When I was a kid, I pretended to recite the pledge but actually just mumbled nonsense to get through it. Though I didn't have the reference in my mind at the time, it always struck me as a little too "Deutschland Deutschland Uber Alles" for my taste.
If they wanted to reward a kid for expressing a good patriotic sentiment, one in keeping with the true ideals of this country, they should have held a contest in which students submitted essays on the importance of civil protest and the avoidance of group-think. But I suppose that would have been a non-starter for a group of such sturdy individualists as usually populate these civic groups.
If they wanted to reward a kid for expressing a good patriotic sentiment, one in keeping with the true ideals of this country, they should have held a contest in which students submitted essays on the importance of civil protest and the avoidance of group-think. But I suppose that would have been a non-starter for a group of such sturdy individualists as usually populate these civic groups.
