Fun fact: the US Pledge of Allegiance wasn’t always as it currently is:

The original version, known as the Balch Pledge, was created in 1887 by George Balch, and went as follows:

We give our heads and hearts to God and our country; one country, one language, one flag!

Five years later, in 1892, Francis Bellamy created a similar one, known as the Bellamy Pledge, that went as follows:

I pledge allegiance to my Flag and the Republic for which it stands, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

And all this was merely informal. The “Under God” part wasn’t formally a part of the Pledge until 1954.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pledge_of_Allegiance?wprov=sfla1

✨BONUS FUN FACT✨

In 1956, “In God We Trust” became the official motto of the United States. It formally replaced “E pluribus unum”, which was long the de facto motto of the US.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_God_We_Trust?wprov=sfla1

As a side note, I just have to say

FUCK. THIS. BULLSHIT.

Have a great day.

Both of those things are shitty; it’s just one of them is worse.

That’s not how this meme template works.

" N O "

…ew.

They have ads in Chrome now? Yikes, it’s worse than I thought.

Im’ma be honest. I’ve been using FF for so long that if that’s the case I didn’t even know.

Honestly, I’m less worried about the speed and moreso I just don’t like supporting Google’s de facto monopoly of the Web’s infrastructure.

Nah, they just continue on as normal, believing the lie that he’s a “political prisoner” (Trump’s words actually) and that the charges were bullshit concocted by the Democrats to put him away.

…a customer of mine spewed this nonsense off at me just yesterday after the news broke, and I died a little inside.

How is that relevant?

It’s relevant because it seemed like you were saying that students being prosecuted for protests and other things was a recent phenomenon. I was merely saying that’s not the case.

Honestly it sounds like you may be trying to make excuses for these attacks on student protestors by claiming that they’re an inevitable force of nature. That it’s always been this way and always will be. Nothing to see here, move along. Hopefully that’s not what you’re trying to do.

Not at all. I’m not making excuses for either party. I was merely under the impression that you were saying prosecution of students was a relatively modern phenomenon, and was stating it was not.

And no, the state is not persecuting students for thinking, it’s persecuting them for the same reason it’s persecuting Yeshitela and Assange: for expressing things it would rather not have expressed.

Both are true, honestly. Universities have often been hotbeds of alternative viewpoints, and these are largely caused by said universities naturally having cultures of free intellectual thought. Establishments throughout history have generally not liked the resulting alternative viewpoints and thus have prosecuted them. For one reason or another, for good or ill. I’m making no judgement here one way or the other.; I’m merely making a statement.

Students have always been persecuted, throughout human and US history.

It was like that in the French Revolution era, it was like that in the 60s–70s, and it’s like that in this era.

My point is that students being persecuted is by no means a thing unique to this era; it’s because college has been and still is a place where people are encouraged to think and governments have never liked that.

I genuinely don’t know what I was thinking. At the time, it did seem uncanny valley–esque.

Now, it doesnt.

What the fuck, brain?

That is some Uncanny Valley bullshit right there.

Edit: Welp, that was weird. Not sure what I thought was Uncanny Valley–esque about this image. Don’t see it now, but I did then. Fucking weird-ass brain…