Excellent point. I actually have some issue with the entire idea of children pledging to anything, but in those cases where someone wanted to say it I at least want them to have the option of doing so without falsifying their own morals and beliefs.
I think the word 'indivisible' is a bit vague in its meaning.
I did a little checking and didn't find a clear answer, but first, I figured, if it redated the civil war, the odds go up it wasn't about secession. Bingo, it was created in 1892.
But it was written by a socialist, and intended for any nation to be able to use - pretty much completely undermining the phrase being relevant to the sovereignity of states.
It was a pledge designed to promote a sense of social unity (rightly or wrongly), and THAT'S the sense of indivisible - the unity as a nation of people, not about states.
Now, I have my own opinions about the excesses of such unity and nationalism - when it's 'care about others', great, when it's used by a demagogue to stir the people to support launching aggressive war or other such things, that's another matter. I don't like, as you don't, the idea of kids being indoctrinated this way, no matter how warm and fuzzy it makes the grownups feel when they're busy being a mob. (Hello, 'Hitler Youth'.)
When you reference childrens' 'own morals and beliefs', I question how legitimate such notions are (I suspect you have at least some agreement).
But there's the adult issue as well, the pledge was made the national pledge for all ages.
As I wrote in a draft post I didn't post on this:
"Americans are pretty much free to support any policy they want anyway, leaving this as an act with no real effect - just a feel good tribalism.
It seems a throwback to the days of serfs and knights swearing allegiance to this king or that, which even then could be pretty fluid."
The daughter of the pledge's author objected to the adding of the religious words to the pledge - it violated his intent.
But there was a cold war on, and the recently converted-to-conventional-Christianity Eisenhower, spurred by a preacher he watched who gave a sermon and encouraged exactly this change, was happy to obglige - ironically, considering his upbringing was Jehova's Witness, the group who had objected to the pledge.
How further ironic is it that this change came about when religious leaders - notably the Knights of Columbus - began adding the words when they said it and the trigger was Eisenhower hearing this sermon and pushing for the change as a result, while today's court used a tortured claim to say that the phrase is 'not religious'.
How Orwellian can they get, that those two words are not religious?
It seems that the 'it's ceremonial, not religious' is a popular 'argument' for gutting the secularization of the government in a concession to the religious 'mob'.
Some are more equal than others indeed.
It's about as credible as claiming that Sharia Law is based on ceremony, not religion.
