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Comment by sevilo | Hacker News Reader

That’s not how propaganda works, I assume the vast majority of these students haven’t left the country until close to adulthood. I completed elementary school in China and the teaching begins in grade 1 for students to believe in communism and patriotism. When you have been raised in that belief for your entire life, changing your belief system is not as simple as “look what other people with a different view say!”. Same goes for how people in other countries have a hard time understanding the need for civilians to hold guns, and yet no matter how many logical reasoning you throw, a large portion of Americans still believe in guns.

Edit: my comment was downvoted, unsure if it’s because the comparison for gun law in the states provoked someone, but if that was the case it just goes to show how difficult it’d be for someone to change the belief system they’ve been raised with

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This is one reason I decided to go back to America once we had a kid. I’m not a big fan of nationalism.

Unfortunately, I’m a bit worried about American schools, many now require daily pledge of allegiance here in Washington state, which was definitely not true when I was a kid. It just feels like something China would do but the USA shouldn’t.

> many now require daily pledge of allegiance here in Washington state

Haven’t court decisions rendered pupils’ participation in the pledge of allegiance optional in all 50 states?

Yes. But that doesn’t mean they still can’t require time be set aside for it and for it to be socially awkward to opt out.

> socially awkward to opt out

random aside, there was a kid in my Texas high-school who stopped saying the pledge around the time of the 2003 Iraq war. While I didn't necessarily agree with the method, a few of us did appreciate the fact that he did that; it showed that sometimes the most patriotic thing you can do is not blindly support your government.

Texas even requires parental consent on opt out, so the kid had to have a good support network.

Random q: where were you based in China?

Beijing. I was working for MS China.

Interesting, I was curious. Personally, I feel like the nationalism has gotten a lot worse / uncomfortable in Guangdong in recent years. I don't feel like it used to be this way in anything-goes Southern China.

I don’t think it was that bad in 1999, 2002 or 2008. Indoctrination was still a thing, but most Chinese kids didn’t take it seriously. It took some populism combined with nationalism from Xi to really turn things around.

My time in China doesn't go back that far, but it certainly feels different from when I first went there. Guangdong used to feel pretty chill about that stuff, probably a combination of HK-Proximity and the Emperor-is-Far/Mountains-are-high attitude. Nowadays, you can't drive anywhere without seeing Xi's 12 fucking thoughts plastered everywhere. Even Hua Qiang Bei has speakers blasting out propaganda.

That they're technically optional doesn't prevent peers for bullying over it.

Source: I was an Australian citizen while in US schools from 2nd through 12th grade. It can be highly uncomfortable to stand silently (and politely) during the Pledge.

When I was in school, almost no one actually said the pledge. By the time I was in high school almost every just sat and continued doing what they were doing. This was in a conservative suburban school in the south.

It's not surprising to me that it's variable. The school administration, culture, and individual teachers matter a lot.

For example, a Colorado teacher physically assaulted a student for not saying it: https://kdvr.com/2018/08/31/teacher-accused-of-assaulting-st...

Another teacher just tried the guilt trip approach: https://fox2now.com/2018/11/16/teacher-banned-after-students...

I also live in WA state and I feel like the daily pledge of allegiance here is pretty trivial.

It's just something the kids say, the school isn't building it up or making it a huge deal or forcing them to believe in it like it's the only thing that matters.

Comparing this to China's brainwashing is a huge slippery slope IMO.

I think in terms of US school problems, this one is pretty low on the list. I would be far more worried about general quality of the schools, curriculum, "active shooter drills" and other insane safety measures, and increasing lack of funding for basics like acceptable landscaping and art/music classes.

My point was that I moved from China back to here to avoid stuff like that for my kid, and am disappointed that things have changed for the worse since I was a kid growing up in the same area.

It is a “small thing” of course compared to comprehensive political education, but it is a thing and signals the start of a trend that could turn out to be dangerous (doubly so in this age of Trump-style ultra nationalism).

> it is a thing and signals the start of a trend

Saying the pledge of allegiance in school has been around since I was a kid in the 80s though, and I'm fairly certain it's been this way since basically forever. So IMO it doesn't seem like it's the "start" of anything.

There was no pledge said at my schools in the 90s.

Students saying the pledge is pointless and inane, but I'm pretty sure most just say the words without really thinking about them.

>a large portion of Americans still believe in guns.

It would be the exact same situation if American students in Australia or England were trying to shut down a rally against gun ownership.

I personally believe in the right to own a gun in written into the constitution of the united states...as is the right to burn a flag..I don't own a gun and would not burn a flag...and if I was in Australia, I would definitely not try to stop people from burning an American flag..

The point I’m trying to get across and explain here is that there are ideas that seem obvious to one set of people, can be incredibly difficult to get across to another set of people due to what they have believed in since childhood. And the fact that I’m getting so many downvoted and people trying to debate and disapprove of my gun law comparison proves that exact point.

Probably the guns.

Americans are going to look at the broader issue here and think "Last time this happened for us we just shot at them until they left" and disregarding the practicality of such notions, it's nevertheless baked into the collective consciousness and constitution.

Tl;dr this is the one major situation where guns, as they exist in the US constitution, can be justified unequivocally.

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