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?
I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.
I would replace it with education. Which is the purpose of schools.
Pledges reek of authoritarianism to me, so maybe replace it with a common saying like “Be excellent to each other because we have no more or less entitlement to this world than any other being and our individual perspective is at best a tiny viewport not to be confused with reality”
The 7 sacred tenants of the Satanic Temple
Ironically, I think the Satanic Temple would oppose such a policy.
Nothing. Maybe a “good morning, do your best, and remember to be kind today”
Nothing. There would be no replacement and the pledge would fade from memory.
“we love our bread, we love our butter, but most of all we love each other” 🥰
Free breakfast.
Yes and
Damn that’s a good answer.
can it be nothing. why not nothing
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
How dare you propose freedom in the land of the free. No freedom for you! Not until you pledge an allegiance.
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.
I, too, would fight for Sweden, which I’ve only visited a few times to see my new in-laws.
Sweden is THAT awesome.
Fucking unrealistic, like the shire but with unreasonably gorgeous and decent people.
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!”
How about nothing? Why do we need to indoctrinate children with any kind of this bullshit?
Nothing, propaganda pledges don’t have a place in institutions of learning.
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.
It’s a bit long, maybe do one article per day?
https://www.un.org/en/about-us/universal-declaration-of-human-rights
Nothing. Just let the kids do their morning uninterrupted.
It’s state law where I live. Fucking crazy.
2 minutes of deep breathing to relax and concentrate, repeated through the day.
That’s it, just give everyone a chance to relax and center before getting back to the crazy.
Square breathing
That’s it, makes a big difference when you need it.
