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I know that is what you meant. And this is not against you personally at all, so I hope you understand it is venting in general.

I guess everyone has their ox to be gored.

My ox being gored is football since I have been an avid fan going on fifty years, so that is fine with everyone who isn’t interested. Not their ox, so let’s gore it.

Suggest that their ox of using Microsoft products or Ford vehicles be gored because they give far more financial support to anti-conservative things than the NFL ever has or will, well, that is too much to ask of people I guess, and either dissembling or silence follows. Consistency isn’t the important thing there.

Especially when you look at the money that goes to not just un-conservative entities, but openly hostile and anti-conservative entities from The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (which offers large matching funds from Microsoft for employee donations to it) and the Ford Foundation which was one of the largest (if not the largest) contributors to the Black Lives Matter organization last year which took in $130 million dollars from various Open Society Foundations (Soros umbrella) as well as the Ford Foundation.

Sure, the Ford Foundation and Bill and Melinda Gates Foundations are not part of those companies, but as of 2014 (last I could find) Ford Motor Company was triple matching donations from their employees to the Ford Foundation, as an example. Which means that if you buy Ford or Microsoft, you are giving far more, and more important support in the form of money than kneeling football jerkoffs ever could or will.

I see your point. But you likely aren’t really interested in football anyway, so like many people, it is no skin off your back to make a choice. it is quite easy.

I just find it interesting that people aren’t really interested when the discussion comes up in this vein. Everyone likes to talk, especially on Free Republic now, as this is the whipping boy of the day, but when it comes to being consistent and really understanding the issues and the assault against us...that isn’t as important.

And it makes not a whit of difference to many people to give up something they aren’t doing anyway. Ask them to give up their computer OS or even the Internet itself...perhaps that is too much to ask. Too much inconvenience and sacrifice.

Again, this is not directed at you personally. I have spent the last 20 years tuning out and dropping out of things such as television, newspapers, etc. I am just tired of “dropping out” of these things instead of standing up and fighting for them. And believe me, I have dropped out of things.

I have walked the walk. I spent years going to counter-demonstrations against liberals in Washington, driving 8 hours a pop to do it. I have cut product after product, store after store, written letters to editorials and politicians, worked hard to understand issues, and for what? Eight years of Obama and his scum? I haven’t given up yet on this, and am in the process of writing letters to every owner of every NFL franchise, as well as the NFL itself. But it will likely have no effect. These people really believe their own crap, because they are leftists.

Now I have people on FR, a site I have regarded as my go-to place for nearly any Internet thing for years, telling people like me I am anti-American for watching something I have watched for nearly fifty years? This alone makes me angry, even if I understand completely why people take this stand.

I have a degree of social network around my football buddies, one of whom joined the Navy with me 40-something years ago and is my best friend. Football is a glue that gives us time to get together, hang out, have a beer, barbecue and talk about stuff. We have had season tickets, made road trips, gone to Super Bowls, watched every game for nearly two decades, gone to Christmas parties, met people from all over our region, and have countless pictures, memories and friendships for which professional football is the glue that brought us together and gives us an excuse to get together, instead of collecting butterflies or cleaning out the garage again.

And I have to give it up?

Because I hate what those leftist scumbags do, and have had more direct contact and confrontation with it than 90% of the people posting on Free Republic have. I grew up under that flag, my father served his life under that flag as I did, and he died and was buried under that flag, so it means something to me. It isn’t just a piece of cloth on top of a pole. I honor and respect that piece of cloth because it MEANS more than just a collection of thread and dyed fabric. It stands for what I believe in.

I haven’t looked at my FR stats in what seems like years, and just took a look...it says I have posted a total of 110 threads and 51,017 replies. That is a lot of time Freeping. I am doing a lot more listening and discussing than starting of discussions, I guess.

Point is, I have always given people space to make choices about how to be consistent in the aspects of their life. I may not go see movies starring anti-American clowns like George Clooney, or listened to music by pieces of crap like Bruce Springsteen but if other people do that, I have always thought that is their business, not mine.

I have always considered that a realistic and conservative mindset. Allow people to make their own choices to run their own lives. But it isn’t something that is reciprocated in any way. Not at all. We have jackasses on here who excoriate people for buying anything from China, but you think those same people examine every single thing down to a pen they write with to see if it was made in China? Of course they don’t. But it doesn’t slow them down a bit.

And a website that I absolutely love for the dialogue, has become someplace I cannot enjoy now. Over this crap. Every second or third thread is about this BS. And threads that aren’t are about Marxist cadets at West Point.

I think I am just going to have to take a break from this for a while. As you can tell, it makes me angry.