Thanks! You’re right about the musical quality of the anthem; it was challenging and enlightening when my friends and I performed it in high school (my aforementioned solo). And you make such good points about the overuse of patriotic symbols. My husband has long complained about being forced to pledge allegiance when, if anything, our representative government should be allegiant to us.

I love your last paragraph. So true: if you have to proclaim or prove how great you are all the time (or how virtuous, or wise, or whatever), it gets pretty unconvincing.

Thanks for reading!