elementary brainwashings

so I am not sure if they still teach this today, but I distinctly remember, in grades 1 through 4, being told over and over again that America is the only free country on earth, and how lucky we are to live here. now it took me a few child years to figure out that that is just not true at all. how can you teach that to little kids? well, it may have had to do with the fact that I attended the most brainwashingest bible-beatingest kind-of-scary-if-you-actually-think-about-it schools around. i mean, quite a few of these people were seriously delusional. so they tried, and succeeded for a number of years, in telling me that no other country on earth is free like the United States of America. they also told me that everyone I loved was going to die a fiery death in depths of hell, so i don't think that tact was one of their strong points. however they did get a couple of us to detroy our Bush (the band, not the disgraced world leader) CD's. which in retrospect was actually a good thing. although, i will give credit where credit is due, because in the mid 90's Bush (the band, not the joke of a president) was at the forefront of alt rock. does anyone even say "alt rock" anymore?