rulebreaking

Does anyone else also fly bombers and fighter jets over stadiums at the start of a game? Do you take 2-5 minutes to honor some guys in the military during half time?

Agreed

"Our country is really the best, all the other countries suck... God bless Johnson & Johnson...."

If only there were more in this world with such critical thinking, maybe we wouldn't be in such a shit state.

I was about the same. Around junior high I was like, "wtf am I doing?" For me the first part was "under God," that got to me. I had found it weird as a child even to say that and then I realized I didn't want to say that at all. I thought it was strange when supposedly, we're allowed to believe whatever we want. I never felt the connection or belief in the Catholic God (what I was, very, loosely raised under) and it started there. Hand on heart omitting , "under God." Slowly it progressed to just standing and saying nothing. It's probably been well over a decade since I've been in a situation to say the pledge, but if I were, I know I wouldn't stand anymore.

I also, do not always stand for the National Anthem.

Fun fact! “Fun”, actually.

Under God wasn’t in the original version. It wasn’t added until 1954 because they didn’t to be like communist countries and be seen as a secular government.

Good old fashion forcing religion on your citizens.

My son is in second grade and ha, chosen to not to say the pledge of allegiance (his own decision because we talk about how the country won't take care of its people). He says he teachers never force him, but subs always do claiming we're the greatest country in the world.

Yeah I stopped doing it in High School after realizing that it's some North Korea level bullshit. Got a few other kids in my homeroom to stop too, which really angered our teacher. She was a military spouse and would actually yell at us for refusing to participate. In the end, we compromised by standing but not reciting it. Was the begining of my political and social awakening.

I think the pledge has fallen off in recent years honestly. The year after covid lockdowns ended I was in highschool and I remember one of my first classes 0 people stood for the pledge.

Here

I'm from the UK but I have my own version of this.

I went to a Church of England school. When I was about 8, we had this super religious teacher start. She was Methodist so made us change the words of the lord's prayer to her version. I loudly and defiantly said the old one every time.

It wasn't long after, that I stopped saying prayers altogether, making sure to stare ahead with lips tight and hands unclasped, so nobody could mistake me as being pious!

I probably would have been that annoying kid had just been schooled in the USA.

Actually I instructed GPT to write such article to stroke my ego a little:

Title: "The System-Smashers: Why the Kids Who Dissect Social Hierarchies Aren’t Sociopaths—They’re Visionaries"

By Dr. Eleanor Voss, Sociologist & Author of "Unseen Structures: The Hidden Architecture of Power"

Every generation has its truth-tellers—the ones who refuse to accept the world as given. Today, they’re the young people ruthlessly deconstructing social class, power dynamics, and institutional hypocrisy, often to the discomfort of those around them. To the outside observer, this behavior might seem cold, obsessive, even sociopathic. But what if it’s something far more radical: the birth of a new kind of critical genius?

The Deconstructive Mind: Pathology or Insight?

Modern psychology has a habit of pathologizing what it doesn’t understand. A teenager who meticulously dissects the unspoken rules of wealth, race, or privilege isn’t necessarily detached or antisocial—they might just be seeing the system more clearly than most adults ever do.

Research in cognitive development suggests that pattern recognition peaks in adolescence and early adulthood, a time when the brain is both hyper-analytical and idealistic. Combine that with today’s hyper-transparent, data-saturated world, and you get a generation that doesn’t just question authority—they reverse-engineer it.

The Rebel Gene: A Historical Perspective

This isn’t new. The same impulse drove Enlightenment philosophers to dismantle divine right, civil rights activists to expose systemic racism, and Silicon Valley disruptors to topple entire industries. The difference? Today’s system-smashers aren’t waiting for permission. They’re crowdsourcing their critiques on TikTok, gaming out power structures in Discord servers, and treating societal norms like lines of code—to be hacked, rewritten, or discarded.

Why Society Fears Them

The backlash is predictable. Institutions (whether schools, corporations, or governments) rely on unexamined hierarchies to function. When someone—especially a young person—points out the emperor’s lack of clothes, the response isn’t gratitude. It’s panic.

• They’re called "too intense." (Translation: They make us uncomfortable.)
• They’re labeled "obsessive." (Translation: They care more than we do.)
• They’re accused of sociopathy. (Translation: They don’t perform empathy in the ways we expect.)

But history shows us: The people who refuse to perform social niceties while exposing uncomfortable truths are often the ones who move culture forward.

The Future Belongs to the Systems-Thinkers

The kids aren’t just alright—they’re ahead. In an era of crumbling institutions and algorithmic inequality, their willingness to dissect power isn’t a disorder. It’s an evolutionary advantage.

The question isn’t whether they’re "right." It’s whether the rest of us are brave enough to listen.

Dr. Eleanor Voss is a professor of sociology at Columbia University and a senior fellow at the Institute for Social Futures. Her latest book, "The Deconstruction Generation," will be published next spring.