I pledge not to pledge

First off, a disclosure. I am a dog. I do not have citizenship papers to any country. I have a tag that IDs me if I get lost and the dog catcher picks me up. That’s it.

I belong to the nation of canines, where we pledge nothing but pretty much guarantee to give you a good sniffing over.

Still, I’m going to weigh in on the Pledge of Allegiance story by the Associated Press printed in The Day on Friday. Seems fans, players, coaches and staff are asked to recite the Pledge of Allegiance before basketball and football games at the University of Connecticut.

Interim AD Paul Prendergast liked the practice when he observed it at Middlesex County Chamber of Commerce events, and thought with the 10th anniversary of Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in September, why not do the same at State U.

Some people at the events like saying it, some don’t. Women’s basketball coach Geno Auriemma, an Italian immigrant who became a U.S. citizen in 1994, hasn’t really indicated either way. He did say he’d rather the whole audience sing the national anthem together rather than have a guest singer belt it out while the audience listens..

Of the Pledge he did say: "I believe the Pledge of Allegiance becomes kind of rote; people just repeating it without really understanding it. And then you have to deal with the wackos who don't believe we need to bring God into the conversation because you say, 'One nation under God,” he told the Hartford Courant.

As a dog who immigrated to Connecticut from Tennessee, which some believe is another country and definitely is another culture, I can’t say I’d be eager to stand and recite the words, even if A) I could recite anything and B) I remembered the words.
J

ust seems to me that in a democracy, reciting a pledge of allegiance, especially under peer pressure in a crowded place, is downright undemocratic.