In the US most students recite “the pledge of allegiance” every morning before school, which is kind of crazy. If you were in charge, what if anything would you replace it with?

    • athairmor@lemmy.world
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      22 days ago

      And do the same for the national anthem before every fucking sporting event. I’ll be damned if I’m standing and praying to a flag at every summer swim meet that is already going to take 4 hours to get done.

      • JusticeForPorygon@lemmy.world
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        22 days ago

        Don’t even get me started. My high school didn’t just do sports events, but they did the anthem or the pledge before just about every single event held in the building.

        Cultlike behavior.

        Actually, no. Just Cult behavior.

      • dfyx@lemmy.helios42.de
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        22 days ago

        I never understood why Americans do that. For international events where the anthems of both teams are played, sure. But otherwise? Do you guys forget which country you are in?

        • athairmor@lemmy.world
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          22 days ago

          It’s an effect of the crazy religiosity that Europe shipped over before the country was even founded. So much nutty Protestant fervor has rippled through American society since then. It infected secular institutions over time.

          • dfyx@lemmy.helios42.de
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            22 days ago

            Which makes it even more crazy to me.

            I live in a very Protestant area in Europe. In fact, many of the Protestants who got driven out of France around 1700 have settled around here, so roughly a similar timeframe to the ones in America. And we turned out entirely different. Here, Protestants are considered the “technically Christian on paper but probably hasn’t seen a church from the inside in a decade” kind of person while (some) Catholics are the conservative hardliners who want bibles and crosses in classrooms.

            • athairmor@lemmy.world
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              22 days ago

              Might have something to do with the fact that, in Europe, they had to live alongside other people. In America they had their little bubbles where the crazy could echo and become stronger. Combine that with the amount of opportunistic grifters that came to and were bred in America. The “land of opportunity” inspired an individualistic greed that was more than happy to use religion to feed itself. The Mormons are the classic example.

              Catholics in America were a minority and there was bigotry directed at them. They were more inclined to keep separate—not so much now. In my town, the catholic school kids would have Catholic slurs shouted at them by the public school kids. These days the conservative Catholics are more or less allied with the evangelical Protestants.

        • SolarMonkey@slrpnk.net
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          22 days ago

          It’s part of the militarization of everything, and acts as patriotism propaganda.

          Not only the anthem, but they usually have armed forces people, equipment, sponsorship, etc. and why it’s such a big deal with athletes don’t fawn enough over it (eg. the take a knee “scandal”)

          Sports are a strong recruitment tool, being popular with men throughout their lives, and have been wildly taken over with military propaganda as a result.

    • saltesc@lemmy.world
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      22 days ago

      How dare you propose freedom in the land of the free. No freedom for you! Not until you pledge an allegiance.

  • jet@hackertalks.com
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    22 days ago

    A pledge enumerating the basic human rights of all people.

    No flags, no governments, no religion needs a pledge. We need to pledge to be honorable human beings above all else.

  • stoy@lemmy.zip
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    22 days ago

    Nothing.

    If you want your citizens to be loyal, give them a good life, not a brainwashing.

    I am a Swede, my life has been good, I may not be physically fit for fighting, but I absolutely would join the military and do support for the fighting for Sweden if needed.

    • corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca
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      22 days ago

      I, too, would fight for Sweden, which I’ve only visited a few times to see my new in-laws.

      Sweden is THAT awesome.

    • InverseParallax@lemmy.world
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      21 days ago

      I’m an American moving to Sweden right now.

      I’d fight for you in a second. You’re good people and I don’t think you’d start shit without a reason.

      So I guess “And you have my state of the art military AI drone technology!”

  • Nog00d@lemmy.world
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    22 days ago

    This one sounds kinda good:

    • One should strive to act with compassion and empathy towards all creatures in accordance with reason.
    • The struggle for justice is an ongoing and necessary pursuit that should prevail over laws and institutions.
    • One’s body is inviolable, subject to one’s own will alone.
    • The freedoms of others should be respected, including the freedom to offend. To willfully and unjustly encroach upon the another is to forgo your own.
    • Beliefs should conform to our best scientific understanding of the world. We should take care never to distort scientific facts to fit our beliefs.
    • People are fallible. If we make a mistake, we should do our best to rectify it and resolve any harm that may have been caused.
    • Every tenet is a guiding principle designed to inspire nobility in action and thought. The spirit of compassion , wisdom, and justice should always prevail over the written or spoken word.
    • corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca
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      22 days ago

      One’s body is inviolable, subject to one’s own will alone.

      … insomuch as doing so doesn’t harm others.

      (Don’t want the vaccine, get your tent and your polar bear rifle (just kidding; those things will fuck you up before you even see them coming).)

  • echo@lemmings.world
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    22 days ago

    How about nothing? Why do we need to indoctrinate children with any kind of this bullshit?

  • yesman@lemmy.world
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    22 days ago

    No pledge. And “God bless America” should be dropped in favor of “Yippie-Ki-Yay, motherfucker”.

  • Artyom@lemm.ee
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    21 days ago

    The 7 sacred tenants of the Satanic Temple

    Ironically, I think the Satanic Temple would oppose such a policy.