Your reasoning is as poor as your spelling. Do you really think the 99% of people who stand for the anthem approve of police brutality? Do you really think that the flag and anthem stand for police brutality, racism, and nothing else?
The flag stands for our country which contains lots of racism and police brutality but also MLK, the Civil Rights Act, and the hundreds of thousands of people who died fighting to free the slaves. It stands for winning WW2 over Nazis and Imperial Japan, for defeating the communists around the world in the cold war. That is why it was stupid to protest the flag and anthem.
Kneeling during the national anthem does nothing to alleviate the suffering of our fellow countrymen it is a symbolic act just as standing during the anthem is a symbolic act.
Because their actions and their explanations are so different. If they are not protesting the flag and the anthem and what they stand for, why are they doing their protest during the only two minutes of the week where they are asked to show respect for the flag and anthem? Is it just coincidence? If they are upset about Trump they can protest in front of the white house, Mar a Lago, or any of his branded properties. If they are protesting police brutality they can protest in front of any courthouse or police station in the country. If they want to draw attention to their pet cause their is nothing sportswriters love more than transcribing the puerile political ramblings of athletes. Their choice of when to protest was obviously deliberate. When asked why, Kapernik admitted that it was because he thought the country was not worthy of respect. After a backlash, they came up with the obvious lies that you cited earlier.When they were in London they stood for the UK’s anthem. Military veterans are just as capable of gullibility and motivated reasoning as anyone else.
This attack is unamerican. Our country was built on free speech and the first amendment. For you to try to compel me to abandon the principles this country was built on is repressive.
Do you even see the glaring inconsistencies here? The big flashing neon sign with an arrow saying “Getcher Inconsistencies Here?”
You seem to be so deeply committed to your narrative that you are unwilling or unable to address the actual points being raised in challenge. Your counterpoint, if it deserves that name, is merely tautology: “it is unamerican because it is unamerican.” You laud the First Amendment, but are offended when it is applied–when you already admit such exercise is indeed fundamentally American.
Flag worship, mandated observance, and rah-rah tits-out bumper-sticker “patriotism” is no more “American” than protest. And arguably less so.
One of the oddities of our society is being able to believe whatever we choose to…even if we believe that freedom should be curtailed.
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They’re doing it at the time on purpose to get the most attention, quite obviously and quite reasonably. If they’re all liars, am I also a liar for believing that such a protest is not disrespectful to the country or to my service? And if I’m not a liar, then why must they be liars for believing the same?
They are doing it to get the most attention, because they knew it would offend people. They knew it would offend people to kneel during the anthem and that is why they did it. They were being purposefully offensive to garner attention to their cause. When people got offended and they got the attention they pretended what they did was not offensive.
I don’t know you well enough to know if you are a liar or just hopelessly naive.
Yup. They knew that flag-worshipers, racists, and authoritarians would *choose *to be offended rather than think critically. Kneeling is not, despite your claims otherwise, inherently offensive. Hate to break it to you.
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Okay, I don’t think you have a realistic view. I understand that most of those who disagree with me on politics, including you, probably are arguing in good faith and actually do love the country and genuinely want to make it better. It’s a shame that you don’t realize the same is probably true of most who disagree with you, including players who protest.
They’re not trying to offend people. They might disagree with you, but I think it’s very reasonable to believe these are mostly decent people doing what they think is right to make America better.
If we can’t agree on that, then there’s zero chance of ever coming together on anything. It’s a terrible shame when Americans just assume other Americans they’ve never met are dishonest or evil or hateful, when it seems quite obvious that most of us are honest and well-meaning, with just different assumptions and understandings of how to improve the country and opportunity for all.
Stop this line about whether or not other posters are liars. Asking the question in this way is unnecessarily inflammatory, and the response is riding the line as well.
As a general note, the hostility in this thread needs to be dialed back. I hadn’t been following this thread but I am now.
I would have to say that one of the saddest things is that many times the sources of “information” that put forth ideas that the ones protesting are naive, liars or even traitors are the ones that are unamerican and ignorant.
And we know that the one with the biggest bully pulpit, the POTUS, is the most ignorant and naive. It is high time that not only a majority of the American people realizes that (they do already), but that most Republicans realize that too.
Personally, I’m surprised those who ignore the real reason for the protest aren’t demanding everyone fall to their knees as a demonstration of flag worship. Throw in a genuflection for every mention of President Trump and a crotch grab (their own crotch) whenever they see a non-white get stopped by police and you’ll have the new American Holy Trinity of Patriotism with a Capital P. Only then would we know there’s no real trouble in [del]River City[/del] the greatest country on Earth (said country which, somehow, was simultaneously the greatest and no longer great at all).
p.s. The flag does not now represent, nor has it ever represented, the military. The military pays respect to the flag and the country. Only ignorant bigots pound the drum of equating the national ensign with the military.