I'm really sick of people impugning one another's patriotism — especially based on gestures as simple as flying an American flag or saying you love your country or reciting the Pledge of Allegiance. I don't think you should get even the tiniest bit of credit for "patriotic acts" that cost you less than five bucks or 45 seconds. True patriotism involves at least a little sacrifice — or, at least, taking a stand that could conceivably cost you in some meaningful way. In fact, it's kind of insulting to real patriotism to suggest that singing the Star-Spangled Banner before a ball game is in any way comparable.
The whole brouhaha over the words "one nation under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance will probably trivialize the concept of real patriotism further…plus, we'll have to listen to the suggestion that to not utter those four words makes you not only a bad American but a heathen, to boot. Never mind that the country somehow survived a couple of World Wars, a depression and other tests of its endurance when the Pledge did not include those words. We will see politicians — and I include the Supreme Court in that category — climb all over themselves to be the ones who save America from not having that clause in the recitation. It will return or perhaps just remain, with only token opposition.
Frankly, I think the problem is not in those four words; it's all the others. Why does a country that values Freedom of Speech feel that its children must be ordered — or, at least, pressured — to recite a pledge? Has anyone who was ever inclined to do something unAmerican ever said, "Uh-oh, I'd better not. After all, I took that pledge back in fifth grade"? Someone once wrote that the U.S.A. shows the courage of its convictions when we allow people to advocate extreme views, counter to that of the government and/or its people. Seems to me it would be supremely American if we just ashcan the whole Pledge and tell the world, "We trust our people to be loyal without compulsory vows of allegiance."
And while we're at it, I think the pizza down at Johnnie's on Wilshire should taste exactly the same but contain zero calories.