Welcome to the national campaign headquarters of Dennis Kucinich, ladies and gentlemen: The Minnesota Daily. Also serving as the private editorial pages for the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, the Daily prides itself on accurate coverage, well-developed opinions and substantiated rhetoric, all in hopes of eliminating capitalism and imposing a communistic government in the near future.

Unfortunately, the Daily editorial board cannot seem to quite wrap its head around certain issues. National defense is a great example.

Personal responsibility is also an idea it has trouble grabbling. Other, more mind-blowing and “touchy” concepts such as religion and God – well, it just avoids those doozies all together.

On Monday, though, it went out of its way, just for its readers, to present the Daily’s opinion on separation of church and state in the editorial “Remove ‘under God’ from pledge.” As it told you then, the U.S. Supreme Court should eliminate “under God” from the pledge because it is a “de facto state endorsement of religion” and because “this board – and this country – has a duty to consider the rights of the minority.”

Yes, the board took the high road in considering the United States’ beaten and helpless minorities. Those poor atheists who have to listen to the Pledge of Allegiance and have to deal with the heart-wrenching blow of hearing “under God” every day get their sympathy. The fact that they can choose whether they want to stand, say the words, or even awaken from their last acid flashbacks really does not matter. What matters is protecting their rights!

Regrettably, rhetoric was just about all the board could come up with. It decided to avoid a discussion of the original intentions of the Founding Fathers because it believes conservative ideologues have destroyed every one of the founders’ condemnations of public expressions of religion in conjunction with the fascist Bush regime. The board also avoided discussing, for example, Thomas Jefferson’s “Sabbath breakers” bill of the mid-1770s, which, consistent with Christian philosophy, punished individuals who worked on Sundays. It also avoided Jefferson’s and James Madison’s joint proposal that aimed to allow the governor of Virginia to proclaim days of fasting and prayer for its residents, penalizing those ministers who did not hold services. It also avoided the common-sense argument that “God” is a reflection of the Judeo-Christian philosophy on which U.S. law was founded.

In all, the board just decided to bloviate a little, play some word games with the First Amendment, and do it all in its typical self-righteousness.

Now lately it has been hearing some criticism from some of those far right-wing fascist Nazi conservatives about being “unfair” and “out of touch” with the United States. A Daily reader recently informed the board that polls show that 90 percent of U.S. citizens want “under God” to remain in the pledge.

Some loony also told the board that the U.S. Senate unanimously (99-0) condemned the ninth circuit court’s decision that “under God” is unconstitutional. But, as we all know, such trivial things just do not matter on the Daily’s pages.

So thank you for your time and attention. Sometimes the editorial board needs to have reader misunderstandings and criticism clarified. After all, the board strives for nothing less than fair and developed opinions on its pages.

Darren Bernard is a Carlson School of Management first-year student. Send comments to [email protected]