Colin Kaepernick uproar.

[redstatebluegirl]

Today I was driving across town listening to a radio sports talk show here in Oklahoma City. The bubbas were out in force screaming about CK and his "disrespect of our flag and country". Well... When we moved here 14 years ago we went to an OU football game and when they played the national anthem a ton of people were not removing hats but that was just the start, at the end of the national anthem instead of singing "home of the brave", they sang "home of the Sooners".

I called my brother who spent his life in the military serving in Vietnam and the first Gulf War. He said, "I don't like it either, but I served to protect America, those who would never do that, and those who do, that is what freedom is all about". You know he was right.

It was one of the most disrespectful things I had ever seen, a bunch of drunk football fans, changing the name of our soldiers from brave to Sooners. I did not feel CK's not standing was a disrespectful as what I saw at the football game. CK was doing what I would like to think our founding fathers would have seen as his right as an American. A couple of years ago President Boren begged people to stop doing it and many did, but you still hear it at sporting events here. These are the same people going after CK. Hypocrisy at it's finest.

[immoderate]

1. Saluting a flag is mostly always a stupid thing to do.

Being at a football game doesn't make it any smarter.

--imm

[Igel]

3. Depends on the symbol.

If you think the symbol is the government, then, yeah.

If you think that the symbol means something else, perhaps it's appropriate. That is, if we have the concept of "loyalty" in our values toolkit. Many don't, it's "what's good for me now is necessarily good for everybody else. Let's all unite ... behind my perceived needs."

But I've been told that symbols only ever can have one, predetermined, intrinsic meaning, so I'm here to tell you that the flag stands for all the good ideals that the common citizen of the US holds dear. And if you disrespect that, it can only mean (given that universal definition that I expect everybody to agree with or be called fascist or communist or paronuritionist--whatever that means, it's bad) that you're disrespecting the idea of due process and one-person/one-vote and civil liberties.

So why is that football player, like many of the fans, a fascist? That's the real question we should be asking, and if you're not you're also against civil liberties and want to ban peas.

(I just love stupid non-reasoning like that, whether I'm writing it tongue in cheek or others, tongue in cheek or brain in butt, are writing it. It's so obviously imbecilic as to be self-parodying and makes the Three Stooges look like high-brow, sophisticated humor. Esp. when the writer has no idea.)

[immoderate]

9. No. The symbol is what it is. Saluting it is stupid, usually.

--imm

[Initech]

2. Donald Trump disrespects every single thing about our country and might be elected president.

So far he's disrespected:

- Former presidents
- Our current president
- Our possible future president
- The entire Latino American population
- The entire Islamic American population
- The entire African American population
- The constitution
- The border
- Our troops
- Our veterans
- 9/11
- Taco salads
- New York City
- Cemeteries
- Cemeteries that hold veterans

I could go on and on. It's a sad state of affairs when Donald Trump does all these things and he might get elected president. Yet people get their collective underwear in a was over a fucking football player not standing during the national anthem. Seriously the hypocrisy reeks. Excuse me a minute....

[LWolf]

4. Wow.

You have given me a new interpretation.

In my 56 years, I have never equated "the brave" in that song with soldiers. I automatically assumed that "home of the brave" referred to all citizens. In context, it makes sense, though. Of course, I've never appreciated our national anthem, anyway; all those bombs and slave references leave me cold. I was taught to stand. I did automatically in my younger years, just conforming to my conditioning without really thinking about it.

I quit saluting the flag decades ago. The flag, and the national anthem, don't have any connection to soldiers for me. If I don't stand and salute the flag, or stand for the national anthem, it's not because I don't care about American troops. It's because I'm not a nationalist, and have a deeply embedded distrust of "patriotism" as a less hateful version of nationalism; also, I reject all forms of patriarchy.

"Home of the Sooners" doesn't surprise me; we are conditioned to an obsessive loyalty and support to our sports teams and their institutions, as well. The more team propaganda we ingest, the stronger our conditioning to stick to our "team" no matter what they do. Ultimately, it's what corrupts political parties and our national government, in my opinion.

In my state we have no professional football team, so our two larger university teams get all that passion. Some people are so avid that they drape their entire lives in their teams colors, even if they've never set foot on that universities campus. I don't know what they sing at their games.

[Different Drummer]

6. I have never understood this phenomenon...

Some people are so avid that they drape their entire lives in their teams colors, even if they've never set foot on that universities campus.

but I know it exists because I've seen it in my own state. The ones that have never been to college seem to be the biggest fans.

[LWolf]

8. A colleague at work is an alumnus.

He is that avid. So avid that you can't be in the same work space in the opposition's colors, purposeful or not, without him making a deal about it. He thinks he's being funny.

[sofa king]

5. I had to point out just this thing.

NASCAR now has to remind its audience to "please remove your hats" for the national anthem.

Because agro-Americans are the very worst Americans, people who fly flags of treason and call it "heritage," who wouldn't know respect or patriotism if it were painted on a rolling billboard that drove in a counterclockwise oval all day to determine how to line up after the inevitable crash in the last five laps.

[Different Drummer]

7. "agro-Americans"

Never thought of this term before. I'm going to have to start using it!