Protesting the national anthem

PeaceB said:

A better question, why do some people object to venerating the mother of our Lord Jesus, yet find it troublesome when people refuse to venerate a flag?

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I do not think people are demanding that others venerate (i.e. be in awe of as something as a thing greater than me and my fellow human beings) the flag. Though there may be some that venerate it, I think they are mostly not insisting upon veneration, but there is a large portion of the populace that take exception to what they see as disrespecting it. I do not venerate Mary but I do not disrespect her nor do I publicly show disrespect for her. I do not venerate the flag nor do I publicly show disrespect for the flag. I feel that both Mary and the flag are worthy of respect ( recognizing the worthiness in others) though to different degrees. As Mary was a human as well as the mother of Jesus, I believe she deserves much more respect than a symbol does. However, IMO, neither rises to the level of veneration. For me, veneration is for God alone. I expect that all Christians that fail to venerate Mary are of the same mind as myself. Of course, non Christians have zero reason to venerate Mary or even care that she ever existed. I cannot find it in myself to be in awe of another human being and certainly not in awe of a symbol. I realize that the Catholic church has a different POV on who and what the totality of Mary was but I suggest that I cannot be expected to simply abandon my own beliefs in order to come in line with those of the Roman Catholic Church since it is a denomination to which I do not belong nor would I expect a Catholic to abandon dearly held beliefs in order to suit me. So on the question of the veneration of Mary(which is really somewhat off topic here) we will simply have to disagree hopefully with out rancor or recrimination.

grasping the after wind said:

The United States is/are not a boat. Not much like a fleet but a bit more like a fleet than a boat. If one ship is set aground by a particularly incompetent captain in complete contradiction to the fleet's manual and orders should I condemn the captains of the other ships or the one's that issued the orders that the incompetent captain did not comply with? Should I condemn the crews of the ships that did not go aground? Or even the crew of the ship that did go aground but had no way to circumvent the incompetence of their captain?
Of course the US is neither a boat nor a fleet but a country of diverse individuals and diverse governments not a single entity but a conglomeration of people and institutions with varying needs and duties. Any attempt to universalize a country, let alone one as large and heterogeneous as the US, with a one size fits all attitude always ends up in tyranny.
So we do start from completely different assumptions about what responsibility. I assume that responsibility lies with those who actually have the ability to act and then act as they decide to act. I cannot say for sure what you assume but I think it is something along the lines of , we are all responsible for everything even when we are not allowed to act individually or not capable of acting individually. I would not guess this, but perhaps you adhere to an idea I have heard expressed but personally find unreasonable i.e.we are not responsible for our individual actions but others are responsible for what we do , what we achieve, what we fail to achieve and these others must bear the responsibilities and consequences of our actions rather than we who act.

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Are the crew members ON the boat?
Do they have a vested interest in keeping the boat afloat?

When they're loose in the water, is blaming the captain gonna help them?

They can blame others all they want.
But that ain't going to save them...

They should have learned a little more about boats.

Belk said:

Why is quietly kneeling instead of standing rude and obnoxious? I keep asking but no one has tried to explain why they see it this way. At worst I see this as a neutral act.

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Good question. I will attempt to answer it though I myself am not a person that feels offended by what people might care to do during the anthem. There is this thing called traditional decorum that says that when the anthem is played one should stand. For a large portion( not a fringe amount of people but a sizeable chunk of them) of the populace that means that if one refuses to stand one does not respect the anthem and when someone or some group makes a point of not standing those people feel they are being personally insulted and are personally offended. These people have been vocal about making those feeling known. You can tell those people they have no right to be offended because it was not your intention to offend by making a point of doing what they have told you makes them feel offended. You can if you want to but they seem to feel offended anyway. Much like the Trans person that asks to be addressed by a particular pronoun feels offended when a person refuses to do so despite the fact they have made it known that doing otherwise offends them. Of course, the situation is made worse in one instance when a particular person decides not just to kneel respectfully but to engage in stretching exercises , signaling that the feelings of others are of no consequence to him at all. At least the respectful kneelers are trying to give some concession to those that feel offended.

grasping the after wind said:

Good question. I will attempt to answer it though I myself am not a person that feels offended by what people might care to do during the anthem. There is this thing called traditional decorum that says that when the anthem is played one should stand. For a large portion( not a fringe amount of people but a sizeable chunk of them) of the populace that means that if one refuses to stand one does not respect the anthem and when someone or some group makes a point of not standing those people feel they are being personally insulted and are personally offended. These people have been vocal about making those feeling known. You can tell those people they have no right to be offended because it was not your intention to offend by making a point of doing what they have told you makes them feel offended. You can if you want to but they seem to feel offended anyway. Much like the Trans person that asks to be addressed by a particular pronoun feels offended when a person refuses to do so despite the fact they have made it known that doing otherwise offends them. Of course, the situation is made worse in one instance when a particular person decides not just to kneel respectfully but to engage in stretching exercises , signaling that the feelings of others are of no consequence to him at all. At least the respectful kneelers are trying to give some concession to those that feel offended.

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Thank you. I still don't understand why people find this offensive but I appreciate the attempt.

The Brown Brink said:

Are the crew members ON the boat?
Do they have a vested interest in keeping the boat afloat?

When they're loose in the water, is blaming the captain gonna help them?

They can blame others all they want.
But that ain't going to save them...

They should have learned a little more about boats.

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So complaining about a situation is not something you advise? Would you advise the protesters to learn more about policing? I actually agree with your point here that if you are capable of doing something you are responsible for what you do not others that are far away and incapable of acting on your behalf. However, you seem to have missed my point that the crew were not capable of acting as they are crew members not navigators or captains and not equipped for either of those positions. As members of a team they must trust that their captain will follow the navigator's advise as they have not the skills to do otherwise and have no way of acquiring those skills in between the time the captain gives an incompetent order and the ship runs aground. BTW a fleet is made up of ships not boats.

Belk said:

Thank you. I still don't understand why people find this offensive but I appreciate the attempt.

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There are many things that people find offensive that I do not understand why that offends them. I hope that if they tell me in advance that they feel offended by something, I will not purposely do or say the thing they find offensive unless it is absolutely a choice between two evils and giving offense is the lesser evil of the two.

Belk said:

Thank you. I still don't understand why people find this offensive but I appreciate the attempt.

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I guess it's bad manners not to stand...

Bad manners...
Hah.

The players are protesting "brutality," and people are spinning off about "bad manners"...

Sounds foolish to me.

grasping the after wind said:

So complaining about a situation is not something you advise? Would you advise the protesters to learn more about policing? I actually agree with your point here that if you are capable of doing something you are responsible for what you do not others that are far away and incapable of acting on your behalf. However, you seem to have missed my point that the crew were not capable of acting as they are crew members not navigators or captains and not equipped for either of those positions. As members of a team they must trust that their captain will follow the navigator's advise as they have not the skills to do otherwise and have no way of acquiring those skills in between the time the captain gives an incompetent order and the ship runs aground. BTW a fleet is made up of ships not boats.

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To me, America is one boat.
The analogy fits fine.

And I'm saying the crew members could FIGURE OUT a way to keep that boat afloat, if they'd stop WASTING TIME blaming others.
There's no time for nonsense.

You say the crew members are "incapable"?

Can they even swim?
Or is somebody supposed to save them again?

Strathos said:

As many American football players are currently doing. Is it moral or not? Please give your opinion and reasoning.

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The national anthem is just a song. Nobody died for a song, or a piece of cloth that we call a flag. Those represent greater values of equality under the law that Kaepernick et al feel (and I agree with them) we are not living up to in modern America. I support them 100%.
Ringo

Redac said:

"America" used to be a more or less coherent Anglo-derived nation that assimilated primarily other western European groups for much of its history. Hardly totally homogeneous, but fairly so. That's not the case anymore, though, for better or worse.


The cultural bedrock of the United States, those Enlightenment liberal values enshrined in its foundation, its basis for law and civil society, its founding stock, all that came out of an Anglo and broadly European milieu. I don't know that its some sort of biological predisposition toward certain governments or not, but it would be silly to pretend that all that did not come out of Europe (i.e. white people).


This I would agree with.

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Interesting stats here, maybe an eye opener.

Historical racial and ethnic demographics of the United States - Wikipedia

Ringo84 said:

The national anthem is just a song. Nobody died for a song, or a piece of cloth that we call a flag. Those represent greater values of equality under the law that Kaepernick et al feel (and I agree with them) we are not living up to in modern America. I support them 100%.
Ringo

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People did not die for a song, the died for what it represents freedom. They fought and died to protect that freedom to which the song, and the flag represent. There has never been another nation on this planet that has offered more freedoms to all races ever in the history of the world. Matter of fact to this day you would be hard pressed to find another nation on the planet that has the same freedoms This is especially sore to those who understand this and have had family who have fought and died for this country.

FYI - Kaepernick did not even vote. So if he was so concerned in change why isn't he first engaging in one our most wonderful traditions, voting. No he did not vote, he is a hypocrite. He was raised by white people who guess what, took in a african american kid from a drug addicted mother and a father who went absentee. He if anyone should know most people are not racist in this country and he is in the position he is in today because of non racist people who took him in a treated him like their own and who cared less what color he was.

My read on this is... Trump did something racist (again, to no one's surprise) by calling out people of a particular race on an issue, ignoring others of his own race who do the same... and many NFL players chose to protest his racism by taking a knee. I commend those players, and I think Trump is a colossal moron for stoking the fire they started by complaining about the NFL, ignoring the reason they are protesting in the first place.

I do not support some of the protests that BLM has started, but I support their ideology that all people's lives matter and should not be snuffed out because they are a minority (LGBTQ+, black, Hispanic, whatever).

America is a melting pot of many different colors, nationalities, and ideas. We may not always get along, but everyone deserves the same respect, and the President is simply not showing that respect in his tweets, words, or actions.

We can all be united in recognizing our differences, for starters.

I think the liberal values this country was founded on are good and worth defending. Which is why I support the NFL players who choose to protest. America is not just defined by wealthy white people, like Donald Trump.

2Timothy2:15 said:

Interesting stats here, maybe an eye opener.

Historical racial and ethnic demographics of the United States - Wikipedia

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How about you just tell me what you think I should glean from those statistics instead?

FireDragon76 said:

We can all be united in recognizing our differences, for starters.

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How exactly is that supposed to be a source of unity?

grasping the after wind said:

I cannot find it in myself to be in awe of another human being and certainly not in awe of a symbol. I realize that the Catholic church has a different POV on who and what the totality of Mary was but I suggest that I cannot be expected to simply abandon my own beliefs in order to come in line with those of the Roman Catholic Church since it is a denomination to which I do not belong nor would I expect a Catholic to abandon dearly held beliefs in order to suit me. So on the question of the veneration of Mary(which is really somewhat off topic here) we will simply have to disagree hopefully with out rancor or recrimination.

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I think there is a valid comparison and that you deflected.

You don't venerate Mary, fine, but you say you don't disrespect Mary--yet from a Catholic viewpoint, you certainly do disrepect Mary because Catholics have their own definition of what that entails.

In the same way, one person may feel that by taking a knee during the national anthem (which, btw, was suggested to Kaepernick by a Special Forces vet as the way to protest without disrespecting the flag), he is not showing disrespect, while others think that anything less than standing and facing the flag during the national anthem is disrespect.

Here is the question for you: Suppose a Catholic believed that anything less than kneeling and crossing oneself before a picture or statue of Mary was disrespect, and you refused to do that particular action...is that really disrespect just because he thinks so?

2Timothy2:15 said:

People did not die for a song, the died for what it represents freedom. They fought and died to protect that freedom to which the song, and the flag represent.

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But yet you demand that they show veneration to the song and to the flag...why not rather make it mandatory that on every Memorial Day every American visit a military cemetary?

RDKirk said:

But yet you demand that they show veneration to the song and to the flag...why not rather make it mandatory that on every Memorial Day every American visit a military cemetary?

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Where did I demand anything? I just stated what it represents to many.

Redac said:

How about you just tell me what you think I should glean from those statistics instead?

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That is the beauty of statistics, they speak for themselves.