Following up on that thought, it’s instructive to compare the things that left and right get mad about.
We libruls have been fighting all year to keep the GOP from taking health insurance away from >20 million people, and gutting it for everyone else.
And of course in the present situation, we’re upset about representatives of the government taking advantage of their apparent right to gun down black people for being black.
Y’all are up in arms about what you regard as an insult to a symbol.
Oh, and the whole “soldiers fought and died for” business? The major military conflict of my lifetime was the Cold War and its various flare-ups into shooting wars (e.g. Korea and Vietnam) in order to keep us safe from the Russkis. Now we’ve got a President and a Republican Party that’s unconcerned about their ability to put a thumb on the scales of our elections.
That just shits all over the service of every soldier who served during the Cold War, doesn’t it? But I don’t see y’all being upset about that. You care less about what is real than about something about a symbol.
How bad am I that I used to refuse to salute the flag because the Jehovah’s Witnesses told me not to, and now I would salute the flag because that’s what’s expected of everyone?
It’s a free country. You can salute or not for any reason you choose (or for whatever reason you allow someone else to choose for you)
How the NFL sold patriotism to the US military for millions
The “tradition” of NFL players standing for the anthem goes all the way back to 2009
Guess what, folks? Even though the Pentagon has stopped using the NFL as a recruiting tool, the millions it spent weren’t wasted. Exhibit A: All the people flying into hysterics about how the military is being attacked simply because football players aren’t standing erect enough.
Please go back and read what I posted, several times if necessary. Then come back and try to explain how I spun anything.
Ok how about this part:
The part where you call the right to protest stupid.
I broke the link above for two reasons : it auto downloaded an image, and the image was fairly tame but also dudes in flag underwear.
Please observe two click rule.
[/moderating]
I’m away from my computer and can’t type a good response. So I appreciate snfaulkner’s reply.
I’ll emphasize that YOU might need to re-read what YOU posted. Maybe a few times. You’ve got some deep revealing in that post. Can you see it? Most of us can.
Eta, you’re right, “spin” was a poor word choice of mine. Doesn’t really affect what i posted but, touché, sir.
Huh, on both counts.
Re auto-downloading: I posted from work, right before leaving. When I got home, I clicked on the link to make sure it worked. I didn’t get an auto-download; I got a box asking me if I wanted to view or download the image. (And I don’t have any highfalutin protection, just whatever comes for free with Windows 10.) Maybe it’s your settings?
Re underwear: I don’t think anything opaque that covers that much of a man’s body has been referred to as ‘underwear’ in the better part of a century. (For those that are wondering, it looks like a jazzed-up version of one of those men’s swim suits from the 1910s or 20s.) I’ve got to say the idea that it needed the two-click deal because of indecency didn’t remotely cross my mind, any more than I’d have thought two clicks would be necessary for a link to an Olympic swimming competition, where the men wear much skimpier swimsuits. I’m flummoxed.
There has always been reverence for symbolism and America’s sanctimonious love of the flag is probably not all that noteworthy. I don’t think that the Kaepernick debate is really about the flag, nor was it ever. The first people who complained about Kap taking the knee were police officers in the Bay Area, who threatened to pull security detail if he didn’t stop his protests. This has to do with an uppity black boy not knowing his proper place and showing proper deference to the men in blue. Trump naturally saw this as an opportunity to give this controversy a much larger platform and turned it into a divisive wedge issue. It doesn’t matter that a majority of people disagree with him on this; a very strong minority supports him and endorses the message of ethnic disunity. I can’t lump all Trump voters together but the people who voted for Trump and continue to embrace his worldview don’t want unity; they want deference to authority - white authority. There is a reason Trump got elected. A reason Jefferson Beauregard Sessions is attorney general. Trumpists will use their political power and their power as the nation’s social and ethnic majority to reestablish the pecking order in this country.
I’m re-reading The Brothers Karamazov, and came across this last night:
I suspect that you don’t understand what BLM and related protests are about. The police are just a part of the problem; without the support of many, many, many civilians, they wouldn’t be able to get away with misconduct over and over again. Protesting the whole country is exactly what is needed, so that’s what’s being done.
That explains so much. And I think the problem is that for both sides these are such basic unspoken truths that they can’t understand why the other side thinks the way the do.
Because the meaning of symbols is inherently subjective, tied to our own personal experiences. Symbolic meaning is never inherent; there will simply be a majority or plurality perception of their meaning, and those who fall outside this majority or plurality. There will then be those in the majority or plurality who are offended when they notice that others’ perception of the meaning of a symbol is different than theirs.
I would add that another perspective to equating disrespect of a symbol with disrespect for a group is when this group who is supposedly being disrespected is wielded as a political weapon. I have seen writings from troops that detail perceived disrespect for being used as a political weapon, particularly because they died not only for the freedom of people to disrespect the flag but also for the freedoms that those supposedly doing the disrespecting are being denied by the very government that the soldiers fought/fight for.
This is a common misunderstanding/misdirection (depending on a person’s motive) that protests are about protesting the flag or the anthem. The protests are using the flag and the anthem as a platform for protesting injustices. The bare minimum they are trying to do is to bring attention to these injustices by standing out in a socially inciting way.
There is arguably no bigger stage in this country that a televised football event and arguably no bigger social taboo than not “paying proper respect” for the flag and the anthem (at least at a sporting event). Therefore, to, at the very least, bring the widest attention to injustices, a logical course of action would be to “disrespect the flag and the anthem.” Yet given that protest founded our country, there is arguably no bigger respect one could pay to the flag and the anthem than using it for protest, even against the flag’s and anthem’s very country.
Was thinking of the exact same thing. Despite being a tradition for my entire short life, using the flag and anthem as a tool for multibillion dollar private businesses strikes me as simultaneously the most disrespectful act and the most American act towards the flag and anthem.
This is a stupid argument. People who wear the flag as underwear or bikinis generally do so because they like the flag and want to wear the colors of the flag. The NFL players kneel because they want to show that they feel the country is not worthy of honor because of the supposed way it treats black men. They are quite explicit about this and there is no other way to interpret their actions other than an explicit sign of disrespect.
Presumably another one of the freedoms they fought for is the right to say that the protesters are participating in a dumb protest about a non issue in a way that insults are country.