Why not renounce your ethnic race? It's not important anyway.

Racism is a ploy to disengage or criminalize as many whites as possible, as they fear white voters. Tehy feel they can, as in the past, dupe the blacks, so they use them, as they always have. Even a good percentage of black know what is up, they are fooling themselves into thinking they are so cleer. This group has never done anything for blacks, never will, they will kill them off with vaccines when they no longer need them, why else the vaccines with birth control for Africa only? The Pope got it tested!.

Aside from the incompatibility of Objectivism and religion on core principles, on a simple practical level the problem with introducing any given religious clause into any intellectual article - be it a constitution, a piece of legislation, a pledge - is that if your context is an individualist, just and free society, then its constitution, every law that emanates from it, and even things like a pledge whose recitation is required of kids, must be universally applicable.

The second you introduce Your Favorite Religious Element into the mix, you have thereby made that constitution, that law, that required teaching, a component of a particular faction, i.e., not universally applicable to all individual citizens of that nation. You also create a situation ripe for protracted - nay, endless - warfare between religious factions, each striving to make its religious beliefs dominant within government. For a vivid example of this, see the entire history of the Middle East; for a detailed and pithy examination of it in the general format of a Socratic dialog, see C.F. Volney's 1791 work "The Ruins; or, Meditation on the Revolutions of Empires."

The issue of the Pledge of Allegiance is only a problem in context of the unaddressed injustice which makes it a problem: The continued absence of a necessary (and ultimately achievable) Separation of Education and State. Once we have eliminated all government involvement in schools and all schools are a matter of individual choice (or refusal, for those who would choose homeschooling - which generally speaking is vastly superior in any case,) people can choose a school that recites the original pledge, or a school that recites the pledge with "under god" added, or a school that recites no pledge at all.

This idea - 100% decentralized and 100% privatized schools, for as vast a variety, brands and choice among curricula, foci and "options" as we have for hotels, restaurants, insurance agencies, car tires, microbrews, athletic shoes, novels, albums, fast foods, house paint, clothing, or any other product you can imagine - clarifies the distinction I believe America's Founders understood as a given and were trying to communicate to the world, with only partial success: A truly- and strictly - universal constitutional and legal foundation is not only conducive to the harmonious "coexistence" (to use a loaded leftwing-bumpersticker term) of a multitude of otherwise incompatible beliefs, it is essential to it.

Put differently, given equal treatment under the law, there can be harmonious societal coexistence between people who are religious and people who are atheist. An Aristotelian, atheistic metaphysical foundation is no imposition on religious belief in the public realm - so long as we do not see government agents violating the First Amendment's free exercise clause as we have been seeing in recent months; to the extent that religious beliefs foster an advocacy of individual sovereignty and a generalized concept of "goodness" in the public realm - and assuming these people understand the just prohibition of any imposition of religious strictures or "goodness" unrelated to the criterion of human rights - there is no imposition on nonbelievers. But the vital, indispensable foundation must be a constitutional and legal framework that is rooted in the universal value of man's life as an individual, rational being - regardless of particular beliefs beyond that core.

In his "Notes on the State of Virginia" Jefferson put it in terms far more concise than I'll ever manage: "The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. It does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg."

To religious people who are interested and open-minded enough to investigate this vital distinction, I cannot recommend highly enough the 1975 work titled "The Enlightenment in America" by Ernest Cassara. I believe it's currently out of print but is relatively easy to find at Amazon, Alibris, Allbookstores, etc. for less than the cost of one beer at the airport. It has no particular axe to grind; it simply presents a concise but thorough history of the intellectual context for America's Founding, taken from the voluminous writings of those Founders - on this still-contentious issue of how to develop and maintain a government that is truly universal, a government that provides for the harmonious coexistence of all beliefs within its nation's borders without advocating for any particular one of those beliefs - aside from the facts of man's metaphysical nature, his individualism and his human rights.
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I am talking about school shootings being less frequent and less mall shootings vs Oblamo

All this crazy stuff is meant to distract the political opposition while they load the deep state with their people. The Justice Department has already been corrupted. Now they're going to work on the military and train them to go after citizens who in their opinion exhibit traits of "domestic terrorists".

But you are NOT free to say "under god" in the pledge of allegiance.

Far less frequent? I would need some unbiased data source, as it seemed there were always an event of some type. Either social jiggering, some social outrage, or some violent outbreak. Portland riots? Antifa? BLM? All engineered.

Well said.
Neither a morality of altruism nor a morality of religion is necessary or desirable. The basis is much simpler.
Yet both of the former can be compelling.

What causes so many to come to the Gulch who are supernaturalists believing that somehow Objectivism is compatible with a belief in a god or even with Jefferson's bible scrubbed of the supernatural. A morality of altruism is not compatible with Objectivism.

Patriotism is not due to unifying with pledges and flags. That only produces a populous ready to be ruled. Patriotism is the result of freedom for the citizens of a country.
Too many citizens are too intellectually lazy to be comfortable as individuals.

These incidences during Trumps Presidency were far less frequent than during Obama/buy-dem and the start of buy-dem/Whoris admins!

It all seems to relate to the progress. So many ff ops have timed perfectly to efforts to disarm. Since listening to any politician is sickening and waste, I dont know if their efforts are moving. Just the fact Schumer and obamanation all barked day after confirmed collusion for me.

I say in a week ...just guessing of course. Probably someone that has been interviewed by a 3 letter agency , I like to go with the odds.

Welcome to being really "woke" This has been going on for years now, much is staged so as to set in motion a chain of events, and that is why there are so many inconsistencies usually found, often pawned off as "conspiracy theories" so as to negate them. Sexual harassment, racism, guns, all used to manipulate and distract. Amazing, I predicted a major gun incident a week before colorado, right after georgia, I am predicting 1 in the next 2-3 weeks based on how well their gun theft goes in the congress they run. Lets see....

Look, you guys are welcome to your beliefs, and they can be as important to you as you choose.

You are not welcome, or likely, to force anyone to Christian beliefs or Christian-based legislation. Sorry. The Christian version of Kasrut or Sharia is never coming to the US, and it should not.

You can say "god" and "christian" as many times as you like, and expect to gather interest from people who are already in agreement with you, and expect, virtually 100% to bring no additional supporters into alignment. Congratulations! Welcome to one of the biggest problems Republicans have now, and an excellent future being angry sitting in front of the TV, computer or on the porch.

Not sure if you realize, but Ayn was an atheist. She was not perfect, but this is not Fallwell's Gulch.

Figured that was for me.

This was to you Thoritsu. I think God means everything to some of us But you are free to believe your way and i am free to disagree with you.

I beg to differ with you. George Washington dedicated this country to God!

As he left the Oval Office, Gen. Eisenhower also said, 'Beware of the scientific leaders!' Famous last words.

... or more distracted and sensorily overloaded than before! Good thing we can get our biases more confirmed among ostensibly kindred minds!

No need to read the classic old script, beautiful and precise though it is, to have access to the contents of the Constitution. Plenty of printed versions around, if you trust the type-setters not to mess up. Also, cursive is a left-over from ink pens--quills--that drip if you lift them off the paper, so you need to make continuous lines. My sensible high school English teacher made us write all our papers with printed letters, with correct upper and lower case, not block print like Facebook screamers. Who can read Chaucer these days? Penmanship once upon a time was an art, a skill that got marks on your report card. Who can read today's scrawls--the postal clerk? I can foresee dictating to a robot who can execute the written form in any style you ask for. The next thing to go will be paper...

It’s about causing division and strife. One group strikes out against another. Now Big Daddy government has to step in to keep everyone SAFE.
It’s why I say beating up the purple haired kid down the road for holding a BLM sign during the 4th of July Parade accomplishes nothing. Except giving the powers that shouldn’t be a reason to abridge freedoms.
Do NOTHING until you’re justified to do EVERYTHING.
And realize that the enemy of your enemy is your friend. We can argue about Belief and Moral Absolutes vs Objectivity later. We’ll have time to beat each other over the head with Bibles and Atlas Shrugged later. Right now if a group is not actively trying to put you in jail they’re the good guys.

This is clever, but just an unsupported assertion.

I fight for individual freedom, because that is the fairest and best for all. No need for religion to support this position, whatsoever. Logic and natural rights are all that is necessary, and bulletproof.

No one needs the rest of the nonsense that comes with religion, banning consensual gay relationships, suggestive clothing, aborting 32 cells, buying liquor on Sunday, denying the Earth revolves around the sun, on and on.

If we do not do all in our power to hold onto Belief we loose it all faster for Hope is what keeps one foot in from of the other, reason to fight for what is right and carry on for our family.

Belief is a very fragile foundation. I hope that is not so.

As allegory, fine. As foundation, unacceptable. Even worse than climate change.