America’s pledges of allegiance and various showings of national spirit are pretty extreme on a world scale as far as I can tell – several Germans I know were visibly shaken and alarmed at what they saw going on in grade-school American classrooms.
All especially and incredibly ironic considering “freedom” is the thing that apparently makes us so much better than anyone else (of course you can’t count on every American to pay attention to what nations outside their country are actually like).
Many of our country’s first settlers came here for freedom of religion. Yet now someone our citizens are shamed and bullied into worshipping the Almighty Flag and Anthem, no matter what.