Well, the Pledge of Allegiance was written specifically as something for children to say which is part of why I find it creepy for adults to puppet it. But yes, I generally find simple mindless displays of patriotism to be a distasteful thing (and so do most of us which is why when patriotism is expressed in other countries we generally refer to it with the more loaded term "nationalism").
It is too bad, though, that we switched to the hand over the heart instead of the original salute that went with it:
