You made me think of my buddy from the states visiting me in Toronto 2010-ish laughing at the Canadian flags they sometimes saw flying from people’s houses and other buildings. I asked her what struck her so funny about them and she blanked for a second. She said, “It’s just weird seeing so many flags that aren’t American… Like, this is a country too… um.” We had a brilliant talk about flag-waving patriots for a bit, but seeing that glitch was really interesting and I’ve never forgotten it.
That said, I had plenty of teachers growing up and know tonnes of educators now who’d totally be into forcing students to salute the Canadian flag and pledge allegiance to their God & Country every morning. The only thing stopping them is legislation preventing it, not national identity.
If there’s one thing the US is great at, it’s exporting the most stupid stuff they can come up with. At the moment, unfortunately, it seems to be politics.
You made me think of my buddy from the states visiting me in Toronto 2010-ish laughing at the Canadian flags they sometimes saw flying from people’s houses and other buildings. I asked her what struck her so funny about them and she blanked for a second. She said, “It’s just weird seeing so many flags that aren’t American… Like, this is a country too… um.” We had a brilliant talk about flag-waving patriots for a bit, but seeing that glitch was really interesting and I’ve never forgotten it.
That said, I had plenty of teachers growing up and know tonnes of educators now who’d totally be into forcing students to salute the Canadian flag and pledge allegiance to their God & Country every morning. The only thing stopping them is legislation preventing it, not national identity.
If there’s one thing the US is great at, it’s exporting the most stupid stuff they can come up with. At the moment, unfortunately, it seems to be politics.