to have no other gods before him, nor is it a violation of His injunction to worship no graven images.

The pledge demands no worship, only loyalty, allegiance, to our nation.  The flag is no graven image; it’s a symbol of our nation—for which it stands—not of any god.

This is a missed teaching opportunity.  It was missed by the teacher, who was inarticulate in this particular moment, and it was missed by a stupefying margin by the school’s administration, which plainly doesn’t even understand the question.

This also is an illustration of the shabby condition of our public schools today.

What Else?

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Adjunct Professor Michael Issacson at the John Jay College, a part of the City University of New York system and a used-to-be prestigious school has expressed his disdain for and hopes for violence against police officers, tweeting

He then showed he meant it, telling the New York Daily News regarding his tweet,

Oh, that s—?  Everybody dies.

The college management’s response?  President Karol Mason in her press release:

I want to state clearly that I was shocked by these statements. They are abhorrent.  This adjunct expressed personal views that are not consistent with our college’s well-known and firm values and principles and my own personal standards and principles. I am appalled that anyone associated with John Jay, with our proud history of supporting law enforcement authorities, would suggest that violence against police is ever acceptable.

Fine sounding words, but what has she actually done to show they’re not just idle chit-chat?  She closed her presser with this:

The safety of our students, faculty and staff is our top priority. Today, members of the John Jay faculty received threats, and our students expressed concerns for their safety in the classroom. Out of concern for the safety of our students, faculty and staff, we are immediately placing the adjunct on administrative leave as we continue to review this matter.

Notice that.  Isaacson is put on “administrative leave” for the school’s sake, not because Isaacson did anything wrong in the eyes of school management.  Apparently, he didn’t.  Idle chit-chat, indeed.

Beside that, Isaacson is an adjunct professor, and he can be fired at will at any time.  Even a tenured professor could be fired over this; it clearly would be a violation of his terms of office.

Administrative leave.

Aside: it’s interesting that Isaacson’s implied threat was made late last month, but the NLMSM is only just starting to report on it.  In limited fashion.