Sorry for the delay in response, I popped a couple tops and was taking a break. As to your statement..........This might surprise you but I totally agree. You need to read the tread of argument beginning with the outlandish statements. One of these guys said yesterday in response to a statement about the large sacrifice during Nam that "they did not have to go did they". I was not defending ignorance. I'll leave that to the educators of today. I was defending The pledge. The pledge means a lot to me. Almost as much as the flag.
I followed the discussion on this thread and that's what I'm commenting on. The pledge can't be successfully defended to me. It contains at its core a repugnant lie. Our republic was framed as a federation of sovereign states, individually and collectively superior to the federal government created by those states as an agent. The people who subverted this basic ideal also instituted every single program of social engineering that we suffer under today.
That kind of person is not American and reciting a test oath written by one of them is about as unamerican as one can get. It doesn't take a fancy education to learn what the United Sates is supposed to be about and to love the ideals on which it's founded. Anybody who can read and who'll take the time to do some independent study can get a good grip on our founding principles in a day or two.
That's one of the main duties of citizenship. A patriot won't shirk that duty while pretending to patriotism by repeating a few lines and saluting the flag. Keep the pledge if you like, but you have to go beyond it to express patriotism by real action.