Should Some Action Be Taken Against Those Players Who Refuse To Stand For The American National Anthem?

[anotheoldgit]

https://www.itv.com/news/2017-10-08/mike-pence-walks-out-of-nfl-game-after-player-kneel-during-national-anthem/

[THECORBYLOON]

CHRIS, if you murdered the first hundred in line to the throne, the 101st person would become the heir.

What would you do with the heir?

[woofgang]

Please stop before you get to me!

[EDDIE51]

No, why should it?

[anneasquith]

Woof are you royalty ?

[Khandro]

'Why did Colin Kaepernick say he was taking a knee? Somebody look that up. (Police brutality I think)
Okay, taking a knee is an anti-Trump thing, right?
Wait a minute, if it’s an anti-Trump thing, then Colin Kaepernick did it when Obama was president, so it would have been an anti-Obama thing. That can’t be right.
Okay, taking a knee means you’re pro–free speech, it’s to support people’s right to take a knee even if Trump says nobody should take a knee.
Or is it just to support Colin Kaepernick’s right to take a knee?
Colin Kaepernick doesn’t even play football anymore, he’s just the king of knee-taking because he did it first. So that’s not it.'

[kvalidir]

Chris that's just silly. I am no fan of the Royal family, however you can't go around murdering people because of their birthright in the 21st century. Just remove them and let them get jobs like the rest of us, no need to get all dramatic and in the wrong is there?

[bednobs]

to me, forcing people to be patriotic or suffer the consequences smacks rather of those regimes around the world that america wants to change. If indeed that's what it is - i'm still yet to be convinced that standing for the national anthem makes you patriotic or that not standing makes you unpatriotic.

Perhaps someone should come charging in from the middle east to affect a "regime change" in usa?

[jim360]

The thing about this is that it *was* a fairly minor thing and maybe a handful of US sports players took the knee, and it was essentially ignored, which presumably satisfies everyone all around. The sports players make their protest, then get on with the game, and everyone's happy.

Then Trump decided to make it an issue and now nearly all of them are at it. As Rex Tillerson had it, he really is a moron.

[-Talbot-]

Khandro
Colin Kaepernick did it when Obama was president, so it would have been an anti-Obama thing. That can’t be right.


Kaepernick obviously knew Obama's time was up and he thinks both Trump and Clinton are racists ... so the timing of the protest isn't what it seems.

[albaqwerty]

and then Pence went and walked out of a game in 'protest'....

jeez, that really helps to ignore the issue - IF there is an issue, it should be addressed, and I don't mean the kneeling players.

[Ellipsis]

Taking the knee is not an anti-Trump thing. Trump just chose to make an issue of it. It's nothing to do with Trump, and pre-dates Trump as president. It became a bigger issue when Trump called on owners to fire players.

My take on it is that boxers go down on one knee when they're wounded and need a break before resuming, and that taking the knee is symbolic that the player's patriotism is wounded (down but not out) by the deaths of blacks by police actions or while in police custody.

[jim360]

The protest wasn't directed at Obama, or in anticipation at Trump or Clinton, but at the ongoing racial issues, as he saw it, that pervade America. I'm not sure why there's any ambiguity about this.

[ludwig]

// Lining the first 100 people in line to the throne up against a wall and shooting the lot of them //

So you'd be happy with no. 101 as your monarch then?
Strange.

[jim360]

"My take on it is that boxers go down on one knee when they're wounded and need a break before resuming, and that taking the knee is symbolic that the player's patriotism is wounded (down but not out) by the deaths of blacks by police actions or while in police custody."

That's part of it. In fact Kaepernick started off his protest by staying seated, and only went down on one knee as a compromise with some US veteran who was offended by his protest but happy to meet with Kaepernick and discuss the situation. Taking the knee then became a more respectful way of making the same point.

It's a shame that this subtlety has been lost in the recent explosion of the protest.

[jno]

shooting the first 100 should create an adequate deterrent to #101 pursuing his or her claim.

(I don't know who it is. #100 is Benjamin Beckman, who's some way down the list after Princess Astrid fo Norway.)

[jim360]

I think it's this guy:

https://tinyurl.com/y8y6kkqu

No, but, seriously... I don't really think I can ever truly understand the extent to which patriotism is embedded in American culture, but it does often seem to be a reactionary thing. The whole part about reciting the Pledge of Allegiance at schools, national anthems all over the place, and all that... it does seem to me to be overdoing rather.

[albaqwerty]

wonder if Benjamin Beckman will now be worried ?

In the 'land of the free' why can't they protest?
Seems to me Trump is making a mountain out of a molehill and not addressing the real problem.
But, does he ever address a real problem?
(just curious)

[trt]

Is there a law, that says you should?

[vetuste_ennemi]

//I don't really think I can ever truly understand the extent to which patriotism is embedded in American culture, but it does often seem to be a reactionary thing.//

I know you can't, Jim.

Thank God modern academia is turning out independently minded people like you who reject this reactionary patriotism nonsense.

[-Talbot-]

Why didn't Colin Kaepernick take to sitting down during the National Anthem in

2011
2012
2013
2014
2015
Most of 2016

?

Was he happy that in those years people of color were not oppressed?