Has this massive nexus between politics and sport
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“I am a Veteran.
I feel that when NFL players kneel rather than stand during the playing of the American National Anthem, they are exercising a right in a way which makes them look like spoiled children.
They are not professional even though they are called professional athletes. They are technically and legally adults, but they are not acting like adults.
The players do not have a right to break the law. Only governments can make laws. The US Flag code is a very weak law using the word “should” and not “must”. A suggestion.
Rules are suggestions, too. The players have a right to break the rules. Rules have consequences.
The US Supreme Court interprets US laws according to the Constitution. Freedom of Speech in the First Amendment of the Constitution keeps the Flag Code from being a strong law. The Supreme Court and the Constitution are very powerful. I respect both very much.
I am a Veteran. I was a Captain in the Army.
There is no law to stand during the National Anthem. Owners can make team rules, face the NFL Players Union in court and fire or bench players who break team rules.
How do I feel? It is a disgusting way to state ones personal opinion. It makes me sick to see it. Standing is an American tradition. Kneeling is a right that does not respect tradition and absolutely does not respect Veterans. It is team unity which tells NFL brother and Army Ranger Pat Tillman that the current players don’t respect his sacrifice for their rights.
As far as I’m concerned, I won’t pay any money to the NFL or buy any products because they sponsor the NFL. I might buy them, because I want to. I might not. Waste of advertising dollars. Expensive. Maybe not.
The NFL players who kneel didn’t break a law.
The NFL players who kneel can break team rules and hide behind their Union which might … or might not … defend them in court.
Those NFL players broke three important rules.
One, they are not respecting Veterans who were killed and maimed to protect their Constitutional rights. Football is a game. Soldiers fight, and face death and maiming. Vets are used to not being respected. Not what we signed for, so of well ... We do respect Vets who gave their blood.
Two, they are awful Americans who are taking advantage of their good fortune of being citizens of this great country. Still Americans though.
Three … most important … they are not respecting their brothers like Pat Tillman, Rocky Bleier and many others who gave their blood to protect their so called brothers.
How do I feel as a Vet? I feel disgusted.”
Captain Fred Schlemm
Oxford dictionary;
pa·tri·ot·ism
/ˈpātrēəˌtizəm/
noun
- the quality of being patriotic; devotion to and vigorous support for one's country.
Considering he started taking a knee to show respect for Veterans, instead of not participating in the Anthem at all at the urging of a Green Beret. To say he's out to disrespect Veterans is total Bullshit.
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I have never said that he was “out to disrespect veterans” although many are. I also know there is probably an equal amount that feel disrespected but understand that is a personal right to do so. I did say that I thought it was disrespectful. My opinion regardless of his intentions. I feel like he could have chose a different way to make his stand (or take his knee).
All you have to do is read the lyrics. It is representative of the United States victory over the British. Alongside with the Flag the two combine as a song and symbol of the hope of the American dream. This has been the case since it was a bill signed by Woodrow Wilson (D). Since then it has been a time honored tradition.
Not hard to understand as you look at the facts and put aside one’s feelings.
I enjoy the debate and can really appreciate an educated exchange of thoughts and ideas. But, facts are facts. History has laid the groundwork. Not saying that it cannot or doesn’t need to change. Just saying that it should be based on intelligent conversation and not because some entitled, overpaid athletes decide to become attention whores without thinking of the consequences.
Considering blacks were slaves during that time period in America. I see how some don't think it represents unity for all. Or when Woodrow Wilson signed the bill, With Jim Crow laws that were for Segregation and taking Constitutional rights away from blacks. I can see how some people don't see the flag or the Anthem representing unity or justice for all.
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That is what is great about it. You are free to interpret any way you like and someone else beside you can interpret it the opposite of you.
freedom.
If politics is ruining sports for you then you're a weak minded snowflake.
I don't have to agree with everything an athlete, coach, GM or owner believe to enjoy the onfield prodcut.
I don't have to agree with everything an athlete, coach, GM or owner believe to enjoy the onfield prodcut.
What I take from your statement is that everything from that time period is bad because of slavery? So, every technological advances should be abolished? Every leader erased from history? Our country go back to being controlled by the British?
History is to be learned from and hopefully mistakes that were made not repeated. I am grateful for the lives that have been sacrificed for the USA to be an Independent nation. I am proud of how far we have come in being a more just and equal society. I personally don’t look at a person for the “color of there skin but the content of their soul.”- MLK. I know that we have not come far enough as a nation but attempts to further divide us from things that are there to unite us is not the answer. As we hopefully can all agree, sports has been one of those things that we can find commonality. The flag is another symbol of unity. And like it or not; the pledge of allegiance and anthem are for the same purpose. They in and of themselves are not representing a period of time in our countries history. Rather, they have represented our desire to become a “more perfect union”.
By your logic, we should do away with the constitution because some of the forefathers owned slaves. That we should abolish congress because some of them were slave owners. I guess the same is true for the office of the presidency. Oh, don’t forget the Bill of Rights is included too. How about the steam engine? Baseball, football also? Definitely the World Series because that was the first time the tradition was started. Oh, horses were the main source of transportation should we get rid of them too?
Your statement is not based on logic. Just feelings! My best friend is black (I am white as I guess you assume). He proudly stands with me as the anthem is played at USC sporting events. He has a son in the Army and talks with pride about his service for our country. His brother played football for our beloved Gamecocks. That brother later served on the police force. He also despised those who sit or kneel during the Anthem. God bless his soul as he has passed from this earth.
Oh, I guess we have to get rid of the University of South Carolina as it was founded in 1801. As well as Clemson, the College of Charleston, Georgia, etc...
For me, what makes the US great is that people are free to protest, voice their opinion, etc. and people have their right to disagree and voice their opinion against it. In Russia, you go to prison if you disagree, in Saudi Arabia you could lose your life. If you don’t like them kneeling don’t watch them they have the right to Kneel and you have the right to turn the channel. I Personally would never kneel but I also would never question them for doing so. I may not agree on kneeling but I would agree to support them in their right to do so.
To be fair, the fight to free those slaves was fought with that flag leading the way though.
On a side note, (and I apologize if it drags too much politics in) I disagree when people counter MAGA, or any other pride in our country with comments that our country was never great because there was always some flaw at some time. I don't think a country needs to be perfect to be "great", and I don't think any country will ever be perfect. So I disagree with waiting for that condition. to use the word "great".
Not saying this to you specifically deep fried, just that line of thought brought it up.
Actually it was only baseball that was playing after WWI and then it stopped until WWII when it started playing it again. Other sports didn’t pick it up until later. I really don’t see a need to play the national anthem before any sporting event. What does it have to do with sports anyway. It seems we had a long period where it wasn’t played and we got along without it fine. Stop playing it and there won’t be any issue.
I never said you had to get rid of anything. But to say the Star bangle banner is about unity, doesn't make sense. Franis Scott key wrote the line "home of the free". He didn't sell his slaves after writing that line. Now you can say he looked at slaves as nothing more than livestock And that's why he used the line "home of the Free". That's a fair statement for a slave owner. But to say his song was about unity, not everyone is gonna feel same. If you don't understand that, your only looking at it from your point of view.
MLS will no longerplay the national anthem before matches. It make sense too, since so many of the players are not from the US.
I wish other leauge woudl follow suit.
I agree with every point that you made. The only part that I take issue with is the consequences of how their message has come out. A protest about police brutality has turned into a national movement. Even that I am ok with until it lead to police officers being hunted and killed. The fact that they did it against the wishes of their teams showed anarchy is ok. It was hyped by the media and we are seeing how it has empowered young people across the country to loose all respect for their fellow man.
I have no problem with peaceful protest and stances for injustice. I believe in accountability for ones actions. But that works both ways.
My stance on the Anthem is just that. My stance! I enjoy a good spirited debate as that is a part of our freedoms and what makes the USA the best country on Earth. I also think that there is always facts that are overlooked for people feelings and to me... that is dangerous.
Might want to read my post again. I never said that anyone was “out to disrespect veterans”. But as I quoted one earlier and have read/talked to many others they feel disrespected. There are probably as many others that don’t as @Rollerdude pointed out.
I don’t kneel. I wouldn’t kneel. I stand, silently, and listen. I don’t even sing along with the anthem as I think the way some people try to sing along with it is disrespectful.
The part of this entire thing that grates on me is when I attended USC games for years and during the anthem I’d see countless people talking, wearing hats, going to use the bathroom, going to get snacks - all while the anthem was playing and then the prayer given. Yeah, that bugged me.
then kaepernick comes along and quietly kneels and then everyone was aghast that this one guy didn’t stand at attention for the anthem. I saw a ton of hypocrisy on display.
I have to be honest, when I see someone kneeling it bugs me a bit but I have to catch myself and remember not to think the worst of them because they are kneeling. It makes no sense to think the worst of them and think good about everyone standing for a song.
What I don’t care for is someone that kneels and has no idea why they are doing so or can’t explain it. If they are just following the crowd, I don’t have much respect for that either.
White privilege raising its ugly heads. The people who came to be called United States citizens but at the time were British colonialists and subjects protested and demonstrated much like what is happening today, with the very notable exception that their protests were far more violent and deadly, and led to a war.
Today we celebrate that period of protest with national holidays and pride, and by saluting to the flag and what it represents, which is all the individual freedoms and rights that those protests won for us as a people.
But nothing has been ultimately won: if our freedoms and rights as citizens are as valued as we claim them to be, then they are also under threat and assault every single day, and not only by hostiles outside our country. Our founding fathers left us a great power and authority as owners of our nation, and as they say, with great authority comes great responsibility. We as a people need to be diligent every day, to ensure that our rights and freedoms we've won with bloodshed and lives are not infringed upon and whittled down or eroded away. We need to be militant that rights we are due are not merely empty words. We need to demand that the vision of a nation of true equality and freedom as the Constitution states, is realized and protected and defended, again every single day.
Soldiers going off to a foreign strange land to fight and possibly die defending those freedoms is but one way we as a people do it. We have battles to fight on our own sovereign soil. This is a way citizens outside the military do it.
The hypocrisy never ends, and is boundless......
White privilege? He doesn't like how a protest has turned into killing cops and thats white privilege?
Have we already hit the point where white privilege is the new "you're racist"? A tired, overused term for when you want to shame someone into shutting up?
Interesting thought. How many people does it have to be disrespectful to before we stop something?
We are hearing a lot that some things have to change, even if they're not meant to be disrespectful, because some people find them disrespectful.
Some of those same people tell you to pound sand, it's a free country, if you say what they are doing is disrespectful.
Is there a threshold, or is it just defer to who screams the loudest?
"White privilege" has been nothing more than a device to shut down the opinion of white non-leftists for years. It is just another piece in the hackneyed leftist toolbox to denigrate and marginalize those they hate.
I think it is safe to say that, in general, people of color support the right of a player to kneel during the national anthem. To them, it is not a shot at the military, grandfathers, flags, or the sacrifices of previous generations.
Then, you have people that oppose kneeling and say that no cause is great enough to kneel during the anthem. This has to be a safe assumption.
It seems to not have dawned on the people that are in such hostile opposition that they're all white people. That being the case, they're either acknowledging that they cannot sympathize with other people or that these black people have a character problem.
It absolutely is white privilege, and I hate using those phrases, because for some reason, it is a non-starter for some white people. It's viewed as an attack on their work ethic and character. They think pulling one's self up by the bootstraps is doable for everyone. This whole conversation is about systemic racism, and for many, acknowledging that seems to be very problematic.
It's white privilege that allows you to blindly confuse the NFL player kneeling movement that has now been going on for years, with the violence of the rioting that was moreso generated by the George Floyd killing, than by the NFL player protests. It's the white privilege that prevents whites from seeing the issues that the players were/are kneeling over through their life perspective, and instead only sees it through the eyes of a people who do not have to deal with unfair, unlawful persecution on a daily basis their entire lives, simply over the fact that they have color to their skin...
I've yet to meet a white person that says a player doesn't have the right to kneel. They may not agree with the action, but they agree the right exists.
See, that's not true. It doesn't have to be an either/or scenario. People are more nuanced than that. There are myriad reasons why someone would object to kneeling during the anthem that have nothing to do with the two reasons you listed.
If the emboldened part is true, then that is a very serious problem, because it is 100% un-American thinking. Of course, the Constitution gives the right for our citizens to have the opinion that we should destroy our nation and go back to being British, or let the Russians take over, or the Chinese, whatever. Our own Constitution gives us the right to destroy our Constitution and every fiber of the freedoms and rights we've fought hard to own and keep.
But this country was born from the labor of protest - even violent protest - against the oppression of rights and liberty, and such actions by its citizens historically has been just as honored and respected as ANY flag this nation has had represent it. It's a major logic that most citizens today don't understand, because just as the Japanese said of us in the late 1980s, we've become fat and lazy and think we've won something that can NEVER be taken away from us, which is the infantile lie of the spoiled entitled child.
The flag and the anthem are nothing - and will never be nothing - but symbols of greater things. This is a country of its citizens - the people make the country. And so these symbols represent the people, and the freedoms and rights we've earned for ourselves through protests, riots, wars. And if the people do not think those symbols are representing those freedoms the way they should, then they have every constitutional right to protest against that.
And those actions are far more in keeping with what this nation is supposed to stand for, than the mealy-mouthed protests of the privileged majority who have and do not want to lose. The white conservatives stand in the shoes that once belonged to the British Crown, and just like that government, we are wrong. Fat. Lazy. Entitled. Un-American.......
White privilege at it's finest:
"Why, some of the best people I know are friends with blacks!"
Yep, you don't think a player hasn't the right to kneel - you just disagree with how or what the player kneels for. Which means, you don't think a player has the right to kneel over certain things or issues.
Which means, you don't think the player has the right to kneel. Glad we got that cleared up. Thanks......
Nothing is clear in your muddled, histrionic brain. Like most of your presumptuous, hypocritical posts, which are prosaic looks into the mind of a moron, you've displayed the ugly hatred that you purport to despise.
I shouldn't have said "right to kneel". No, few people have said they don't support the right to kneel. I made sure to say that people opposed are opposed to the timing of the protest.
To your second point, I can't agree. Some people don't view the flag with the same reverence. I'm not sure how else to put it. There are many white people and veterans that are not offended by kneeling. I'm not sure how you can communicate to a group of people that something is sacred without walking in their shoes.
And don't mistake this as me not having any lines drawn.
I did get triggered. You assumed I'm white. I'm not. I'm a black man that is a proud alumnus of USC that happens to also be conservative. Not a Republican, but conservative.
So, how does he respond to you now? Does he still say "white privilege" to a black man? He seems to think that is some awesome retort to anyone else.
I'm sure that made sense to you when you typed it, but I never said the kneeling led to violence.
But don't worry, just keep repeating "white privilege". That works so well.
I'm just setting the stage for what is soon to come.
I'm reserving my front-row seat for the entertainment.
If Ben Carson persuades Trump to do a 180 on this kneeling for the flag/anthem thing - and this very well could happen - and Trump starts supporting it, and does what only Donald Trump can by revising history and claiming that he was always in support of players kneeling for the flag.
And then watch all you hypocrites on this site suddenly faced with defending your position on kneeling for the flag, or staying committed to supporting your orange savior straight down to Hell like you initially gave oath to. Will you all suddenly start saying, "yes, I support kneeling for the flag!! I kneel myself every day to the flag!!"???
And I will sit here and laugh, laugh, laugh.............
I'm reserving my front-row seat for the entertainment.
If Ben Carson persuades Trump to do a 180 on this kneeling for the flag/anthem thing - and this very well could happen - and Trump starts supporting it, and does what only Donald Trump can by revising history and claiming that he was always in support of players kneeling for the flag.
And then watch all you hypocrites on this site suddenly faced with defending your position on kneeling for the flag, or staying committed to supporting your orange savior straight down to Hell like you initially gave oath to. Will you all suddenly start saying, "yes, I support kneeling for the flag!! I kneel myself every day to the flag!!"???
And I will sit here and laugh, laugh, laugh.............
Forget your opinion. It’s your arrogance that stinksI'm just setting the stage for what is soon to come.
I'm reserving my front-row seat for the entertainment.
If Ben Carson persuades Trump to do a 180 on this kneeling for the flag/anthem thing - and this very well could happen - and Trump starts supporting it, and does what only Donald Trump can by revising history and claiming that he was always in support of players kneeling for the flag.
And then watch all you hypocrites on this site suddenly faced with defending your position on kneeling for the flag, or staying committed to supporting your orange savior straight down to Hell like you initially gave oath to. Will you all suddenly start saying, "yes, I support kneeling for the flag!! I kneel myself every day to the flag!!"???
And I will sit here and laugh, laugh, laugh.............
Glad to see you are making points instead of just asking questions today. I like it.
African Americans have every right to demand equality and fair treatment. It is our unfulfilled promise. We all have an interest in that, and also in our family's future. When push comes to shove, it does not come down to black and white. It comes down to each person and each family. It comes down to each heart. It comes down to the balance every one of us faces in setting familial priorities, caring about our countries, and our fellow man.
The only monolithic block here is not a race. It is humanity, broken into smaller, more personal groups that all think differently, and all want freedom, joy, safety, for they and their loved ones, whatever their race.
Quit the name calling and fancy nomenclature and lay out some details. Big words scare people.
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No, it's just that sports seem more trivial. But if people on here or on the field have different opinions than me, so what?
Plus, sports in America have always been intertwined with politics. Always. Integration, the war in Vietnam, Jim Brown, Ali, black fists raised at the Olympics. It was always there.
Listening and trying to sympathize is not that hard. But there are still people that can't do it. They try to minimize the concerns and experiences of other people and have a hard time accepting that we can do better. They don't get it, and they say insensitive things. I can see the forest for the trees, and these past few weeks are not about Targets and statues. We still have people that are reluctant to say that black lives matter, because they can't handle that nuance or are resistant based on some illogical fear. A line needs to be drawn, but I refuse to get swept up in the hysteria that says this country is falling apart when you had people of all backgrounds protesting systemic racism that we have failed at addressing since this country's founding. Sorry that you don't like the "big words", but that is not something that is inherent to one "side".
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