I Pledge Allegiance to the United States of America

I was in kindergarten when they added God to the Pledge of Allegiance.  The change annoyed me.  First because I had just learned the damned thing, and then because I kept having to pause to add God in the right place.  

Then there was the conspiracy theory.  In our little town there were Catholics (the good guys) and Protestants (the bad guys) and I was convinced it was a protestant plot.  Like the times they would try to trick you into eating meat on Friday.  Now the protestant God, the one that made you say debts instead of trespasses when they said the Our Father in school, was messing with the flag.  I was ever after suspicious of the pledge. 

Time passed and I had other issues.  The God part because it was about God or not, and I was on the not side.  This was the  side of the First Amendment, I thought, since putting God in the Pledge meant you were endorsing a God when you pledged.  Indivisible is what we fought the Civil War over.  God was not.

When you think about it, why allegiance to a flag?  A flag is cloth on a stick.  It has some meaning, but that doesn't make it any less a thing.  Flags are for burning if you are pissed off.   If I am going to pledge allegiance, it  must be to something valuable.  Something that lasts and is worth the life and death struggle that the notion of allegiant patriotism implies.  That should be something like the basic principles the nation is founded on... even though more honored in the breach than in fact.  

So that brings me to the new Pledge of Allegiance  to the entire nation, for good reasons.

 I Pledge Allegiance to the United States of America,
To the republic of the people, by the people and for the people
regardless of race, creed,  national origin or sexual presentation;
to one indivisible nation that warrants our right to the pursuit of happiness
and guarantees opportunity, liberty and justice for all.