Devil Dog wrote:
I struggle to understand why more Americans don't see that conducting a ritualistic ceremony to your government is more akin to Nazi Germany, North Korea, or ISIS occupied Iraq than it is to the land of the free and the home of the brave.
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You are right that there are religious overtones to the whole thing, which is why, e.g., many of the more fundamentalist Christian communities refuse to participate in these rituals altogether.
That said-- I think that aspects of some of these ceremonies are fairly important. For example, it doesn't take a genius to see that "one nation under God, with liberty and justice for all" includes gays, blacks, latinos, transgender, women, etc. It is pretty hard to say that gays shouldn't be able to marry when that liberty and justice is for all.
Every time that a politician goes too far off the deep end, these aspirational statements of what the country can be used to pull them back.
This applies not only to the rituals that you mention, but even to the constitution and the rule of law itself. There is nothing inherently sacred about the rule of law except that we-- as a nation-- say that it is sacred.
In other words, sanctity and "worship" play important roles in our public life. We're going to worship something. It is just a question of what we choose to worship.