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I listen to the tail end of a radio program named LoveLine on the drive home, they mostly deal with relationship, sex, and addiction questions. But the last call today was some odd person who not only felt he had to explicitly state he was proud to be a virgin, but asked a question about whether the host of the show would fight to keep the "Pledge of Allegiance" in our schools. The Pledge is oft recited by young children in elementary schools and (if you didn't feel like reading the article) basically asks children to, well, pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States (yes, the flag) and the country itself. It also makes note that the country is indivisible ("Don't start another civil war, you little urchins!"), and "under god" (of course). This forum has a sizable membership from outside the United States, and I wonder what you think about this nonsense. I think it is just that: nonsense. It reeks to me of trying to convince children to not turn over to those filthy commies, and ties in with the USA's ridiculous, almost religious, reverence to it's damn flag. Not that I read that strongly into it, I'm being a bit silly here. Do other countries have a ritual like this? Hell, does any other country have this silly flag worship we have (I'd read about people visiting the United States and being confused by the ridiculous amount of flags everywhere). On a completely unrelated note, the flag used to be saluted like so: Wonder why they stopped doing that?