Posted on 09/25/2017 10:32:22 PM PDT by TBP
Then let’s stop politicizing sports by even playing the national anthem or “God Bless America” before or during the games. How bizarre would it be if each day you showed up at work as a plumber or truck driver or lawyer and you first had to stand for the national anthem?
Also, when exactly did how we behave during a national anthem become a litmus test on our patriotism? I mean, if I stand but don’t put my hand over my heart, am I less patriotic than the guy next to me who does? How about if he puts his hand over his heart, but I salute? What if I sing along?
Right, it is all ridiculous. It is a song after all, not a particularly good one. The flag is a piece of fabric. These are symbols. Real patriotism is using your First Amendment rights and defending those who do so peacefully, even if you don’t particularly like their speech.
As the leader of the most important country on the globe, he had two avenues to go down with this issue — open a civil dialogue about what the symbolism of flags and national songs mean or incite a fight. He started a fight. This is talk-show America now — scream loud, don’t listen to others and the most relentlessly vicious wins.
Remember those who are protesting are not doing so against the flag or a national song. They are doing so against injustices they see, notably racial injustices. Maybe you don’t see them. It seems our president does not. But it is his job to actually protect those who see them and want to make statements about it, and it is at the very core of our value system to allow peaceful dissent.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
Here is my email to him:
Hi Joel.
I usually agree iwht your baseball analysis, but your column on the NFL players taking a knee is way off the mark.
It's not about the First Amendment. Nobody contests that. The First Amendment applies to the government, not to any citizen or any private organization. A private organization can set conditions for employment, and any American can speak out against the protests. I'm sure there are conditions you must meet as part of your employment at The Post. Why are NFL players any different?
When you take a knee for eh National Anthem, when you show disrespect for the flag, you disrespect what they symbolize: America -- the country and the people. While anyone has the right to do that, that doesn't make it the right thing to do.
Playing the National Anthem and God Bless America is not politicizing sports. We've played the Anthem for a long time (as long as I can remember), and they started playing God Bless America in response to 9/11.
These aren't Republican symbols or Democrat symbols, white symbols or black symbols. they're American symbols, the kind of thing that should unify a nation. If they're politicized, they're politicized by the people protesting them.
As to "the people who don't have a voice," that is not professional athletes, but the hard-working men and women of Middle America who see their jobs gone and their culture under attack, and nobody is speaking up for them. That is why Donald Trump is president today. Right or wrong, they perceive him as their champion.
President Trump did not start a fight, as you wrote. Kaepernick and his disrespectful cohorts started it. But the American people will end it, and it may not end well for the NFL.
dip shit
yes because you leftists really care about freedom of speech. please don’t even try it with your BS. You all condone VIOLENCE against peaceful protestors with a permit by calling them NAZIS. “punch a Nazi in the face”. Oh yea did we tell you a Nazi to the left is anyone right of Stalin.
Besides this is not a freedom of speech. Those players on in uniform and on the job. Let their big thug asses protest on their own time. And lets remind people of why the kneeling started. It was in support of BLM.
Well-written reply—good work.
Thank you.
I have turned off the NFL until this situation is resolved in favor of respect for American tradition.
And, I am finding other things to do with my Sunday. If enough people do this, and I think it has started, it will snowball. This could represent a permanent loss of audience for the NFL.
Bad for them, good for the rest of the country.
Ah, so everyone in the stands who booed the kneelers and yelled “Stand up” at them also “attacked what makes America great”, seriously??
Sherman needs to be reminded of that, and be made to actually engage his brain and think about it.
Remember how baseball lost fans after the 1994 strike? Some of those have never come back. As Yogi Berra said, “If people don’t want to come to the ballpark, nobody can stop them.”
Now it’s starting to happen to the invincible NFL, the league nobody could destroy. It looks like the NFL is on a suicide mission, and I’m quite happy to help them along with that.
Again, from Billy Joel: “And you can speak your mind, but not on my time.”
The left has always wanted to destroy the NFL!
And your mother is a whore.
IF you are a veteran -- or a military member in civilian dress, distinguishing yourself by rendering the military salute is your privilege -- per law signed by Pres. G.W.Bush.
Otherwise, saluting is inappropriate and merely makes you look silly...
Obama trash talked the US and denounced it at every turn on foreign soil, saying how rotten EVERYTHING ever was before HE became king-god-emperor.
Trump attacks what makes America great? Where was this journo-list during the Obama error?
>>Real patriotism is using your First Amendment rights and defending those who do so peacefully, even if you don’t particularly like their speech.
Has he written a screed attacking the anti-First Amendment AuntieFahhhhs?
I wrote to him too and asked:
Using your job as a means to protest your dislikes...that’s what you think makes America great? That’s a pretty distorted view in my opinion.
I have no problem with anyone protesting whatever they want. Just don’t do it while you’re on the time clock. Protesting isn’t part of these player’s paycheck, playing ball is. If I had chosen to protest in uniform, while on duty, I’d have been brought up on departmental charges, and terminated.
Damn right!
People just wanted to spend their lazy Sundays watching football, not be "Woke AF" with lefty SJW crap shoved down our throats over every damn little thing.
This is what President Trump is reminding the NFL. Knock this kneeling crap off or take a hike, and just give us our damn game back! Without the side order of lefty politics!
Joel Sherman is a moron.
The NFL is sold as entertainment. Having to watch a bunch of overpaid, multi-millionaire snowflakes “take a knee” — for whatever gripe — is not entertainment.
Does “STFU and play” really rob them of their First Amendment rights? Well not unless a TV network camps out at my house every Sunday afternoon so that I can “take a knee” on national television in protest of whatever chafes me.
(...and, not a particularly good one?) ‘-)
No worries, Joel, at the rate that liberals/SJWs are ruining sports, there won’t be any sports to cover and you’ll be out of a job.
We have allowed the degradation of our culture, our Country and our lives for too long. It stops today. I stand with my President.
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