I was just thinking about the pledge of allegiance....since it's 2:45 AM and I had nothing better to do.

All you are pledging in "the pledge" is allegiance.

Are we afraid that kids are going to become traitors if they don't promise each day that they won't?

 Is it a real threat to America that all of a sudden kids will decide, "you know what, I think I'm going to be on Al Qaeda's side today....

Furthermore, why is it necessary in pledging allegiance to a country to start listing very generalized positive attributes? "Indivisible, with liberty and justice for all..." What are we trying to prove?

Finally, why do we have to renew our pledges every day? Why can't we just say "I pledge allegiance to the flag for the next 6 months..." or "...for the rest of the school year..." It seems like if our pledges are only good for one day, well, that's not much of a pledge at all, because as soon as the day is over,  you can just go betray America again.

You may be saying "but Daniel, the least you can do is just RESPECT the other kids who DO want to say the pledge." And if you really do have a burning desire to promise yourself that you are going to go another day without betraying America, I am not going to stop you from reciting the pledge. But why must we have a designated time in a required public forum to do so? No one RESPECTS my desire to sing show tunes by sitting quietly with their hands folded while I recite verses from Sweeney Todd to an inanimate object.

More seriously, how can requiring or pressuring kids into reciting the pledge be chalked off as anything but brainwashing? Aren't the terms "with liberty and justice for all" debatable? Please someone tell me what is the possible benefit of having kids repeat every single day words which basically have no meaning to them, because they learned them long before they knew what a "republic" was? (Half the people I've talked to thought the word was "invisible" rather than "indivisible" until about 5th grade.)

Tell me why it's important or beneficial.