US Air Force Sergeant Barred From Re-Enlisting Unless He Swears to God (article)

Originally posted by sh76
Oaths of all kinds, but especially those based on God or religion, are anachronistic.

As a practicing attorney, I guess you never see anyone lie on the stand after swearing on the Bible. 😵

The post that was quoted here has been removed

1) This US citizen does not lose all his US Constitutional rights just because
he joined the US military.
never said that. some are lost. some are diminished. i am not gonna explain the obvious again. just join the military and refuse to follow an order. i am sure they will simply fire you

2) The USA is supposed to have a constitutional separation of church and state.
this is not the case. it is simply an archaic rule that is yet to be removed. nobody is actually expecting got to stop helping should you break that oath. invoke this when the military consults priests on military plans.

3) and you will challenge this rule again and hope to change it. until then this ranks just below american baseball on my list of things i don't give a fuk about

4) and neither would he have had any adverse effects if he just said the damn thing. do you understand that this person jeopardized his career for 2 freakin words? do you have any idea what kind of a person would renounce serving his country over 2 words that through his own admission don't mean anything? what kind of a person would have no issue with killing another human being but drawing the line at saying what is basically a figure of speech that isn't taken seriously by most theists, let alone atheists.

it is exactly the same as me being required to say i love justin bieber in order to be hired.



"Some people regard taking oaths more seriously than Zahlanzi does.
Some people have gone into exile rather than take oaths of allegiance
to rulers or regimes who they believed were unworthy of their allegiance."
some people know how to make analogies that actually have some relevance to the topic at hand. Some people regard taking oaths more seriously than Zahlanzi does.
Some people have gone into exile rather than take oaths of allegiance
to rulers or regimes who they believed were unworthy of their allegiance.
a better analogy would be if he were required to say "so help me santa claus".


"As dramatized in Robert Bolt's play 'A Man For All Seasons', Sir Thomas More
(who was Lord Chancellor of England) gave up his power, his wealth, and
ultimately his life itself rather than take an oath in which he did not believe."
i am sure he had a much better reason than the soldier who wouldn't say a figure of speech.

The post that was quoted here has been removed

I think he meant that sh76 is a practising Attorney. A Man for all Seasons was one of the two plays we studied for my English literature O-level. Nice to be reminded.

Originally posted by Zahlanzi
"We aren't talking about someone refusing to follow orders"
right to free speech, right to own determination, right to freedom, i am pretty sure those are supposed to be constitutional rights. a soldier has restricted access to those. and in certain situations has none. just enlist, go to afghanistan then complain to someone that your constitutional rights ...[text shortened]... st obey orders. they have a different set of laws by which they are governed, and rightfully so.

I am too old to enlist in the British Army and, well, we don't have a constitution so I don't have any constitutional rights to be violated.

The constitutional issue is not that the soldiers rights are infringed by having to take the oath, but that the oath contains a reference to a god. If there is a separation between church and state there should be no compulsory reference to a god in the oath.

"they are one of the groups the constitution is specifically aimed at."
before i completely dismiss this as nonsense, how about you explain what you mean, maybe i am missing some subtlety

No you are not missing a subtlety it has an obvious meaning. The constitution is aimed at putting clear checks on the state, of which the military is a part, so they are one of the groups it is aimed at.

"they are the group which has the clearest means to seriously threaten democracy in the US"
yep, i agree. this however doesn't result from your previous statement.

It's not meant to follow from the previous point, it is additional to it.

"so they of all people should be scrupulous in observing its dictates"
yep, i agree. they should observe its dictates to the letter, when it comes to civilians. they should never interfere in governing, always be in service of their people.

they however do not enjoy the same privileges. they get court martialed, not judged by a civilian court, they do not get to leave wherever and whenever they want, they must obey orders. they have a different set of laws by which they are governed, and rightfully so.[/b]

I'm not aware of a clause in the US constitution exempting the military from giving the constitutional rights civilians enjoy to its servicemen and women.

Further this is a random rule change. The practice until recently was not to insist on the words "so help me God." at the end of the oath. Issues of constitutionality aside it is just plain stupid to push out experienced people because they take the oath they are required to make seriously.

Originally posted by DeepThought
I am too old to enlist in the British Army and, well, we don't have a constitution so I don't have any constitutional rights to be violated.

The constitutional issue is not that the soldiers rights are infringed by having to take the oath, but that the oath contains a reference to a god. If there is a separation between church and state there should ...[text shortened]... d to push out experienced people because they take the oath they are required to make seriously.

"If there is a separation between church and state there should be no compulsory reference to a god in the oath"
yes, i agree.


"The constitution is aimed at putting clear checks on the state, of which the military is a part, so they are one of the groups it is aimed at."
your premise doesn't lead in any way to the conclusion. the military has specific functions that, in order to perform them, require it's individuals give up certain right and have some reduced.


"I'm not aware of a clause in the US constitution exempting the military from giving the constitutional rights civilians enjoy to its servicemen and women. "
yet soldiers still do not get to leave wherever they want, they don't get to follow orders on a "if i feel like it" basis and if they break military laws, they are tried by a military court instead of a civilian one. do you understand now they have less rights than civilians? do you deny it?


"it is just plain stupid to push out experienced people because they take the oath they are required to make seriously"
i never denied that. it is very stupid. you are free to lobby to change it and you should. until then, if you want to military, you obey the rules.

The post that was quoted here has been removed

The post was addressed to sh76 who has said he is a practicing attorney. I have never boasted of superior ability in reading and writing English, only that I am better than you on both counts which isn't much really.

The post that was quoted here has been removed

No, I still disagree that my construction was incorrect. Others understood my meaning just fine. That is the purpose of written words. My object is not to become as stilted and unreadable as you are. by the way why do you embed words between asterisks? Is this a British form of punctuation?

The post that was quoted here has been removed

stop grammar nazi-ing him. of all the crap he states, you have to pick on the structure of a phrase.



and for the record, what you are saying makes no sense. it would mean that he tied the "as a practicing attorney" to the "i guess" sentence. why would anyone think he meant "i am guessing because i am a practicing attorney" ?

Originally posted by Zahlanzi
stop grammar nazi-ing him. of all the crap he states, you have to pick on the structure of a phrase.



and for the record, what you are saying makes no sense. it would mean that he tied the "as a practicing attorney" to the "i guess" sentence. why would anyone think he meant "i am guessing because i am a practicing attorney" ?

oh no, i have not used upper case letters to start a sentence.

oh no, i invented the word "gramma nazi-ing".

oh now, i started a sentence with "and"