For well over a decade, people have been arguing about the use of “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance, that 15-second comma-infested sentence that most elementary school students recite every morning right before delving into their spelling homework. The argument culminated two weeks ago as Dr. Michael Newdow, a parent/doctor/lawyer in California, argued his case in front of the Supreme Court. He and his supporters claim that the phrase clearly violates the separation of church and state; those who disagree with him hold that the words “under God” do not refer to any specific God but to a nebulous all-encompassing power, or that the Pledge is merely acknowledging the role that religion has played in the creation of our country — or they simply state that the Pledge of Allegiance is religious, as it damn well ought to be.

I don’t think we should get rid of “under God.” I don’t think we should keep it, either. I say we toss the Pledge of Allegiance altogether: it’s an archaic, useless bit of tradition that serves no purpose but to waste 15 seconds of classtime.�

I went to a public elementary school, like a majority of kids across the country. Every morning, after the principal made the morning announcements over the PA system, we would all stand, face the tattered, fluorescent-light-bleached flag that hung from a filing cabinet, and lisp the Pledge of Allegiance through the gaps in our baby teeth. �

I plejeleejence. To the flag. Of the United. States. Of America. And toothery public. For Richard Stanz. One Asian. Underguard. Invisible. With livertea … anjustus … frall.

If we had no idea what we were saying, then what did we think we were doing? I wish I could remember. My guess is that there were a lot of things I had to do that made no sense to me (bathing and wearing socks come to mind), and standing up every morning and reciting a string of nonsense sounds was just one of those crazy adult things that I’d understand when I was older.

I also wish I could remember the pretense under which our teacher taught us to utter these random words and sounds; perhaps it would give me some insight into what, exactly, school administrations — and government administrations — across the country hoped to accomplish by having schoolchildren chant the Pledge every morning.

At best, reciting the Pledge of Allegiance could create a sense of unity, a sense that we were all Americans and that was a good thing to be. At worst, it could be a poor man’s hypnopedia, a Brave New attempt to inculcate our tender young minds with blind patriotism.

But the Pledge does neither of these things — in fact, I’d be hard-pressed to come up with a single effect it’s had on me, aside from occupying a quarter-minute of precious auditory memory. I was completely unaffected by the Pledge of Allegiance because I had absolutely no idea what it meant. I was a kindergartner, after all, and not only do kindergartners not have “indivisible” and “republic” in their operating vocabularies, but six-year-olds just aren’t cognitively capable of understanding abstract concepts like “liberty” and “justice.” In my mind, America wasn’t founded on overarching principles of freedom and equality — America’s founding was primarily linked to the Nina, the Pinta, the Santa Maria, the Mayflower and black shoes with big silver buckles. Around Thanksgivingtide, we made Pilgrim costumes out of construction paper; I drew huge pies all over mine. And that sums up my first concept of America: pie is fuckin’ awesome.

I assumed I would understand the Pledge when I was older, but learning it when I wasn’t capable of comprehending it rendered it entirely meaningless for the rest of my childhood. In third grade, when I would have probably been able to at least dimly perceive the connotations of the Pledge, it was already so worn into my brain through sheer rote that it seemed like it needed no analysis.

I call this the Chicken Effect, named after the joke every kid learns so early on that, by the time he’s old enough to understand sarcasm, the only way to make it even vaguely amusing is to create puns out of it. The original joke is just a default in everyone’s mind, and defaults never get interpreted.

But even if children were capable of understanding what they were saying when reciting the Pledge of Allegiance, there’s something fundamentally disturbing about making people — especially young people — chant in clonelike unison. The case of the Pledge is especially alarming because children are promising deference to a piece of fabric. Encouraging children to categorically submit to authority without questioning it does not Americans make; rather, it condemns our country to a future full of leaders who make decisions without legitimate justification.

The most common explanation given for why the Pledge of Allegiance is a good thing is the claim that it instills a sense of patriotism in those who recite it.

But being patriotic is not promising your unconditional love to your country — a true patriot is not afraid to criticize his country when he feels that something could be improved. The time wasted in schools by reciting the Pledge of Allegiance should instead be used to teach children about their country: the good and the bad, the mistakes and the successes, and, above all, the fact that following tradition purely for tradition’s sake yields a proliferation of arbitrary, inefficient decisions and policies. And perhaps someday America will truly be a republic with liberty and justice for all.