I'm not from the US, so this whole thing sure looks silly to me. Why are you playing the national anthem before a game to begin with? You're probably the only country that does this for internal games.

campuscodi wrote: I'm not from the US, so this whole thing sure looks silly to me. Why are you playing the national anthem before a game to begin with? You're probably the only country that does this for internal games.

As an American citizen, I find the playing of the national anthem before relatively inconsequential events like sports games a little peculiar as well. Similarly, having school kids recite the pledge of allegiance borders on creepy. Both, in my opinion, are contrived patriotism and have little to do with respecting anything or anyone.

I think both sides of the debate are foolish. The rest of the NFL has co-opted Colin Kaepernick's well-meaning, if not misguided, protest because Donald Trump hurt their feelings. These are millionaires who could effect real change if they talked with their wallets. Some of them do. Others live a lifestyle that will render them penniless after they stop playing. The neckbeards in the stands booing are just as silly.

Hmm.

I read a piece this morning about divisive politics having been a part of the Republican Party strategy since Nixon's days.

Trump actually wants players to kneel as it feeds his "us and them" agenda.

I grew up in USA as a kid and can still for some reason remember the 'Pledge of allegence'. Not that it would in any way make me feel any more patriotic (towards America).

Players should be able to protest. It is their first amendment right to do so and if anyone should be sanctioning them, it should be the owners. Look at how European football (eg soccer on theother side of the ocean) protest. They do it and FIFA (equivelant of NFL commisioner) fines them if needed. But only if they break the written rules. Kneeling while a band and a hopeless X-Factor finalist drags out the American anthem is not breaking a written rule. And anyone that wants to sanction someone breaking an unwritten should know that doing that is impossible because unwritten rules are based on your own subjective belief in what is right and wrong. And here, I state that even though you scipped through college and got a degree only because you are fast and can catch a ball, you might know more about right/wrong than a 'valuable ass(et) to the USA'.

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