Per several requests to relocate this...

To Pledge Allegiance to a flag...

Every Wednesday at around 9:00, we stand in class and chant the same set of words that we've been chanting since we started school, however long ago. Since we were five years old, those same words have been drilled into our heads. We could probably recite the pledge in our sleep. But why do we say it? Why is this "patriotism" ground into us? We didn't even know what the words meant when we started, and I doubt that many of us think about it even now. Should we say these words without any reflection on what the words mean? We don't show any respect due to the people who have secured those words for us. And we give all the respect due, and more, to those who hammered uniformity and unthinking servitude into us. We become drones every Wednesday at 9:00. This is not patriotism. This is the same as a clan salute. This is Hitler's "Hail" wrapped up in an American flag and painted red, white, and blue, to hide the swastika-like cross of conservatism and anti-individualsim. You don't show devotion to a country by pledging allegiance to a tattered cloth with 13 stripes and 50 stars. Can you really buy patriotism at Wal-Mart?

If so, then how can we call anyone in America unpatriotic, be they priest, Muslim, soldier, or skin-head? Is it so easy to be an American? Apparently there is nothing more to serving a country than opening your mouth! You show your deviotion and your willingness to assist through actions! Saying you will is one thing, but it means nothing compared to doing! Even then, what is doing if you do it for a cause that you don't believe in? Why doesn't that marine, or that office secretary, or even that student standing in class, fight back? Is it because there is nothing to fight? Is it because the country is too "ideal" to be corrosive to our patience? NO! We don't fight back because we can't fight this enemy. Society will THROW YOU DOWN, if you fight. You will get called names, beaten up, and depending on the severity, even suspended if you don't conform. But we who don't stand and pledge are conforming. We just choose to show our patriotism in actions, and not in words.

SO when we don't stand and drone on the pledge of allegiance, don't call us names, or give us crap. I'm not insulting your wonderful machine of conformity. I just choose to savor my individuality and show my mind in my own way and time. I support my country, same as you, except that I don't do it by chanting the same words that I learned when I was six. I'm going to lend a hand, donate time, or give money and blood to help my country. Call me unpatriotic? Ever Wednesday you chant a jumble of words. I work, fight, and help people to support my country. Who's unpatriotic now?