Colour me surprised

[Scooter]

Everyone absolutely has a right to criticize, but to suggest that his views or actions lack authenticity because he earns good money or has white parents or may not have personally experienced the evils he speaks about or is not having great success on the field, as several posts have done, is a very cheap, dishonest, and yes, racist way of trying to dodge the issue.

[Guinevere]

Everyone absolutely has a right to criticize, but to suggest that his views or actions lack authenticity because he earns good money or has white parents or may not have personally experienced the evils he speaks about or is not having great success on the field, as several posts have done, is a very cheap, dishonest, and yes, racist way of trying to dodge the issue.

Yes, exactly.

The only strawman here is the one you keep flailing around with, LJ.

[Guinevere]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/postever ... a88cf415b9

During the Olympics in Rio a couple of weeks ago, Army Reserve 2nd Lt. Sam Kendricks was sprinting intently in the middle of his pole vaulting attempt when he heard the national anthem playing. He immediately dropped his pole and stood at attention, a spontaneous expression of heartfelt patriotism that elicited more praise than his eventual bronze medal. Last Friday, San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick chose not to stand with his teammates during the national anthem. To some, Kendricks embodies traditional all-American Forrest Gump values of patriotism, while Kaepernick represents the entitled brattish behavior of a wealthy athlete ungrateful to a country that has given him so much.

In truth, both men, in their own ways, behaved in a highly patriotic manner that should make all Americans proud.

The discussion of the nuances of patriotism is especially important right now, with Trump and Clinton supporters each righteously claiming ownership of the “most patriotic” label. Patriotism isn’t just getting teary-eyed on the Fourth of July or choked up at war memorials. It’s supporting what the Fourth of July celebrates and what those war memorials commemorate: the U.S. Constitution’s insistence that all people should have the same rights and opportunities and that it is the obligation of the government to make that happen. When the government fails in those obligations, it is the responsibility of patriots to speak up and remind them of their duty.

One of the ironies of the way some people express their patriotism is to brag about our freedoms, especially freedom of speech, but then brand as unpatriotic those who exercise this freedom to express dissatisfaction with the government’s record in upholding the Constitution. Colin Kaepernick explained why he will not stand during the national anthem: “There are a lot of things that are going on that are unjust [that] people aren’t being held accountable for. And that’s something that needs to change. That’s something that this country stands for — freedom, liberty, justice for all. And it’s not happening for all right now.”

What makes an act truly patriotic and not just lip-service is when it involves personal risk or sacrifice. Both Kendricks and Kaepernick chose to express their patriotism publicly because they felt that inspiring others was more important than the personal cost. Yes, Kendricks is a national champion pole-vaulter, but every athlete knows that breaking focus and concentration during a high-pressure competition can be devastating to the athlete’s performance. The Olympics was filled with favorites who faltered because of loss of focus. Halting his run in order to honor the national anthem could have cost Kendricks his medal. He was willing to take that chance.

Likewise, Kaepernick’s choice not to stand during the national anthem could create a public backlash that might cost him millions in future endorsements and affect his value as a player on his team, reducing salary earnings or even jeopardizing his job. If team ticket sales seriously dipped as a result, he would pay for his stance.

We should admire those who risk personal gain in the service of promoting the values of their country. Both athletes are in fine company of others who have shown their patriotism in unconventional ways. In 1989, when a federal law prohibiting flag desecration went into effect, Vietnam Veterans burned the American flag as a protest to a law curbing the First Amendment. Their argument was that they fought for the freedoms in the Constitution, not a piece of cloth, and to curtail those freedoms was an insult to their sacrifice. Ironically, the original purpose of flag desecration laws between 1897 and 1932 wasn’t to prevent political dissent, but to prevent the use of flag imagery for political campaigns and in advertising.

One sign of the maturation of American society is the willingness of those in the public eye, especially athletes, to openly take a political stand, even if it could harm their careers. The modern era of athletes speaking out began in 1967 with Muhammad Ali refusing to be drafted to fight other people of color. That year, I joined with football great Jim Brown, basketball legend Bill Russell, Muhammad Ali and other prominent athletes for what was dubbed “The Cleveland Summit.” Together we tried to find ways to help Ali fight for his right of political expression. I don’t know how much we were able to accomplish on a practical level, but seeing black athletes in support of Ali inspired others to speak out. The following year at the 1968 Olympics, African Americans Tommie Smith and John Carlos raised their fists during the medal ceremony as a protest to the treatment of people of color in the United States. In 2014, NBA players LeBron James, Kyrie Irving, Jarrett Jack, Alan Anderson, Deron Williams and Kevin Garnett and NFL players from the Rams and Browns wore “I Can’t Breathe” shirts during warm-ups for a game to protest police killings of unarmed blacks.

What should horrify Americans is not Kaepernick’s choice to remain seated during the national anthem, but that nearly 50 years after Ali was banned from boxing for his stance and Tommie Smith and John Carlos’s raised fists caused public ostracization and numerous death threats, we still need to call attention to the same racial inequities. Failure to fix this problem is what’s really un-American here.

[MajGenl.Meade]

I'm not commenting on your cartoon, I'm commenting on the words of the posters here. Get a grip yourself, it's not all about you....

You wrote "you all". I took that as "you-all" and since your post was directly after mine.... well, it's a misunderstanding. Sorry for that.

My words were:

"The country" does not practice racism. People do. Many people don't. "The country" condemns racism. I don't care if he stands up or sits down

Not everything is about me. Only everything else is about me.


ETA: what you posted above

[Econoline]

[Econoline]

[MajGenl.Meade]

...emphasis on the "nut shell"

[Lord Jim]

The only strawman here is the one you keep flailing around with, LJ.

Oh, so somebody actually did say that Kaepernick didn't have the right to do what he did, as you keep inferring...

Could you please point out where this was said ? I seem to have missed it...

[Scooter]

No one claimed he didn't have the legal right to do it, if that is the hair you insist on splitting.

But several people have suggested that any one or more of his various privileges mean that he has nothing to complain about and should therefore STFU, and I think you get the difference very clearly, and are engaging in semantic bullshit to blunt the criticism when they get called on it.

[Lord Jim]

Well, here's what Guin has said:

That flag allows Kaepernick to do exactly what he did.

A fact disputed by absolutely no one. No one has argued otherwise.

Do you think because someone makes a large salary, they give up the right to protest and speak out?

A view expressed by absolutely no one. No one has made any such argument.

Definition of straw man

1
: a weak or imaginary opposition (as an argument or adversary) set up only to be easily confuted

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/straw%20man

Those comments I quoted at the outset of this post are pretty much the dictionary definition of a straw man, since they are refuting arguments that no one has made...

Speculating about, (or even impugning) someone's motives for doing or saying something in no way denies that the person has a right to say or do it. (Of course in my personal case I've made very clear that I believe his motives are sincere, because I see no financial or professional upside for him in deciding to take this course. In fact just the opposite.)

They are two entirely different things, and it's not intellectually valid to conflate them.

[MajGenl.Meade]

I think it's more to do with irony than anything else. It reminds me of The Who and "Won't get fooled again".

We'll be fighting in the streets
With our children at our feet

Yeah right. That's what the Who would do - fight in the street. Not at all be busy recording songs and making a bundle, employing bodyguards, dogs and high fences to keep out the rabble.

There's just something not quite so right when privileged people moan and groan about the oppressed. Not that they can't or shouldn't. It's just a little self-serving or perhaps not. After all, when the oppressed moan and groan about being oppressed, who pays attention?

(Monty Python clips need not be posted)

[Long Run]

He's channeling his inner Dennis Rodman. I would think those who generally agree with his perspective are not too happy that someone so ignorant is the new standard-bearer. Is there a term, twittercated, to mean someone who gets their information from that fact-deprived medium?

Near the end of the media scrum, Kaepernick was asked if the pending presidential election had anything to do with the timing of his actions. He replied that “the two presidential candidates that we currently have also represent the issue that we have in this country right now.” When asked to expound, he said, “I mean, you have Hillary [Clinton] who’s called black teens or black kids super-predators. You have Donald Trump who’s openly racist. I mean, we have a presidential candidate who’s deleted emails and done things illegally and is a presidential candidate. That doesn’t make sense to me, because if that was any other person, you’d be in prison. So what is this country really standing for?”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/ear ... al-anthem/

[MajGenl.Meade]

Ah, someone else's ox is getting gored?

[Scooter]

So criticizing Hillary Clinton about emails makes him wrong about this?

[liberty]

Is this oppressions? No that is not oppression it is merely an expression of black inner-city culture. Don’t draw negative attention to it, that is racist. Everything is the way it should be:


Dwyane Wade's cousin Nykea Aldridge killed; 2 charged - CNN.com

[Scooter]

The poster boy for the hooded sheet brigade weighs in with his usual level of insight.

[Bicycle Bill]

Is this oppressions? No that is not oppression it is merely an expression of black inner-city culture. Don’t draw negative attention to it, that is racist. Everything is the way it should be:

Dwyane Wade's cousin Nykea Aldridge killed; 2 charged - CNN.com

A total of 65 people were killed murdered in Chicago in July 2016, bringing the death toll for the first seven months to nearly 400.  By comparison, the total for all of 2015 was 490.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/loca ... story.html

The fact of the matter is that if Nykea Aldridge had not been related to a member of the Chicago Bulls, she would have been nothing more than one more name on the list of the dead for the month of August.  Her killing would not even have rated two sentences on an inside page of the Chicago Tribune.

-"BB"-

[liberty]

I once had the opinion it was an intolerable situation; I know that it would be if it was happening in my community and was effecting me and my people. We would be forming neighborhood watches and militias and hounding politicians night and until they did something about it, like bring in the national guard.

However many if not all of our liberal posters here made the point that it is racist to care about black lives when they are being killed by other blacks. Now if the Klan would just move in and take over this operation to kill black people something then could be done about it.

[Scooter]

many if not all of our liberal posters here made the point that it is racist to care about black lives when they are being killed by other blacks

Care to actually quote the words where anyone has said any such thing?

Didn't think so.

Lying sack of inbred dog shit.

[Lord Jim]

However many if not all of our liberal posters here made the point that it is racist to care about black lives when they are being killed by other blacks.

Well lib, speaking from personal experience, I have not found this to be true. I have talked about this and the relative lack of attention it gets a number of times, and not once has anyone on this board accused me of being a racist for doing so. (In fact no one on this board as ever accused me of being a racist at all except for The Santa Cruz Moron, and we all know what his opinions are worth...)

If you find yourself accused of being a racist there must be another reason...