What is the controversy surrounding #takeaknee

[Thumpalumpacus]

There's also a kind of interesting paradox about protests involving national symbols in my mind. To disrespect the flag is to disrespect all that it stands for which is to disrespect your right to disrespect it. The freedoms and liberties represented by the flag are also the remedies to the grievances motivating protest against it. So in a way its kind of like protesting the very thing you hope to achieve. I mean, if Americans cannot stand united in their respect for the symbols that represent our liberties, the principles that protect them, and the people who fought and died for them then what else could possible unite us as one nation?

An Islamic proverb I learnt in Iran is perfect here: The finger pointing at the Moon is not the Moon. Speaking as a veteran, that flag doesn't represent me. That flag represent the freedoms ensconced in our Bill of Rights. But that flag, that anthem, none of those things are the Bill of Rights.

There is no paradox. Burning the flag is not burning the freedom ... it is exalting it. To think otherwise is to fetishize the trappings of freedom at the expense of freedom itself.

Secondly, there is a time and a place for everything. Military funerals are not an appropriate place to protest against gay marriage. The Westbound Baptist Church may have had the  right but that didn't make it right. Look, I know this supposed to be about police brutality. Maybe they should protest in front of City Hall or a Police station and not at sporting events, concerts, and other performances where people go to get away from politics and their everyday lives. People want go out with the family, tailgate, and have fun, not be preached at. These kinds of protests are about as welcome as a fart in an elevator.

Well, the whole point of a protest is to discomfit the complacent, now isn't it? No doubt you'd rather not think about the unjust deaths of young black men at the hands of cops, and you might even spend a few hundred bucks on NFL tickets trying to achieve that goal, but I guarantee you you're a lot more comfortable than is the young black man who just got the shit beat out of him ... or worse.