I was lucky enough to see him live in the late 80s which was sort of his golden period, in my opinion. It sticks with me for two reasons: 1.) it was George fucking Carlin and my body ached for days afterward from laughing and 2.) the opening act was one of the worst comedians I have ever seen to the point where I think, in retrospect, he might have been trying some kind of Andy Kaufman-esque purposeful bomb or something.
The details of being sworn in aren't really that important, what is important is that you go through the ritual in order to confirm that you know there will be reprecussions if you intentionally lie.
The problem is that people begin to conflate the ritual with the intent behind it.
It was easy to see this in the 2008 US election, where people acted as if swearing on the Bible with specific words, and saying the pledge of allegiance with the hand over the heart were rituals were every detail was critical, and Obama's failure to observe them in some specific instances meant he wasn't really patriotic, or wasn't really President. Of course if they used their brains, they'd recognize that placing greater importance on the performance of ritual indicating patriotism, than his actual service, is idiotic. In a broader point this is true of religion as well, where ritual is generally treated as more important than the values the rituals are meant to affirm.
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