Especially to, but not only, to Bladerunner-
I have a general distaste for the worship of symbols, and an even greater distaste of any institution requiring people to make a promise to them - and an empty promise at that. They're only words - and as Brian has pointed out, not without legal challenges. When I made my wedding vows, I knew what I was promising, and I made the promise under my own volition. It means something. When you take a bunch of schoolchildren, some of whom don't even speak English, and say, "REPEAT AFTER ME" and don't explain to them what it means, and you teach them to put their hands over their hearts and recite the pledge every day, what are you accomplishing? Your only goal in doing such a thing must be to create a body of mindless automatons. And it's not as if that they will all remain faithful to the USA because, after all, they recited the pledge!
So you're doing nothing except discouraging discourse and critical thinking, which in my mind, education is all about. But to others, education is about getting people to just accept and memorize the "facts" that their teachers tell them, without any thought or dissent or challenges because facts are facts. So Blade, I can see why requiring children to pledge must suit you very nicely.
As to the LANGUAGE that it is spoken in, well gee, we wouldn't want the ceremony of reciting the pledge to actually be a learning experience, so you can hear the same words in different languages and gain a little familiarity with those languages. HELL NO! Because as we said, this has always been and must remain a ritual designed to produce mindless drones.
And talking about the different languages - as Brian also pointed out, and as you (Bladerunner) well know, the USA has NO "official" language. We're a multi-cultural society (that scares you, I know), with citizens of every race, creed, color AND language, and with a constitution that guarantees equal rights for all of them. But according to you, if you see anything wrong in demanding this meaningless promise from clueless and impressionable children, AND not only that but in good ole "American English", then that person should just blow outa town and leave the "rest of you" (as you put it), alone.
You have a lot of nerve to say that, Blade. Maybe you don't even realize how hypocritical it is to demand somebody leave the country when they do the very thing that is guaranteed by the constitution and that the pledge and the anthem and the flag and all these symbols represent.
No, I'm not leaving.
If you don't actually value what the flag stands for - which is the liberty to speak your mind and the freedom to question authority, why don't YOU - and the rest of YOU - get the hell out?