The Pledge of Allegiance: Nationalism, tribalism, and religious persecution?
Wohoo! Let's take this out of context, shall we?
This is called the Bellamy Salute to the flag. Due to its similarity to the Nazi Salute, our most fascist President (according to my Republican friends) FDR changed the salute that accompanies the Pledge of Allegiance to the hand-over-heart salute.
The Pledge of Allegiance has an interesting history. Its initial intent was to harbour goodwill toward the State from immigrants (we were all immigrants, but native-born people I guess forget that... unless your skin is a different colour than the 'norm'. Which goes against the entire point of America, in my opinion.).
From Wikipedia:
Bellamy's original Pledge read as follows:[7]
I pledge allegiance to my Flag and the Republic for which it stands, one nation indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
The Pledge was supposed to be quick and to the point. Bellamy designed it to be recited in 15 seconds. As a socialist, he had initially also considered using the words equality and fraternity[6] but decided against it - knowing that the state superintendents of education on his committee were against equality for women and African Americans.
The Pledge of Allegiance was created by a [sarcsasm]dirty Socialist! Who WANTED EQUALITY FOR PEOPLE! What have we done!? The socialist trend continues to this day. And culminates in a black, socialist president! PANIC!!![/sarcasm]
Under God was added in 1954 with a lot of issues because of that since. A quote on procon.org sums this up well for me:
"Those who insist that it's not religious should ask themselves how they would feel if it read 'under no God' or 'under Allah.' Then they might understand why it's inappropriate."
More on this from SFGate.com: Newdow's Supreme Court bid to remove under god from the Pledge isn't being heard.