Government

Orange Coast College Student Government Gets Rid of the Pledge

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There will be no more reciting of the pledge of allegiance at Orange Coast College student government meetings:

Student leaders at a community college voted to drop the Pledge of Allegiance after a tense meeting in which one flag-waving pledge supporter berated them as anti-American radicals.
Orange Coast College’s student trustees voted Wednesday not to recognize the pledge, with three of the five board members saying it should be dropped from their meetings.
Board member Jason Ball argued that the pledge inspires nationalism, violates the separation between church and state with the phrase “under God,” and is irrelevant to the business of student government.

To which Edwonk suggests:

Since these student “leaders” have taken it upon themselves to make a “statement” by rejecting the United States Flag, I wonder if these same student “leaders” would be willing to make an even bigger “statement” by rejecting all government-supplied financial aid as well.

Nope, not until the government stops collecting the funds used for financial aid via taxation.

Update (11/21/06): It’s back for now:

At an intense two-and-a-half-hour meeting in the faculty lounge, the student trustees listened to — and often expressed — passionate opinions both for and against making the pledge an official item. In the end, by a 3-2 vote, the board opted to reinstate the pledge as an “opportunity” for any attendees who wish to recite it and promised to hold a forum or take an opinion poll in the near future to determine students’ feelings on the matter.
“In my view, this is a fair compromise,” said student body president Lynne Riddle, who suggested the compromise that the trustees accepted but is not a voting member of the board. “I feel strongly still that the board made no mistake. However, we have heard additional voices from students and the community.”

If they can create an environment that supports those who do and those who don’t choose to recite the pledge great. If not, then eliminating it was the correct choice.

Haven’t Voted Yet?

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Go now and fling them out!

These are not people you want to have practically unchecked power.
The counterargument is that the Democrats will be gutless and no real threat to the security state the GOP has spent four years building. I think that’s probably true. However, there is still one principle worth upholding: throw the bums out. Voting is like being strapped into a high chair and offered a couple of bowls of mush. The one useful way to communicate is to fling whatever they made you eat yesterday against the wall. Go now and fling.

Yep, the republicans need to be thrown out.

Unfortunately, no matter who wins we will, for the most part, still be stuck with democrats or republicans.

Give Us Some Congressional Accountability

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Accountability?
This is not something that our congress critters seem to want. Not accountability, not the transparency provided by public debate of the legislation they choose to enact.
If a given piece of legislation or a specific appropriation is important enough that federal congressional action is appropriate then it seems it should be important enough to be debated and voted upon as a single issue, as a single appropriation.
Congress should eliminate earmarks and eliminate amendments unrelated to a primary bill. Any piece of legislation should address one and only one issue. For example, the recently enacted and signed internet gambling legislation should not have been part of the port security legislation. As Declan McCullagh notes:

If this happened only rarely, perhaps we could forgive our elected representatives for gluing unrelated amendments onto a proposal that’s destined to become law. (With a tight election just weeks away, how many politicians have the mettle to vote against “port security”?)
But the problem is that the technique has become commonplace, meaning that even the sniping sessions that have come to define debate in the U.S. Congress are bypassed. Voters also lose a chance to learn how our supposed public servants vote on specific topics, rather than on a 300-page bill with scores of unrelated components.
Which, of course, is precisely the point. Because politicians dislike being held accountable for their actions–specific votes can be compiled into embarrassing scorecards and inconvenient voting records–they prefer to lump everything together. The U.S. Senate Web site offers an official definition of the practice: a “Christmas tree bill,” meaning unrelated amendments that adorn legislation.

For more examples of Christmas tree bills see the rest of Declan’s post.

If congress is unwilling to hold their debates, to pass legislation in the light of public scrutiny then we must ask who congress represents and whether congress should be allowed to continue to exist as it currently operates.

The american taliban Expands Its Reach

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The us congress has passed legislation which prohibits US banking institutions from processing credit card and funds transfer transactions by once free residents of the United States with internet gambling companies.
dictator bush is expected to sign the legislation.
Much gambling is pretty much a waste of money if not outright theft and I don’t participate in any kind of internet gambling and don’t anticipate doing so. However, free people make their own choices.
Governments, if they have any role at all, protect free people from those who would physically harm them, defraud them, steal from them, etc. They do this by demonstrating in an open court that some person or business has performed one of these acts and they assure that proper restitution is made.
Does anyone else expect the stock of British and other international banks to rise a bit as folks move some of their money to foreign banks which the us governement can not control?
I think I’ll open a British account and start using it for some of my infrequent debit/credit card transactions (I use cash for most of my in person purchasing). Does anyone have guidance on how to open an overseas account?

The way things are going financial diversification may become even more important.