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Comment by dylan604 | Hacker News Reader

Trevor Noah has a bit about how 'muricans are the only ones that sing the national anthem all the damn time. He adds how it's also the only anthem where it is sung differently each time depending on the performer.

Personally, I have always felt very strange in the entire concept of having to sing this at various events or in school as well as the pledging of allegiance. It just feels very cultish or something you'd expect a dictatorship to make its citizens do. Like when we are shown videos of the North Koreans lined up praising the dear leader, the videos of US school kids doing their version of it just rubs me the wrong way

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The really crazy thing is that the original pledge of allegiance made no reference to god at all. It was added as late as 1954, when Congress passed a law which added the words “under God” after “one nation.”

A year later Emmett Till, a 14-year-old African American boy, was brutally murdered in Mississippi after allegedly flirting with a white woman. His killers were acquitted by an all-white jury. But ya know, at least we shoehorned religion into our pledge.

Following a "symbol" (a religion, a flag, whatever) that can't be properly quantified scares the shit out of me.

> But ya know, at least we shoehorned religion into our pledge.

"that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

Look I find it way overplayed to the point of losing any meaning, and a lot of people (civilians) assign some deeper meaning to the ceremony than is likely warranted, and probably partisan.

But like it or not, America's middle finger to England asserts that some higher power endows us with rights that may not be infringed. It's the basic premise of the whole damn thing. I'm not here to argue whether this is good or bad, but insinuating that it was "shoehorned" doesn't seem fair to history.

But it was shoehorned in. The founding fathers very much did not want the government to be dictated to by religion. They also very much wanted people to be able to practice which ever religion they wanted. This is why there is the concept of separation of church and state with the establishment clause.

The pledge itself wasn't even around until the Civil War, and was worded differently than what is used today. There's a lot of things that people accept as "always been that way" because it was that way when they were kids. It's not dissimilar to how most of the Civil War memorials weren't actually installed until the 1950s.

Actually, it’s the “separation of church and state” that’s more analogous to the civil war memorials being a 20th century creation.

“Separation of church and state” isn’t in the Constitution. It was something Jefferson said, but he was not representative of the founding fathers on that point. John Adams, by contrast, said: “Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”

Public schooling was invented in Massachusetts for the purpose of educating kids about religion. Massachusetts had an official state church (the Congregationalist church) until 1824! The “Establishment Clause” says: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.” That’s not old-timey speak meaning separation of church and state. It literally just says the federal government can’t interfere with the official state churches, which were called “established churches” (and that the federal government couldn’t establish a church itself).

For the first 170 years of the nation’s existence, nobody thought the Establishment Clause meant that state governments could not teach kids religion in state schools. That was invented pretty much out of thin air in the mid-20th century.

It sounds like you’re perfectly fine with secularism being removed from Bangladesh then.

I think imposing secularism on an overwhelmingly Muslim country was overreach by western-influenced elites. But nonetheless, Bangladesh’s Constitution, which was legitimately adopted by a government that had the support of the people, expressly incorporates a principle of “secularism” (using those words). Article I of the French Constitution likewise states that France is a secular republic: “La France est une République indivisible, laïque, démocratique et sociale.” Secularism in France, too, was legitimately adopted into law by elected governments.

By contrast, the US Constitution doesn’t mention secularism or anything like it. It has a prohibition on the federal government interfering with established state churches, and a protection of freedom of religion. In that respect, the First Amendment is more comparable to the German Basic Law, which guarantees freedom of religion but lacks any requirement of secularism. And the Basic Law has been understood to allow quite a bit of public religion. Religion classes are required in school (though you can opt out and take a class in secular morality instead). Government buildings in Bavaria are required to display crosses. There is a church tax. I think the German approach better fits America both as a legal matter and in terms of what the people want. (America is by far the most religious developed country—the percentage of Americans who pray daily is comparable to Iran!)

What happened with the Establishment Clause in the US is more like what Ershad did in Bangladesh: he changed the constitution from its original meaning, without going through the proper means for amending the constitution. At least in Ershad’s case, the public probably supported theu result. Even as of 2013, most Americans still opposed the prohibition on school prayer.

Thanks for the detailed reply.

> ... what Ershad did in Bangladesh: he changed the constitution from its original meaning, without going through the proper means for amending the constitution.

Tangential: Seems analogous to changing code without changing the documentation — if the change makes things run better, well ....

(And saying, "you're never, ever allowed to change the code unless you change the documentation first" seems to have priorities backwards.)

"It if proper to take alarm at the firft experiment on our libertief ... Who doef not fee that the fame authority which can eftablish Chriftianity, in exclufion of all other Religionf, may eftablish with the same eafe any particular fect of Chriftians, in exclufion of all other fects? That the same authority which can force a citizen to contribute three pence only of hif property for the fupport of any one eftablishment may force him to conform to any other eftablishment in all cafes whatsoever?"

Jamef Madifon. Checkmate, theist.

(Pulled from Engel v. Vitale, one of the "thin air" cases you allude to.)

think you have a typo in theiſt

> “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.”

Right

> It literally just says the federal government can’t interfere with the official state churches, which were called “established churches” (and that the federal government couldn’t establish a church itself).

You are down selecting only half of what the simple statement says. You are making a distinction of “interference” not in the text.

No religious establishment based “interference”, yes that is consistent with the phrase, but less general than the actual phrase which includes no such restriction.

It also is consistent with no establishment based “preference”.

“No law…” is the actual clear, simpler, and more general wording.

It's notable that when it came time to write the Constitution, those "all men are created equal" folks put the Three-Fifths Compromise into the actual backbone of the new country's legal system.

Said Creator they deliberately left out entirely. It popped into the Pledge during the era of fighting the "godless Commies".

> It popped into the Pledge during the era of fighting the "godless Commies".

and fighting against civil rights. it is also the same era that people want to make great again. oops, i said the quiet part out loud again

The anthem uncoupled from what it stands for may seem strange, which is why it’s so important to remember the lives of the fathers, brothers, and sons sacrificed at Fort McHenry holding up the flag through the night, and all the lives lost since then holding up the foundations of freedom and our way of life.

If you’re living in America enjoying the (ever shrinking) bounty of liberties we have, it’s good and healthy for yourself and for the country to reflect on that every now and then, and kids should absolutely have a love of their country (and thus their fellow countrymen) reinforced daily. I think falling away from a national identity hurts everyone.

yeah, no. not for me. just reading what you've written gives me flashbacks to all of those uncomfortable moments of having to perform some oath and pledge my allegiance to something i did not choose. nobody chooses where they are born. why would someone else expect they'd pledge their fealty to something they didn't choose to be apart of just because of their place of birth?

to me, it's just weird that anyone would pledge their blind loyalty to something that doesn't give a damn about them

I've always thought of the national anthem as more of a collective show of appreciation for the good parts of the US, which is probably why I've always been OK with it.

The pledge of allegiance, on the other hand, feels like a forced statement of blind loyalty. Gives me the same ick I get whenever I've been at some sort of rally or protest when they try to hype up a crowd. I've never been to church but I'd imagine it's the same thing.

> all of those uncomfortable moments of having to perform some oath and pledge my allegiance ...

FWIW, I seldom if ever say the Pledge of Allegiance — I took the oath to support and defend the Constitution many years ago when I joined the Navy, and then again as a lawyer; I figure that ought to be plenty ....

Yeah, luckily, that seems to have stopped for the most part after grade school. I have been to a couple of events as an adult that did that, and it felt very bizarre.

My "favorite" part is that they are having kids recite a pledge knowing full well that most of them have no understanding to what it actually means. Taking a pledge should be one of those "I, state your name, of sound mind and body, pledge allegiance..." It's just one of those things that is so illogical to me that I don't get how it's not for everyone else

I would guess that having it drilled in from childhood probably has something to do with it. By taking issue with it, you're going against the flow and people in general seem to be uncomfortable with that sort of thing. It also seems to me, that people tend to associate it with something other than the actual words that are being spoken.

That may be true, and it may be of personal value to pursue this for yourself. That's different from socially badgering others into it at group events.

If it bothers you so much don’t go to these events.

Someone's not allowed to go to a sporting event because you say so? That's a load of crap. I'll go to whatever event I want. If they have one of these dear leader performances, I just stand there thinking about whatever is on my mind. If you like it, you can sing your little heart out. But I'm not going to not go to something I enjoy because you might get offended at my non-participation in your cult-like ritual

How did we jump from "this is not mandatory" to "you're not allowed"

Because the person suggested that I not go to the event.

Also, as "not mandatory", have you ever chosen to remain seated and experienced the reaction from those around you? You'll definitely get the feeling "not mandatory" is a very much incorrect description.

I'll quote myself from another comment:

> haven't sung a hymn, pledge or anthem since I was 11 or so. I just stand there and watch, be it church, baseball, hockey, whatever. 32 years and nothing bad has happened yet. (Hooray freedom?). I don't believe there is any pressure whatsoever.

YMMV, but I do just stand up and not sing. It's not the end of the world. And some people always keep their hand down, instead of over heart. Again, I'm really not experiencing difficulties here, but I respect that there might be other factors. Like, do you live in the deep south?

Why even stand up?

I’m sure your question is rhetorical, but just in case - I think we all know it’s because they want to fit in, or at least… …not get called out for not participating.

Yes, it’s not mandatory and yes you _could_ sit down and not sing, but the consequences are that your fellow spectators will be agitated. They may not show it in any way, or… …they might!

So, on the larger context of the thread, we started by saying it's weird that we're required to say a pledge or sing a national hymn. I'm saying I haven't done that in 30 odd years and have not suffered any negative consequences, so perhaps the requirement was overstated.

The interpretation of my intended message has transformed a bit beyond the original scope to include never standing, not even feeling social pressure of any kind, and a comparison to Colin Capernick who attends sporting events in an entirely different capacity than I do. Those points just sound a lot like trying to win an argument on technicality vs have a discussion about experiences.

All I'm saying is you can feel all the pressure in the world to sing a hymn or say a pledge at events, compromise half way by standing, and not sing any national hymn or pledge and suffer no compromises. It is absolutely not required.

Then go and experience social pressure while being social? It's your choice.

I never said you weren’t allowed. I said if it bothers you so much you can choose not to attend.

My father in law stopped watching sports during the period where it became popular to kneel or not stand during the national anthem to protest or bring to light various social causes. In his view, those things don’t belong in sports. That was his choice, it’s not mine, but he didn’t make a big stink about it, he just chose to stop consuming that form of entertainment.

At some point you either conform, choose not to conform and deal with the consequences, or simply avoid these events. The rest of the populace doesn’t have to change their behavior just because you don’t like it.

Collectively we have become a society of intolerant crybabies. We don’t have to agree with everyone, but we do have to tolerate the common social norms unless we want to be that guy that gets unwanted attention.

In fact, I generally don't. On the other hand, that is not because I am bothered (or not) by such practices.

I'm really not sure what this has to do with the opinions being expressed by myself, parent, and GP here. I can avoid a behaviour and simultaneously have an opinion on the behaviour, which I am expressing here in response to others' opinions on said behaviour.

It’s funny, you’d probably not be able to pop off like that if it weren’t for the dead at Ft. McHenry.

..."pop off"?

I get the impression that you're inferring things about me that aren't actually real. Such as a lack of respect for the fallen.

Where would we be without those brave dead who fought in a war we started and didn't win? I guess we wouldn't have Florida...

It must be exhausting to constantly filter the world through the lens of political beliefs.

I could say the same to you, though I struggle to think why you think my political beliefs have warped my understanding of the War of 1812.

Why did you bring up Florida?

Because it's territory we gained in the War of 1812.

I haven't sung a hymn, pledge or anthem since I was 11 or so. I just stand there and watch, be it church, baseball, hockey, whatever. 32 years and nothing bad has happened yet. (Hooray freedom?). I don't believe there is any pressure whatsoever.

So in other words, you disagree with the post I'm replying to?

> I don't believe there is any pressure whatsoever.

You've clearly not been to some of the events that I have. Also, there's the whole matter of various public school systems. Regardless, if there hasn't been any pressure for you, then this is sort of a non-sequitur, as my comment is talking about situations where there is pressure to begin with. Non-pressure situations are out of scope.

> You've clearly not been to some of the events that I have.

Ok, such as?

> Non-pressure situations are out of scope.

I am attempting to say this with respect, believe me: I am saying the pressure is not real. At least in my experience, it's not worth your time. I respect that you may have a different situation than I do, and you may experience pressure of this type differently than I do, but "pressure" strikes me as subjective because in fact there are no real consequences that I'm aware of (as in legal, regulatory, etc). And, without further details, we can freely end here dismissing eachothers' perspectives as irrelevant.

> socially badgering

> pressure is not real.

> real consequences that I'm aware of (as in legal, regulatory, etc)

So if I understand correctly, the argument is that social pressure isn't real pressure and can be dismissed as inconsequential? If that's the case, then yeah, I think this is played out and we can call it here.

(Not because I strongly agree or disagree with such a notion, I just kind of think it would be getting off into the weeds a bit much to continue at that point.)

> I am saying the pressure is not real

are you willing to take the Pepsi challenge? next event you go to that does the anthem ritual, i challenge you to not participate by sitting down. see what kind of not real pressure you feel then.

>I don't believe there is any pressure whatsoever.

Then why do you stand? You can get away without singing, but there is an immense amount of pressure on you to "show respect."

I don't always stand. This is silly. I can't say you shouldn't feel your feelings and you can't say I should. Cheers!

It's pretty easy to prove there is pressure to stand, see Colin Kaepernick where not standing probably cost him his job.

This discussion has inflated scope from "I don't like attending events because it's weird we're required to say a hymn or pledge" stated by one person.

With response "well you don't have to say or sing - I don't"

All the way to arguing over whether I really feel social pressure and how Colin Capernick has to stand so obviously I'm wrong.

We're really deep in the weeds looking for a technicality to nitpic my original statement, don't you think?

Your original statement was "I don't believe there is any pressure whatsoever." Maybe you meant that in some limited range, but it's hardly nitpicking to think you meant there was no pressure whatsoever.

I see. Removing that would make my post truer to it's original intent. Shame the edit window has passed.

If your entire point was that you don't have to sing along, sure. I don't think it's even encouraged in many performances. I had a friend who liked to but always did it under his breath to not disrupt things.

I took the original post to be criticizing forced participation in the ritual.

I very, very strongly disagree. If you hate the country you reside in so much, don’t show up to those events, or better yet, purchase a ticket to go live somewhere else that better suits you. I don’t have even the slightest bit of tolerance for that kind of apathetic, the-world-revolves-around-me attitude.

Sons had their legs blown off so you could be free to whine on an online forum about having to honor them for 60-seconds at sporting events you have the freedom to attend. Truly astounding.

Not following pathological nationalism isn't the same as "hating your country". Saying otherwise is just propagating a false dichotomy.

We can be thankful to live in this country without needing to force others to do so as well. In fact, to borrow from your earlier point, we actually have the freedom to hold a different opinion about nationalism/patriotism, unlike many oppressive countries.

> I think falling away from a national identity hurts everyone.

I agree but it’s the basic defect at the heart of America. It’s a country founded by anti-social individualists, replenished by waves and waves of the sort of anti-social people who would leave their kin and move to the other side of the world. Christianity was the only thing keeping the country from declining into pure atomized individualism, and the hold of that is on the verge of collapsing.

From where are you getting this idea that America was founded by "anti-social individualists"? What I was taught is that it was founded by people with immense faith in innate goodness of people and the rightness of governance by the people.

There may be a conflation of the founding fathers with the initial stock of pilgrims which is understandable given the ambiguity of the term ‘founded’.

I guess the pilgrims would be considered anti-social as they didn’t ’go along to get along’ but AFAIK powerful trade guilds dominated a large part of the economic private life and the people persecuted/excluded from them may not have had much choice in the matter.

Don’t you guys also do a pledge of allegiance and other weird stuff?

Also, in most every other country, the national anthem is only ever sung when the country is playing an outside country not for internal competition.

Yes we do a pledge of allegiance every day at school, and many government meetings and social club meetings.

A lot of that stuff is early adopter weirdness. You see, other nation states have things like a historical culture or common language to unite them, but the US had to invent a national identity out of whole cloth when no other nation was doing nationalism yet. We need rituals to affirm that we are the members of the in-group.

> Personally, I have always felt very strange in the entire concept of having to sing this at various events or in school as well as the pledging of allegiance.

We live in a society. The government takes 40-50% of your income every year so you can support the other people who are part of the same society. It allows you to survive and protects you from those that would harm you both internal and external. Saying a short affirmation of loyalty to that entity once in a while seems pretty mild in comparison.

Relevant: https://youtu.be/hopNAI8Pefg?si=6e0CPUfD15Mf30ol

> Saying a short affirmation of loyalty to that entity once in a while seems pretty mild in comparison.

Faux performative patriotism. You took the oath to support and defend the Constitution when you were admitted to the bar. That ought to be enough.

I say a prayer every time I enter a bar. Probably not the same prayer though

None of us asked for this. Sure you can argue that we’re lucky. That would be like chiding a clinically depressed person for “feeling down” because other people in other countries have it worse off.

Performative chants serve as a form of mass hypnosis - to solidify the legitimacy of a batshit insane society in the weak minds who just want to go along to get along.

Our society is fucked. And those of us fortunate enough to be in the creative class can wax philosophical about it in our luxury boxes while everyone else gets fucked.

> Faux performative patriotism

Shared rituals reinforce shared values.

Evidently not. Among all Americans, I have the least in common with those who are most passionate about these rituals.

Maybe in England, but we fought a whole revolution not to say dumb shit like this unless and until the spirit moves us. It's why we're better.

Are they just not teaching civics anymore? Even the nuns at St. Barnabas were clear on this point with us. If this is reverse psychology trying to get me to put my hand on my heart and pledge the flag, well played.

I thought we fought a war because we didn’t want to free our slaves?

That's not what I was taught. Is it what you were taught?

For the civil war, yes. But that doesn't seem like the most relevant war to the national anthem or pledge of allegiance.

We went to school in the before times. Lots of people believe various versions of that view now: https://www.vox.com/2015/7/2/8884885/american-revolution-mis...; https://nyupress.org/9781479893409/the-counter-revolution-of...; https://www.zinnedproject.org/news/1776-counter-revolution-u...

I suspect in a couple of decades it will become the accepted view. It’s similar to how by 1990 (when I was in school) we had erased Christianity from the national origin story by projecting Thomas Jefferson’s deism onto all the founders.

Are you confusing the civil and revolutionary wars?

Such taxes to such an extent are relatively modern in US history. I think people like to think that the money is spent for good because it would hurt even more if it wasn’t but I think much of it is wasted and a lot of it is counter productive. But perhaps I’m bitter at having governments subsides my competitors making my industry really unfair.

rayiner is just exaggerating by a factor of two.

> The government takes 40-50% of your income every year

Wait, America now has European levels of taxation?

They were exaggerating. According to Wikipedia it's at about 27%.

The morning pledge was intentionally pushed during a time when it was considered people were insufficiently patriotic. To make it even more fascistic it used to be the Roman salute pre-WWII. The US is surprisingly Germanic.

I think the multitude of anthems are pushed by military funding to intentionally conflate patriotism with support for the military.

One thing I especially don’t like is the reflexive ‘thank you for your service’ that has entered into polite behavior. I believe that was an intentional and highly effective campaign. I personally refuse to do it even to be polite. I take the Smedly D Butlers view that ‘War is a racket’.

you'd be surprised to learn how some countries treat their national anthems.

if you watch cinema in India, you have to stand up for the national anthem before the movie starts lol. similar situation in Thailand iirc.

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