I grew up in Florida and Tennessee in the 80s and 90s. It was definitely a daily thing, but very lax enforcement and I don't know that anybody would have made a huge stink about it even then. The duck and cover "tornado" drills were very real and very serious though.
It was tacked on in the 50s (note how it kinda messes with the cadence) because of godless commies. There have been other little tweaks as well, some making it worse (e.g. "under god") and some better (abandoning the, herrrm, "Roman" salute). While always a bit weirdly nationalistic, the core of the modern pledge was written by a Christian Socialist and replaced one that was worse and more explicitly religious.
I guess it's not so weird that it exists and I assume many countries have some sort of boilerplate loyalty oath they can bust out as needed, but it's pretty messed up that it's mandatory for kids on a daily basis and fetishizes the flag as an object. I am quite fond of my country, and I think there are a lot of worse places to live, but our history is pretty messed up and our views on what exactly constitutes freedom and democracy are not unquestionable just because some clever provincial elites came up with a halfway workable system in the late 1700s. I suppose it's marginally better to build a national cult out of institutions and symbols than individuals, but it's still a terrible idea to treat patriotism like religious dogma.
It was a legitimate protest of a stupid law that uses a legacy of inconsistent thought and limited perception to do an end run around the first amendment, but the text of the law requires a poster per building, so if they have enough in English, there would be no "need" to accept or post them. Now, if a principal or administrator had some balls, I certainly don't see why they couldn't use one of these or to flank the posters they do post with lots of context or more diverse ideas.
IIUC reddit said something along the lines of "we shouldn't be unprofitable while third party apps are profitable."
They did, ignoring the fact that the scales are completely different and the fact that the 3PAs helped mods and engaged, contributing members provide content and services that Reddit didn't have to pay for, thereby mitigating or maybe even completely counterbalancing the costs of supporting them.
At the most barebones level, I think kbin was meant to be "Lemmy and mastodon with a cohesive UI on one account." So far it has ended up being, "Lemmy but for people who were eeshy about tankies when they were trying to figure all this out to get away from Reddit."
did anyone else from the USA grow up being forced to say the pledge to the flag in school? (kbin.social)
im 20 for reference. ever since i was a kid, up until hs, we were forced every morning to stand, look at the flag and hold our hearts and say:...
Pretty funny indeed (Crossposter note: thought it would fit here very well) (midwest.social)
As Apollo and other apps close down, Narwhal seemingly agrees to one-off deal with Reddit to stay in business (9to5mac.com)
What is Kbin’s identity?
I’m trying to get my head wrapped around the identity (or purpose) of Kbin....
What is gravity? (mander.xyz)
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