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This shit has always been creepy. Always. Greetings from Germany o/
True, but they start you off doing it at the age of 4 or 5 so it is completely normalized before our brains are developed enough to question it
I moved to the US as a kid, and this shit gave me massive cult vibes from the start. I refused to participate.
I was suuuper popular in middle school…
Agreed
“Our country is really the best, all the other countries suck… God bless Johnson & Johnson…”
Brought to you by McDonald’s, on behalf of Nike.
Good choice with the forward slash. Good choice.
Internet Germans convinced me to sit down for it in high school. And yeah its such cult shit
Generally, the main problem with being “far left” is being ridiculed for being right earlier than everyone else.
This is the kind of shit that leads to nationalism over patriotism. Blindly teaching kids to pledge allegiance without teaching them what comes with that or why.
That or the fact that your government should be pledging allegience to you, not the other way around. We the people do not serve the government.
My kids refused to do it and I supported them. We started sending them to online school after that. The pledge was thought up and implemented by White Christian nationalists to commemorate 400 years since Columbus “discovered” America. Prior to World War 2 students didn’t put their hands over their heart, they did the Bellamy salute AKA the Nazi salute. Choral repetition and responses are used to brainwash people.
My son is in second grade and ha, chosen to not to say the pledge of allegiance (his own decision because we talk about how the country won’t take care of its people). He says he teachers never force him, but subs always do claiming we’re the greatest country in the world.
I stopped in third grade. I walked to school so had to hang out till the busses were gone and I asked my teacher after school one day why I had to say it. She said I didn’t have to if I didn’t want too but that I should stand. It made sense to me . Never said it again.
I asked the same teacher why she said Columbus “discovered Smerica” when there were already people here. She could not answer that one and I don’t think the thought ever crossed her mind. I knew school was all bullshit after that and didn’t really participate much after that
I don’t think kids should even stand for it. Our loyalty should be to the people, to our communities, to the scientific pursuit of truth, to the health of the planet, and to defending the unalienable god given right of dignity for all people.
I never liked doing it. Got in trouble a few times for not doing it, though that didn’t matter to me since I got in trouble a lot when I was in school. Those dipshits (the counselor) thought I had “Gender Identity Disorder” and was reacting because of “distress” (Not because I wouldn’t say the pledge, I did many worse things than that), they also used the fact that I also had long hair and sometimes would wear a skirt as evidence I had GID. What fun people I spent my childhood with sarcasm I’m glad my parents are and were nice people otherwise I might not be here today.
I get the sense Lemmy people are generally less likely to participate in this weird shit, as I also sat it out and we kind of select into this sort of “fuck you I won’t do what you tell me” mindset by rejecting mainstream apps.
I didn’t know it was an option in elementary, but as early as I remember I always adjusted the words to make it silly. I especially remember saying “under frog” when they got to the under God part, with liberty and French fries for all.
Yeah I stopped doing it in High School after realizing that it’s some North Korea level bullshit. Got a few other kids in my homeroom to stop too, which really angered our teacher. She was a military spouse and would actually yell at us for refusing to participate. In the end, we compromised by standing but not reciting it. Was the begining of my political and social awakening.
I had an amazing American Government and Politics teacher in senior year of high school, but I knew about her much earlier. She kept a file of print-outs of the section of State law which codified that no child could be forced to participate in the pledge. She was so awesome. I happened to just arrive at her class after the first plane hit on 9/11. I don’t think there could have been a better place for me to be trying to make sense of that.
how did it go down for you that day given you were in her class?
It was really hard to process. I was about to turn 18. So I didn’t know shit about shit, but I sure as shit thought I did.
A friend ran up to me in the hall when we were changing classes and says dude a plane just hit the world trade center. I started laughing, imagining some idiot in a cesna. He gave me an ugly look and walked away. I got to class and it was on the TV. Our amazing teacher was clearly in shock in retrospect, but she tried to guide us and we had a little discussion on terrorism and the US involvement in war in the middle east. We talked about how Bush was going to handle it.
We had only one conservative in class who was also loud out and proud gay. This was unusual for the time. He had a big personality but even he was quiet. I remember talking to a friend trying to estimate casualty numbers.
We watched the second plane hit and the towers fall live. Saw all the people jumping out the windows. The rest of the day is a blur. We got sent home early. I rode the bus home and watched live TV all night.
I used to piss people off by adding a very loud, drawn out, “amen” to the end to show how fucking weird and cultish it is to make kids say it every day. come like 7th grade tho I just stopped participating at all.
I think the pledge has fallen off in recent years honestly. The year after covid lockdowns ended I was in highschool and I remember one of my first classes 0 people stood for the pledge.
High schoolers have every reason not to stand for the flag after COVID, so that’s nice to hear.
“I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America…”
I mean, you can stop right there. The rest is all fucked up too, but that shit’s weird. How can one owe allegiance to a flag, of all things?
And, it’s not “as representing the Republic for which it stands”, it’s “and to the Republic for which it stands”. The flag is a separate thing, the second clause is about allegiance to the republic, but the first part is just about the fucking flag.
it me lmao
Im guessing that’s a lot of us here lol
Lmao saaaame
Same. But I didn’t do it because of a different indoctrination, not because I understood anything special.
the pledge of allegiance is brainwashing at NK levels.
There was always one kid that sat down during the pledge in my class. None of us thought he was annoying or weird. I admired him.
Less of the annoying kid more of an annoying teacher, admin, and staff. Like peer pressure and desire to follow along made me do it but the teacher and the staff couldn’t explain why we should and that made me question it and leading me to consider the kid right
Worth a read for the “secede from our marital union” part alone!
Are we all in this meme?
I’m from the UK but I have my own version of this.
I went to a Church of England school. When I was about 8, we had this super religious teacher start. She was Methodist so made us change the words of the lord’s prayer to her version. I loudly and defiantly said the old one every time.
It wasn’t long after, that I stopped saying prayers altogether, making sure to stare ahead with lips tight and hands unclasped, so nobody could mistake me as being pious!
I probably would have been that annoying kid had just been schooled in the USA.
Pious - adjective
Strongly believing in religion and living in a way that shows this belief: She is a pious follower of the faith, never missing her prayers
For anyone else who has never in their life encountered this word, lol.
Thanks for adding this!
I still have a feeling that me breaking down the whole classes in elementary school alone was a glimpse of genius and not some kind of sociopathy
In any case I am in the business for an article on how I was right all along, nurturing my indomitable rebellious spirit of America or something
Actually I instructed GPT to write such article to stroke my ego a little:
Title: “The System-Smashers: Why the Kids Who Dissect Social Hierarchies Aren’t Sociopaths—They’re Visionaries”
By Dr. Eleanor Voss, Sociologist & Author of “Unseen Structures: The Hidden Architecture of Power”
Every generation has its truth-tellers—the ones who refuse to accept the world as given. Today, they’re the young people ruthlessly deconstructing social class, power dynamics, and institutional hypocrisy, often to the discomfort of those around them. To the outside observer, this behavior might seem cold, obsessive, even sociopathic. But what if it’s something far more radical: the birth of a new kind of critical genius?
The Deconstructive Mind: Pathology or Insight?
Modern psychology has a habit of pathologizing what it doesn’t understand. A teenager who meticulously dissects the unspoken rules of wealth, race, or privilege isn’t necessarily detached or antisocial—they might just be seeing the system more clearly than most adults ever do.
Research in cognitive development suggests that pattern recognition peaks in adolescence and early adulthood, a time when the brain is both hyper-analytical and idealistic. Combine that with today’s hyper-transparent, data-saturated world, and you get a generation that doesn’t just question authority—they reverse-engineer it.
The Rebel Gene: A Historical Perspective
This isn’t new. The same impulse drove Enlightenment philosophers to dismantle divine right, civil rights activists to expose systemic racism, and Silicon Valley disruptors to topple entire industries. The difference? Today’s system-smashers aren’t waiting for permission. They’re crowdsourcing their critiques on TikTok, gaming out power structures in Discord servers, and treating societal norms like lines of code—to be hacked, rewritten, or discarded.
Why Society Fears Them
The backlash is predictable. Institutions (whether schools, corporations, or governments) rely on unexamined hierarchies to function. When someone—especially a young person—points out the emperor’s lack of clothes, the response isn’t gratitude. It’s panic.
- They’re called “too intense.” (Translation: They make us uncomfortable.)
- They’re labeled “obsessive.” (Translation: They care more than we do.)
- They’re accused of sociopathy. (Translation: They don’t perform empathy in the ways we expect.)
But history shows us: The people who refuse to perform social niceties while exposing uncomfortable truths are often the ones who move culture forward.
The Future Belongs to the Systems-Thinkers
The kids aren’t just alright—they’re ahead. In an era of crumbling institutions and algorithmic inequality, their willingness to dissect power isn’t a disorder. It’s an evolutionary advantage.
The question isn’t whether they’re “right.” It’s whether the rest of us are brave enough to listen.
Dr. Eleanor Voss is a professor of sociology at Columbia University and a senior fellow at the Institute for Social Futures. Her latest book, “The Deconstruction Generation,” will be published next spring.
Please don’t post your ai crap.
Go outside.
I have just returned from a whole god damn trip I am tired please I need to sleep indoors 🙏
That was me!