I pledge allegiance to what?

I wonder if the people who think that children should blindly recite the Pledge of Allegiance in public schools even know what the important words in the Pledge mean.

Can you answer the following from memory?

• What’s a republic?
• What’s a nation, and how is it different from a country?
• What’s liberty, and how does it differ from freedom?
• What’s justice, and how does it differ from retribution?

I’d be willing to bet that most adults can’t correctly answer all four of these questions. So why are we having children pledge to ideas they and most others don’t even understand?

And if advocates insist on including “God” in the Pledge—despite public institutions’ endorsement of religion blatantly violating the First Amendment—I’d ask that they define that word as well. Which god and why?