It'll never be legal to mandate it by law.

It's just sort of a thing - I'm just not hyper patriotic (not that you have to be - but that's how I see my choice).

I had forgotten to tell her they did that. She just told me she was confused about why the class would suddenly stand up and all mumble some ritual chanting that sounded like "I spread the peaches."

A favorite I've heard is "I led the pigeons to the flag...." And, of course, "...one nation under God Invisible...."

And at age 16, you just don't use the words "pledge" or "allegiance" very often. She had never head them and had no idea what they meant. She just thought she had heard words she did know, and couldn't figure out why people would chant them at the beginning of the school day. For that matter, even after I explained to her what was going on, she STILL didn't understand why the ritual was performed, since no such thing is done in Germany. She figured that if people were loyal to the country where they were living and of which they were citizens, why in the world would they have to repeat it very day?

It is pretty ridiculous.

Things that are obvious to us, and are second nature to us by the time we hit high school, are seen by some outsiders as exotic rituals. My daughter found something I had just taken as so self-evident, I never even thought to explain it to her in advance, and put it in a completely different perspective. We just did because we were told to for years. My daughter had never seen anything of the sort, and so asked what was it, and why were they doing it?

It works the other way, too. Decades before I moved my permanent residence here, I was living in New England for a while, and was visited by some German friends. We then went down to spend a weekend at my parents' house in Virginia. Curious, they asked in which place I had registered my residence with the police. I drew a blank, had no idea what they were talking about. Thinking I hadn't understood, they repeated the question more distinctly. I still had no idea what they were talking about, and asked why in the world I would want to register my place of residence with the police? They asked, "don't you have to do that in the USA? What happens if you move somewhere else?" I said, no we don't, and if I move, I tell the post office if I want my mail forwarded, and that was it.

I then had them explain what they meant. In West Germany (now goes for all of Germany, although I doubt the old East Germany was any freer), everyone had to register their residence with the local police, usually via an agency in the city hall. If you move, you have to tell the police you're leaving, and where you're going to. When you arrive at your new city, you have to register with the police there, and tell them where you have just come from, and they DO verify. Next time I was in Germany, I asked a government official why they do this, and I was told it was so they could keep track of potential criminals. I said, I see, your government assumes every citizen is a potential criminal, where ours assumes the average citizen is probably NOT a criminal, so we didn't do that. My German friends were astounded that the USA didn't have this system ("polizeiliche Anmeldung" ), and I was just as astounded that they DID.

Another time, we were at a gathering in the States where various panels were set up and the only rule was you HAD to participate. They put my elder daughter, then 17, in a youth panel that had them all tell who their heroes were and why. My daughter was completely stressed out because Germany, in its post-war wisdom, discouraged the idea of worshiping heroes, since the Nazis had made a big deal of it. So she really didn't have any. My wife and I told her to not worry, but rather explain that she had lived in Germany all her life, and that the notion of heroes was discouraged because, etc etc etc. She was terrified, but came back after her panel beaming (and VERY relieved) and said she had been the hit of her panel as the American kids got a completely new perspective on something they had taken for granted.

I meant it the first time I pledged.

Shouldn't my pledge be good unless or until I change my mind and pledge to some other flag?

I already Pledged Allegiance to the US Flag. I ain't gonna pledge to it anymore.

Or like it's Green Lantern's ring. It isn't something that needs to be recharged every night like a Tesla car.

Like this is America, seems like some people forget where they live. This country can handle if people don't stand,, lord.

I was already a weird kid. Ignoring the pledge added to my aura of weirdness.

The pledge still troubles me, it seems something from an authoritarian dystopia. My mom remembers when she was a kid saying it with an arm extended salute. (That was before Hitler...) The Star Spangled Banner is an abomination, as music and as a national anthem.