[ZULU]

I think you have no understanding of the Constitution.

If the First Amendment prevents the state from forcing Americans to take a pledge of allegiance to the United States, why do we require newly naturalized citizens to do so?

The First Amendment exists to protect political speech. People can discuss anything political they wish. The Founding Fathers obviously thought Americans would use common sense in applying the Constitution. We, through our courts, have just as obviously lost that capability.

If somebody like a Quaker or Jehovah's witness has a religious requirement against taking the pledge of allegiance, that is one thing. The actions of this little brat and his family are an entirely different situation.

But people who simply refuse to pledge allegiance to America are simply not Americans, don't deserve any protection under our Constitution and don't belong here.
I think an analogy between the United States or most other nations requiring their citizens to pledge allegiance to the nation to which they claim to belong and NAZI Germany is so absurb as to not even merit a response.

You can't belong to a club without agreeing to follow the club's rules, and the Pledge of Allegiance is, in essence, an oath to adhere to the rules of the United States and its Constitution.

[From many - one.]

In order to become citizens we can require anything we want, including balancing a banana on their nose.

There is a major difference between the feeling we had when I was a kid and the feelings I see now. Yes, I used the dread word "feeling" to describe the impact of the Pledge of Allegiance when I was a kid. A real upwelling of patriotic fervor. I don't need it to be diluted by forcing kids to participate. Now, as then, failure to participate ends up having to be explained and that is all that is necessary.

Pledging Allegiance at the point of a (figurative) gun is intimidation.