The Pledge

I am a strong supporter of the movement to make the pledge obsolete, or at least secular. There are many different problems with this seemingly patriotic, time-honored tradition;


1. It's often portrayed as a historical tradition of the US to say the pledge, although it's just over 100 years old. Now as old as that sounds, keep in mind that the current phrasing is about 50 years old, and that the most recent addition is the phrase 'under god'. This was added by a congressional council during the red scare, so one may say it wasn't thought through as much as should have been.  The origin of the idea of placing those words in the pledge comes from a Catholic organization in the 1950s. They added it, and soon after it was brought to the president's attention as a way to individualize the nation, as if we are the only country with a majority of Christians...


2. Attempts to edit or eradicate the pledge have been struck down as unpatriotic, or avoided using loopholes, as is the case  Elk Grove Unified School District v. Newdow, a trial in which a father of a girl who was being taught the pledge sued the school for unjustly promoting exclusive monotheism in a public school, and his attempt was rejected because he wan't the custodial parent of the child, completely side-stepping the issue of whether or not the practice is constitutional.


 The idea of having schoolchildren recite the pledge, in my mind, is largely detrimental to the meaning of these word. Many children and teens don't say it at all, or say it half-assed, because it's like a daily chore to them, a short, boring sentence that means very little to them and is certainly in no way important or patriotic. I am a freshman in high school, and when they announce the pledge, maybe four or five actually say it, more just stand up and mumble. Me?, I stand up and think about what the country means to me, and as sappy as that sounds, I really wouldn't want to live anywhere else