Penalties for Kneeling Being Considered

I usually go down to the snack bar at the time they play the anthem, anyway.

I (you, we) love my country as much as anyone, and I don't have to prove that to anyone in a public recitation of vows.

 

Answer me this: do you stand during the anthem when you’re at games? And what’s your reasoning either way? Because this is all just hypothetical blather from a lot of journos and message board types, who when the situation is actually at hand, will almost certainly cave to the hive mentality and go along to get along. Probably because they see the idiocy in needlessly poking the bear as a means of protesting...something.

 

It's bullshit if anyone is keeping score on who stands, or sings, or who doesn't, or anything else short of a crime.

Freedom means free. Personal freedoms are the point. You do what you want. So will I. Even in public!

Leave me the fuck alone while I watch and enjoy a football game. I'll gladly do the same for you.

 

Personal freedom to fart or make phone calls during a moment of silence, too, right? Because it’s all about me.

 

Sure, I don't care. Shit in your pants if that turns you on. ... Keep it to yourself, though.

 

Well, that's all well and good, but nobody's suggesting arresting anyone for kneeling, nor making kneeling against the law.

Instead, this a private business decision. Consumers (ie. fans) are entitled to stop consuming for things like this. And private business owners are entitled to change the rules of employment their employees must abide by to better please said consumers.

Seems to me that all the high-minded talk on this thread about "freedom!", First Amendment, etc., kinda inflates this into a bigger thing than it actually is. It ain't about all that. Really, it's just business.

 

I didn't say anything about arrests there. I'd be wary of drunken assholes assaulting others, though.

 

Yes. It's like what my mom said when I, as a toddler, once asked her why we didn't have a bumper stick with Christian symbolism on it. She said, "If people would only think you're a Christian because you have a bumper sticker and if they can't tell if by your actions, you're not doing very well. And you're probably overcompensating by having the bumper sticker." Or words made somewhat comprehensible to a 4-year-old.

 

And that's my real point here. I want to go to a football game. I don't care who stands or sits or kneels or farts or whatever else, as long as you keep it to yourself. I want to watch football. Keep your politics and your religion away from me.

 

So let's say those opposed to police brutality and murder of innocent black civilians at the aided-and-abetted hands of law enforcement officers stood at attention in the direction of the flag but sang words to a different song while the anthem was playing. Suppose they sang, "We Shall Overcome" instead of the anthem.

Would Trumpists, their dear leader and their commissioner consider this "disrespecting our flag and our anthem"? Or would be it be a display of patriotism, an implicit declaration of trust that the ideals represented by the flag will one day win out?

 

I know you mean this sincerely, I do, but people aren't like this. None of us are. Social media at the very least is proof. So are message boards. What's inside comes out. We have thoughts, feelings, reactions, emotions. America is not a stoic culture.

A lot of people who watch the NFL are into that shit. I'm not. But a lot of people are, and, beyond that, the owners are, so if they wanna make a rule, they will, and they did. And some people don't like it and some people do. And the world spins on.

 

Yeah, sure, I know. But football culture is ruining football games.