I love the sentiment behind the whole article, but in essence it's overblown.

Sure. It's a ritual to put your hand over your heart during the pledge of allegiance, to take your hat off at the beginning of the ball game during the Star Spangled Banner. Such customs develop in human society.

But I'm not aware of anyone getting in trouble for not doing so. I'm not aware of jail time for refusing to do this.

I am very glad, however, that Obama won't be part of this idiotic thing of having to wear a flag pin on his lapel everywhere he goes. That's just obnoxious, post-9/11 Fox News, Bush cabal stuff. Now it's become some sort of "proof" that one really cares about and loves the United States? Give me a break.

Go Obama, Go! He's the most principled and decent among all the candidates in my opinion. That's why he'll probably get slaughtered by the joyless Clinton Political Power Machine.

The Jehovah's Witness students in the 1940 Supreme Court Case were suspended from school for refusing to say the Pledge.

That's not good. That was 1940 also.

At that time in the 1940's, the US was involved in world war and national patriotism was high. Other religions helped to inflame violence against the Jehovah's Witnesses for not saying the Pledge. Witness teachers lost their jobs for not reciting the Pledge or placing hand over heart. Mob violence led to many Witnesses being jailed and even one man was castrated while others were tarred and feathered. Pretty awesome stuff for a nation fighting for democracy and the right to dissent.

Today, try not standing at a sporting event for the national anthem or do the same at a school program where the Pledge is being recited and ask if you think your welfare is at risk. I was at a Cowboys v. Packers football game when my Dad chose to remain seated during the National Anthem. The people behind us began cussing and eventually poured beer on my Dad and Me and called us "Commies." Yeah. I felt just a little bit what it must have been like when Nazis came to power before they took it to the next step.

During the time period after 9/11, ask anyone who dissented with saying the Pledge or standing for Anthems what the response of the rabid red-state Americans were as well as the temporary passion of blue-state Americans. You would be accused of supporting the terrorists or told to 'get the *ell out of this country if you don't love it!' Who said I didn't love this land? As the author of the article articulated so well, forced coercion does not a Patriot make. It is something deeper, not the artificial outward symbol much like the Nazis forced ("Heil Hitler!") when we do the same with peer pressure induced recitations to a piece of cloth.

Amazing what patriotic fervor can do. And it's war which gives the state its power more than anything does.