Liberty vs. Nationalism

I happened to be listening to the radio today and there was this commentator on who's, shall we say, of the 'conservative' bent. He mentioned this student (and had the student as a caller) who's fighting to force all classes in his school to have the US flag in each classroom and to make it mandatory for students to recite the Pledge of Allegiance. Naturally, this commentator ranted about how we need to have this budding statist succeed in his efforts - in order to help make America 'great' again. Really? So just forcing all children to mindlessly recite the Pledge (an oath created by a committed Socialist - literally, a member of the American Socialist party - who wrote the damned thing because he felt so strongly that we should all become Socialists and felt the best way to do so was to 'teach' (brainwash) the children) whether doing so infringed upon their personal or religious beliefs (Remember the 1st Amendment? You know, the one guaranteeing separation of Church and State? Well, there are several Christian faiths that don't believe in reciting *any* such pledge.), all in the hopes that by doing so we could program the chilluns into unwavering acceptance of (conservative) political values and - presumably - thus creating jobs and righting the economy.

Yeah. Right.

What made this country great was our acceptance of all individuals who wanted to share our ideals of personal liberty - and who were willing to bust their balls to make it happen.

'Nuf said.