School officials threatened to be ‘lined up and shot’ after Fox News ‘misreporting’

[marble falls]

41. No offense. I support your right to sit out the Pledge, I did too in the sixties. But I also ...

served in the USN in the seventies and while I never stopped being against the war and I support your right to burn it, the flag still gives me chills when it comes down the street, and I stand for it and the pledge.

You really need to look at the Nuremberg rallies again, especially the '34 "Triumph of Will" rally. There has been nothing like it in this country except for the Bundestag meetings (much much much smaller of course) and Klan rallies in the twenties and thirties. And that's a good thing. Like GB Shaw (I think) said, "Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel", but that does not mean all patriots are racist or scoundrels.

At worst the Pledge reminds us of an ideal free society we've yet to attain. While the "under G*d" clause is an invention of a racist (along with the Fascist salute which never caught on), to me it seems like the Deism of the founding fathers and not an endorsement of any sort Christianity.

Say it, say it with modifications, don't say it, but the rest of us saying it does not make us all a bunch of jack booted Übermensch.