The Cato Institute takes conservatives to task for their devotion to the Pledge of Allegiance and gives some interesting information about the Pledge's author (the part about the ritual is particularly good):

] It's probably too much to ask politicians to reflect a
] little before they lunge for a political hot-button
] issue. But any conservatives so inclined should think
] about what they're defending. What's so conservative
] about the Pledge?
]
] Very little, as it turns out. From its inception, in
] 1892, the Pledge has been a slavish ritual of devotion to
] the state, wholly inappropriate for a free people. It was
] written by Francis Bellamy, a Christian Socialist pushed
] out of his post as a Baptist minister for delivering
] pulpit-pounding sermons on such topics as "Jesus the
] Socialist."

What's Conservative about the Pledge of Allegiance?