Little rant regarding the kneeling thing.

[Chad32]

Colin Kapernick is doing Nike ads, and people are burning shoes. Of course this is related to the whole kneeling thing, and I feel like venting.

I don't know what football has to do with soldiers, or what people think the soldiers are fighting and dying for, but apparently the first amendment freedoms don't make that list. If you think soldiers are fighting for freedom, why isn't free speech and protest included? If that's not what you think they're fighting for, as it relates to people kneeling, then what is it? Protests don't do much good if they're not public, and don't force people to stop and think. I know it's a private business, and they have a job to do, but if the restaurant I worked at suddenly started telling us to stand and salute the flag, or sing the national anthem before our shift, people would have a problem.

It annoys me that people who will scream about the second amendment skip the first. all those amendment that are put there to protect us from the powerful, and limit what our government can do, get real inconvenient when your guy is in power, but you forget that we don't always have a president that aligns with your personal beliefs, and we shouldn't turn our constitution on and off depending on whatever our side is in power or not.

I know the country is messed up. I know we're not really a representative democracy anymore. I just feel like venting every once in a while, even though I already know why things are the way they are.

[Silver]

Venting is good.

One thing most idiotically patriotic people don't understand is that the anthem is relatively new to the sports scene. Not to mention that if the team was going to pray before a game, it was kept in the privacy of the locker room where it belonged.

Football is only about one thing: the game. If anything, the players have the right to peacefully protest, i.e., kneeling, without the supposed fans getting their panties in a twist over it.

[SteelCurtain]

White people like to burn shit when they're mad.

[vulcanlogician]

If you think soldiers are fighting for freedom, why isn't free speech and protest included? If that's not what you think they're fighting for, as it relates to people kneeling, then what is it?

This is the conundrum that fierce American patriotism faces. In actuality, fierce American patriotism and the American ideal don't mix. 

I can give an "oil and water" example of this: some people who live around me think that burning the flag ought to be an exception to the First Amendment--that if people don't like this country, they should "go live somewhere else." I love to remind them that burning the North Korean flag is illegal in North Korea. We in America have a wide berth when choosing to find ways to air our grievances. We have freedom of speech, after all.

Then I tell them: That's America. If they don't like it, they should go live somewhere else. Oh boy, do they hate that.

[CapnAwesome]

Colin Kapernick is doing Nike ads, and people are burning shoes. Of course this is related to the whole kneeling thing, and I feel like venting.

I don't know what football has to do with soldiers, or what people think the soldiers are fighting and dying for, but apparently the first amendment freedoms don't make that list. If you think soldiers are fighting for freedom, why isn't free speech and protest included? If that's not what you think they're fighting for, as it relates to people kneeling, then what is it? Protests don't do much good if they're not public, and don't force people to stop and think. I know it's a private business, and they have a job to do, but if the restaurant I worked at suddenly started telling us to stand and salute the flag, or sing the national anthem before our shift, people would have a problem.

It annoys me that people who will scream about the second amendment skip the first. all those amendment that are put there to protect us from the powerful, and limit what our government can do, get real inconvenient when your guy is in power, but you forget that we don't always have a president that aligns with your personal beliefs, and we shouldn't turn our constitution on and off depending on whatever our side is in power or not.

I know the country is messed up. I know we're not really a representative democracy anymore. I just feel like venting every once in a while, even though I already know why things are the way they are.

I'm not sure that burning Nikes is the same as saying that someone doesn't have the right to free speech. I mean you can't get inside the minds of every person, so the motives are probably diverse, hut I think they are mostly saying they don't like Colin whatever his name is. ( I don't watch football, or in general care about any of this. )

That would be like me saying that you don't support free speech either, because you think people don't have a right to burn Nikes.

In reality I suspect that's not what you are saying, but rather that you don't like those people or don't like what they are doing. It not the same

Also isn't it ironic that I would wager most people who think YouTube can censor Alex Jones (because somehow it's not censorship if corporation does it) don't think the NFL should be allowed to censor their employees at work.

So I just see a bunch of hypocrisy on both sides with no moral consistency whatsoever.

[vulcanlogician]

( I don't watch football, or in general care about any of this. )

Thanks for that, Cap'n. If I ever write an autobiography, I now have the perfect title.

[chimp3]

I fail to understand why football correlates with patriotism. I don't watch sports. I don't attend any activities that open with the National Anthem or  the Pledge of Allegience actually. Police brutality is a real.concern. So, I side with the kneelers.

[Brian37]

Colin Kapernick is doing Nike ads, and people are burning shoes. Of course this is related to the whole kneeling thing, and I feel like venting.

I don't know what football has to do with soldiers, or what people think the soldiers are fighting and dying for, but apparently the first amendment freedoms don't make that list. If you think soldiers are fighting for freedom, why isn't free speech and protest included? If that's not what you think they're fighting for, as it relates to people kneeling, then what is it? Protests don't do much good if they're not public, and don't force people to stop and think. I know it's a private business, and they have a job to do, but if the restaurant I worked at suddenly started telling us to stand and salute the flag, or sing the national anthem before our shift, people would have a problem.

It annoys me that people who will scream about the second amendment skip the first. all those amendment that are put there to protect us from the powerful, and limit what our government can do, get real inconvenient when your guy is in power, but you forget that we don't always have a president that aligns with your personal beliefs, and we shouldn't turn our constitution on and off depending on whatever our side is in power or not.

I know the country is messed up. I know we're not really a representative democracy anymore. I just feel like venting every once in a while, even though I already know why things are the way they are.

This is just bullshit propaganda sold by the right and Trump selling otherism, and hyper nationalism. It is the same disgusting tactic despots and dictators use.

I had a couple friends last night over, and one of them mentioned a post they saw on line pointing out how fucking stupid the blind loyalty crap was coming from the right, they described the post as saying, "You are concerned about a player kneeling but where are the protests about child molesting priests?"

The right isn't concerned about freedom for everyone, they are concerned about keeping power at all costs.

---

I fail to understand why football correlates with patriotism. I don't watch sports. I don't attend any activities that open with the National Anthem or  the Pledge of Allegience actually. Police brutality is a real.concern. So, I side with the kneelers.

If pro sports really was neutral, it would not involve an Anthem or have military fly overs. It isn't that we should not value our system or our military, but because a diverse population has so many different views, nationality becomes as divisive as sub sects of the same religion. 

There was a time in our history, they simply played the game without incorporating those things. If sports is to be neutral it should skip ceremonies like that.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Being a historian by trade I've seen this before. die Party comes before the law.

[Silver]

Being a historian by trade I've seen this before. die Party comes before the law.

I thought we were supposed to learn from history so as to not repeat it.