Why

[sabotabby]

Do governments think loyalty oaths are effective? Is it some sort of holdover from when people thought that magic words had some sort of supernatural power?

If I were, uh, disloyal, I'd just lie, because magic words are meaningless, and because I'm being forced to do so. In fact, I implicitly lie about a magical song every morning.

Comments

[dglenn.livejournal.com]

And, IIRC, not even originally intended to be US-specific! Wasn't the original phrasing, "I pledge allegiance to my flag ...," and meant to be usable elsewhere? Or have I gotten confused by the multiple edits to the pledge?

[laughingimp.livejournal.com]

"My flag" was the original wording of the pledge, and it was later amended so there could be no confusion as to which flag any new immigrants were saluting. (I thought this was Teddy Roosevelt and his boys--he certainly said enough similar-sounding things--but Wikipedia puts that change at 1923, long after he was gone.)

I'd never heard that it wasn't supposed to be US-specific, though it could have been.