House Protects God in Pledge of Allegiance

Well, I could easily get sucked into the stupid debate about whether we need "Under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance (we don't), or why on earth Congress is wasting time on something when they probably have more important things they could be working on. But instead, I wonder why we even have a Pledge of Allegiance at all, and further why we all but force little kids to say it everday. The whole notion of pledging your allegiance to the government everyday seems incredibly totalitarian, and definitely unAmerican.

If we actually had this debate, I have no doubt that most of the "Under God" crowd would angrily assert that of course we need a pledge, and suggest that if you're unwilling to pledge your allegiance to America, you must be a terrorist or something. But, let's face it, the pledge of allegiance isn't very important. If it was so important, shouldn't people be doing it on their own? But I don't know of anyone who ever does the pledge except when they're at some public event with some kind of opening ceremony. At my stepson's graduation recently, they said the pledge, but I can't remember the last time I heard it before that. Probably the last time I went to a school related event.

And even if the pledge was a wonderful and necessary thing for people to express their allegiance to a great country, why is it the main place it's used in schools? How many of you really understood what you were saying when you first learned it back as a kid? I'm sure at least half thought it was 'invisible' instead of 'indivisible.' And if we're making kids say it, who don't even understand what they're saying half the time, and probably don't care, either, doesn't that seem like some kind of indoctrination? Which to me, again seems unAmerican.

So I say we get rid of the pledge altogether, then we can get away from the stupid "Under God" debate, and move on to some other silly debate, instead.