As an American I find schoolchildren reciting the pledge of allegiance in the morning very disturbing. Especially ones who are much to young to actually understand what they are saying.

And it always happened in every primary school I went to.

To add to the creepiness, when a child sits for the pledge (legal, AFAIK) and is punished. Add the comments from supposedly rational adults on the local news article about it... and you see some people really take forced patriotism seriously.

Nobody can be forced to stand for the pledge or recite it. (West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette[1]) however uninformed school board may illegally punish students anyway or become vindictive in other ways. By not standing for the pledge a kid risks being seen as a troublemaker or "difficult" which can cloud a teacher's judgements in other matters. Making it part of the school day makes no sense for just that reason. Certain religious groups (ex Jehovah's Witnesses) are against pledging allegiance to a flag and it's unfair to put a student in that situation for something so silly as the pledge of allegiance. But as you said some people feel very strongly about this sort of fake and forced ritual.

I have a big problem with teaching it to very young kids who don't really don't have the capacity yet to really understand what it means or what they are pledging to. Most kids kinda slur their way through it because it contains vocabulary that the typical 5 year old wouldn't have. [2]

[1] "The case is made difficult not because the principles of its decision are obscure but because the flag involved is our own. Nevertheless, we apply the limitations of the Constitution with no fear that freedom to be intellectually and spiritually diverse or even contrary will disintegrate the social organization. To believe that patriotism will not flourish if patriotic ceremonies are voluntary and spontaneous instead of a compulsory routine is to make an unflattering estimate of the appeal of our institutions to free minds. We can have intellectual individualism and the rich cultural diversities that we owe to exceptional minds only at the price of occasional eccentricity and abnormal attitudes. When they are so harmless to others or to the State as those we deal with here, the price is not too great. But freedom to differ is not limited to things that do not matter much. That would be a mere shadow of freedom. The test of its substance is the right to differ as to things that touch the heart of the existing order.

If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein. If there are any circumstances which permit an exception, they do not now occur to us."

[2] I used to say "I pledge OF allegiance to the flag....under god, invisible..."

We did a flag pledge in Mexico too. I wonder if we copied that from the gringos.

https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juramento_a_la_Bandera_%28M%C3...

Hm, looking around looks like Argentina and Panama also have similar pledges:

https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bandera_de_Panam%C3%A1#Juramen...

https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bandera_de_la_Argentina#Jurame...

I wonder if it's just a generalised American thing to be this defensive of our flags, perhaps as a result of some post-colonial concerns.

While some of the US's propaganda is the direct overt military type, most of it is dressed up as "news" or "entertainment".

This year especially, look at the fervor of support for The Party(s). It's amazing how adding a narrow choice sidesteps people's inherent distrust for being told what to do.

> As a non-American, seeing young children reciting the pledge of allegiance in unison is downright creepy.

The practice dates from the heyday of Hitlerism, and arguably springs from much the same sort of motivation - and it's creepy enough before you read about the Bellamy salute.