Unpopular Opinion

6363 readers

628 users here now

Welcome to the Unpopular Opinion community!

How voting works:

Vote the opposite of the norm.

If you agree that the opinion is unpopular give it an arrow up. If it's something that's widely accepted, give it an arrow down.

Guidelines:

Tag your post, if possible (not required)

If your post is a "General" unpopular opinion, start the subject with [GENERAL].
If it is a Lemmy-specific unpopular opinion, start it with [LEMMY].

Rules:

1. NO POLITICS

Politics is everywhere. Let's make this about [general] and [lemmy] - specific topics, and keep politics out of it.

2. Be civil.

Disagreements happen, but that doesn’t provide the right to personally attack others. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Please also refrain from gatekeeping others' opinions.

3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.

Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.

4. Shitposts and memes are allowed but...

Only until they prove to be a problem. They can and will be removed at moderator discretion.

5. No trolling.

This shouldn't need an explanation. If your post or comment is made just to get a rise with no real value, it will be removed. You do this too often, you will get a vacation to touch grass, away from this community for 1 or more days. Repeat offenses will result in a perma-ban.

Instance-wide rules always apply. https://legal.lemmy.world/tos/

founded 2 years ago

MODERATORS

165

Flag is just a piece of cloth (self.unpopularopinion)

submitted 4 months ago by FelixCress to c/unpopularopinion

127 comments fedilink hide all child comments

I don't understand this weird American obsession with flag. I was looking at some photos of Trump's rallies. Flags everywhere - on shirts, hats, glasses etc. And this bizarre cult of the flag - "it cannot touch the ground" etc.

At the end of the day the flag is just a piece of cloth. If you worship any flag or take offense to any flag, you need to get a life.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] [email protected] 16 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

The context of the origin of the US' pledge of allegiance is it came shortly after the end of their Civil War when there was still a lot o political tension. A desire was born to instill national loyalty in children.

"Historians point to surges in American patriotic oaths and pledges to the flag after the Civil War, when tensions surrounding political loyalties persisted, and in the 1880s, as rates of immigration increased dramatically"

However, today as mentioned by another commenter, students cannot be legally compelled to recite the pledge, nor punished for not reciting the pledge as decided by the Supreme Court in 1943 using the first amendment as the base.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 months ago (1 children)

I mean, i'm swiss and we did a thing called "Geistige Selbstverteidigung", mental self-defense, with mythos of Wilhelm Tell & focus on independence in WW2. But we don't anymore. Why do you still do?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago

Probably comes from a combination of belief in American exceptionalism, tradition, and either popular opinion remains with reciting the pledge or a lack desire to change.

States are managed individually for the most part and only 47/50 still require reciting the pledge (with some exceptions). Without a call for change from the people, it would be political suicide for any lawmaker to come out for a change like this. Opponents could use this decision as a claim of lack of patriotism.