I had a friend ask if I had anything against the Pledge of Allegiance [View All]

[ithinkmyliverhurts]

I think he was really referring to the "under God" portion. But I find both pop-culture sides of that argument superfluous and cable-news driven, pseudo-law for the slack-jawed; so I avoided the topic. Instead, I told him that I guess I don't have anything "against" the pledge. It just seems rather silly. I guess the first line is rather problematic for me: because I really don't pledge allegiance to the flag or to the republic for which it stands. There are many things the republic could ask me to do or not do, and I won't do it or won't not do it.

In fact, I continued, the only way way in which I could make that pledge is if the pledge of allegiance was inherently a pledge which called said allegiance into question. So rewritten the pledge would look something like this: "I pledge allegiance to the flag--in so much as said allegiance takes into consideration that said allegiance deconstructs the allegiance I am pledging and thus renders null and void any sense of a static allegiance, but rather endorses a dynamic sense of allegiance which would oftentimes to appear to be quite anarchic and dubious of state-mandated laws--of the United States of America. . . ."

My friend, ignoring my obvious brilliance, then said, "uh huh, so what do you think about "under God?"