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What makes standing for the national anthem important? Like, which one? The national anthem of England, or the one of the traitorous colonists? If in Nazi Germany or the USSR, is it a basic civic norm to stand for the national anthem?
In my book, trying to force kids to stand for the national anthem is practically child abuse. Loyalty to country is a thought-terminating cliche.
This is a good place for the "is it okay to shoot them" criterion. If it's okay to shoot them (regardless of whether it's safe to shoot them), it's also okay to do a whole bunch of other things you normally shouldn't be doing. If it isn't okay to shoot them, then follow the norms.
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It’s child abuse to… strongly encourage your child to have the same beliefs and behavioral norms as the vast majority of people he or she will meet and interact with? To set your child up for a smooth and healthy social life rather than encouraging him or her to be an atomized contrarian?
Look, man, as someone who staunchly refused to stand for the national anthem starting in high school and continuing up until a couple of years ago, I probably share nearly all of your complaints about the thought-terminating clichés implied by standing for the national anthem. I personally derive very little patriotic feeling or inspiration when I hear the Star-Spangled Banner; its lyrics are a mawkish and clumsy paean to an irrelevant battle from a war which America didn’t even win, and to a country which no longer exists in any meaningful sense.
But saying it’s child abuse to want one’s child to fit in and to have normal run-of-the-mill beliefs that will allow that child to go through life successfully and have healthy relationships with others? That strikes me as a completely ass-backwards accusation.
Well, I think that in a society as liberal as the modern US it's nearly child abuse to bullshit your kid deliberately so that they will have an easier time fitting in. If you're raising your son in Nazi Germany and he has a pretty decent chance of literally getting killed if you teach him to be a free thinker, I guess that's different. But in a more liberal society, the way I see it you're depriving your child of some of the things that make life most worth living in an awake and aware way in order to make it easier for them to sleep through life, all just so that they have an easier time of fitting in with various forms of idiocy.
Fair enough, maybe calling it close to child abuse is a bit exaggerated on my part, but I would say it's not too far off the mark.
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