I see a lot of these kinds of pictures on the intertubes…
First, this is very poorly worded and so it leaves us with ambiguity. Do they mean, if you don’t like the phrase “One nation under God”, then leave. If you don’t like the fact that the phrase is in our pledge, then leave the country. If you don’t agree that the United States of America is one nation under God, then leave the country. I don’t know.
What I assume, because this is the common thread for many of these people, is that they (Christians) are true patriots and only they (Christians) love the USA and the liberals and everyone else who doesn’t love the USA and God should leave the country. This is stupidly hilarious for several reasons.
First, of course, is the simple fact that the USA is not a “Christian Nation”. This has been done to death on the internet and I’ll happily supply anyone who needs them with books, references, peer-reviewed research, etc. that supports that statement.
Second, the thought that only Christians/Conservatives really love the USA and everyone else should get out… The USA was founded on the idea of FREEDOM. Freedom of Speech, freedom of religion (including as many court cases have shown, freedom FROM religion). Freedom to come and go as you please. The freedom that anyone of any race, color, or creed can come to this country and have chance at a better life… you know, that “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness” stuff. This country is a melting pot. The point of the country is to have a diversity of ideas. These people who claim to love the USA don’t want all the things that this country was based on.
Look at what our diversity has brought us. In little over two hundred years, we’ve gone from a tiny colony of an equally tiny nation to one of the premiere nations on the planet. The USA has put a man on the moon, no one else has. We could have built the Large Hadron Collider two decades ago, but we (our idiot congress) decided not to. We have done, in less than 200 years, what countries that are thousands of years old still haven’t done. Yet, these people don’t want that… they want the USA to be just like Iran.
Finally, what these people are basically saying (and this is just a tie in of the first two) that if you aren’t Christian and love the USA (in a conservative platonic way), then get out. The USA would be so great if it weren’t for all the blacks, Hispanics, Asians, American Indians, homosexuals, liberals, communists, socialists, pagans, witches, transsexuals, women, Jews, Muslims, atheists, scientists, intellectuals, skeptics, and all the other groups that the conservative cliques of this country hate (and fear).
These people aren’t patriots. Anytime someone tells anyone in the USA what to do, what to think, how to act, or what to believe, they are not patriots. These United States of America was founded on the ideas of tolerance, diversity, and acceptance of all. It’s taken a long time (too damned long) to get us even to this point, but it’s still not enough. There are people who want to bring us back to the days when women and minorities had no rights.
So, when you see someone posting these kinds of signs, ask them why they hate the USA so much? Why are they willing to throw away the one unique thing about this country and change the way this country has functioned for over 200 years?
Then ask them what their ideal country is like. I bet it really resembles Iran or other places with a state sponsored, single religion, no rights for anyone but Caucasian males and complete control by the religion.
