Sidenote: I understand that google has become generic for websearch, except the Google service is no longer that. Now it's an AI answer / summary service. And websearch is not that more complicated to type / say.
It's a tiny thing, but see if you can change your habit.
In the eighties, we were required as kids to say the pledge of allegiance. It was possible to stay seated (maybe) but none of us kids were told that.
I omitted under god not because I'm atheist but because I knew the US is supposed to be a secular state with no national religion.
My kids don't say the pledge of allegiance. It started out as an atheism thing, but now I feel like it's teaching them to not trust the government in general.
Under God wasn't even part of the original pledge. It was added in the 1950s iirc.
Pledge of Allegiance (Wikipedia link)
Republicans and the Christian fascists would lose their fucking minds to learn who wrote the original PoA. A Union officer, who did not include the line "Under God" (which was added as late as 1954!). Then, it was altered by Francis Bellamy, a Christian Socialist:
Bellamy was a Christian socialist,[1] who "championed 'the rights of working people and the equal distribution of economic resources, which he believed was inherent in the teachings of Jesus.'"[6] In 1891, Bellamy was "forced from his Boston pulpit for preaching against the evils of capitalism",[3] and eventually stopped attending church altogether after moving to Florida, reportedly because of the racism he witnessed there.[10] Francis's career as a preacher ended because of his tendency to describe Jesus as a socialist. In the 21st century, Bellamy is considered an early American democratic socialist.[11]
Pretty cool guy.
It turns out socialism was a scare word even through the 19th century, then meaning government provided for the public good, such as roads, schools and libraries.
Features like social safety nets and disaster relief came after the US went through a few ordeals and got traumatized by all the mass suffering and death.
And from the cotton plantation owners to the industrialists to the tech bros, the owner class hated the notion, and continued to organize and plot against it.
They love that Bellamy salute though
Gotta get them early. My 6 year old wants to be a solider or police officer and talks about Jesus and God a lot.
As an anti-establishment and atheist household. He's not getting this from us. He's picking it up at school.
I don't try to fight him on it. But I don't condone blindly following and challenge my kids to be introspective on their beliefs. If after taking the time to really think things through he decides to stay the course at least it was his decision.
Anyhow these tactics are intentional and always present throughout life. The best thing to arm a child with is feeling comfortable to ask "why".
Young kids are attracted to actiony state roles (e.g. police, firefighter, astronaut) because they're visible early on. As teens they develop a better sense of what their interests are and what roles would be a good fit.
And then capitalism throws that all away, gives the cool jobs to cronies, and forces them to be grocery baggers, office clerks and customer service agents that work phones.
The best thing to arm a child with is feeling comfortable to ask "why".
This can be a double edged sword with very talkative or inquisitive kids.
My kid is too damned smart and wants to know how everything works, so they ask why. But often we don't know, or they're not satisfied with the answer and keep asking why. If screens didn't disregulate them so much I'd go tell them to look it up, but I til then I have to answer the string of 10,000 whys (to later get told I'm wrong by the kid who had no idea what we were talking about 20 minutes ago, and is now an expert despite not looking into it at all ...) and mentally scream because I refuse to douse that curiosity, even if I run out of patience for it at times.
I'd take the risk.
One of the factors that has contributed to the sorry state of American voters is the distaste among conservatives for teaching critical thinking skills, because that fosters questioning authority, ergo disobedience.
But when we don't have it, then the most confident, loudest-voiced narcissist has an instant army of conditioned followers.
See also the tendency in fundamentalist religions to discourage serious questions about the dogma.
Oh I treat those all as teachable moments. The hard part is keeping them from getting themselves in trouble.
I just don't want my kids to get shot.
When my kids were younger they had a lot of those same comments. I would talk about the christian god in the same way I talked about Zeus.
The best thing to arm a child with is feeling comfortable to ask “why”.
That pretty much encompasses the entirety of my parenting approach. Good to see! Your kid(s) are lucky to have you :)
you will love the place you happened to be born, regardless, fuck anywhere else any other human was born, this is the best place, no question, fuck yeah, you just happened to be born here, and here is the best.../s because you chucklefucks might take it seriously
/s and all, except for the majority of people, literally this.
If brainwashing people into nationalism didn't work, countries would barely exist at all.
The current concept of a nation state is greatly helped by nationalism, and giving people a passport and a nationality at birth does help to have them connect to the highest level of government and not just their local region, but people have died in the name of their country long before anyone wrote a word about nationalism. People have an inner need to connect to others, the people in charge of a village want their village to be part of something greater, people in charger of that greater thing do too, and on and on.
Brainwashing people with nationalism can certainly be helpful for people with power, i don't disagree, but I don't think it on it's own is all that is needed for countries to come into being and people to rally behind it's flag. Pride is another thing we are all born with in greater or lesser extend. We want do not only want to be part of a tribe, we want our tribe to be the best tribe.
We want do not only want to be part of a tribe, we want our tribe to be the best tribe.
The issue is when this changes from "I want my tribe to be the best" to "It's my tribe so it is the best". Nationalism vs Patriotism as I understand the terms.
Hey North Korea
You're so fine
You're so fine
You blow my mind
North Korea
Is there a difference between pledging allegiance to a flag or a republic in general vs to a particular person?
It is incredibly weird and bad for a self titled republic to require its children to pledge allegiance. Arguably, only public officers (millitary, elected officials, government workers, etc) should be pledging allegiance as a sort of oath ceremony.
Dont get me started on Texas's state pledge
Nah it's all weird.
They made me do it in the USA when i was in elementary school (about 60 years ago). When i objected i was yelled at, thrown out of class and publicly shamed.
Elementary school use to be really brutal, with physical punishment and daily assault by classmates. But it does toughen you up. You young guys have just gone soft because you weren't beaten on a daily basis.
You young guys have just gone soft because you weren't abused on a daily basis.
FTFY
Older generations love to talk about how hard they were because they were beaten, mistreated, and given brain damage but were too cowardly to standup against it, and can't stand that the younger generations have the spine to tell you to go back to your home and wait for your children to never visit you.
Physical abuse of children isn’t the answer.
Don't knock it till you tried it.
PTSD has made me the man i am today.
I'm probably younger than you. Had a severely fucked up childhood. I can say I'm not afraid of much because I was locked in a dark unfinished basement for multiple days well my mom had "friends" over.
Do I want to do that to my kids? Fuck no. Sure it would be easier to scare the shit out of them until you're so scared and hopeless you just give up those feelings. But there are gradual and healthier ways to deal with a child's fear of the unknown that don't make them unable to connect with other people on an emotional level.
I have many more examples, but the point is I have been abused and left to take care of myself. It did build independence. But I also spent most of my life even into adulthood trying to destroy myself and everything around me because I took that darkness in. I can recognize the cost was not worth it.
Everything i said I experienced in this thread is true.
I deal with it by using dark sarcastic humor, just like in this thread.
But no, i am not advocating torturing children.
On the other hand, the current generation is so sensitive, and so fragile. i don't think 30 years of helicopter mom’s created people capable of dealing with the brutality of adulthood.
So they just withdraw into addiction, drug, gaming, alcohol…. what ever. I don’t have a solution, but i don’t think the fragile hyper sensitive political correctness is the solution either.
On the other hand, the current generation is so sensitive, and so fragile.
I see a generation that was handed a shitty position to start from and they are still here, still pushing, still existing. Still demanding better.
Punching down on the generations that are younger than yours is a tired trope.
Are seriously trying to insinuate that the US is worse than North Korea? Reality called, it's not exactly missing you, but it doesn't like what you're doing elsewhere.
Are they insinuating it’s worse or not as different as we were told?
Worse. The DPRK doesn't have a pledge of allegiance, though the ROK does.
Yup. Because you can reduce the state of a country down to the question of if there is a pledge of Allegiance.
Not to mention, the pledge of Allegiance, as odd as it may be, is still a pledge of Allegiance to the country and not to a certain leader. Whereas North Korea demands allegiance to its leader. The two are a little different.
"we literally pledge our allegiance and North Koreans don't, but they actually do, and evilly"
Do you fucking maniacs listen to yourselves?
"I'm going to ignore North Korea's poverty rate being much, much higher than the US's, their leader being plastered all over the place, and the brutal crackdowns for not calling in line with the regime which put the US's crackdowns to shame, but hey, the Americans pledge allegiance."
Do you fucking listen to yourself?
Oh no, the country in which we levelled every surface building to the ground and bombed every 4th person to death followed up with crippling sanctions that caused a famine and refusing to follow up on their offer of denuclearization for sanctions relief, they cannot match the richest country in the world in development, what horrors!
Not to mention North Korea after recovering in 2000s from the 90s famine caused by sanctions, it still had by UN verified data better malnourishment etc rates than "largest democracy" India.
Right, everyone else is at fault. Weirdly enough doesn't prevent them from persecuting anyone who dares to think differently than their leader, holding insanely large military parades, and sending off their troops to support an occupying country.
We're not talking about the general conditions of the DPRK (or very rational material reasons for them), we're talking about your racist assumption that because America does something fucked America's enemies are doing the same, but worse.
very rational reasons for [an absurdly high poverty rate]
OK buddy, I guess there are good reasons to starve your people? Obviously, though, these reasons only apply to countries you like. /s
Racist assumption
I never assumed anything. And no, you ain't moving the goalposts. Nice try.
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