Lol, this is not the argument being made here and is a pretty cool strawman I must admit. The point, stick to it. The president told NFL owners to fire their players because of their peaceful flag protest. Tell me, when is the last time a president asked a private business to fire anyone?
No, it's an opinion. Come on, you're better than that. It is possible to say, "Your opinion is wrong" without trying to inflate your opinion by marrying it with what you perceive to be a fact.
When was the last time a President needed to ask private businesses to fire anyone for being aggressively anti-American and unpatriotic in such a high profile setting? Prior to Barack Obama, nobody would have dreamed of doing anything like these players are doing. And it was on his watch that this started.
You don't know what you're talking about. When Jackie Robinson claimed that he couldn't stand for the Anthem, Salute the flag that was long before Obama. When John Carlos and Tommie Smith gave the black power sign at the Olympics that was long before Obama and a much bigger deal than this. When Muhammad Ali refused to serve in the United States armed forces, that was long before Obama and a much bigger deal than this.
I somehow knew that when I posted about the actual reason these protests began it would be a post that would go ignored. It was never a legitimate and defensible protest and now it's just morphed into partisan politics with the players essentially just doing it to be against Trump. That's really their only message, that they are against Trump.
It was ignored because the protest was never about one solitary incident. It was over the general mistreatment of minorities in the United States. "I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses Black people and people of color," Kaepernick said. "To me, this is bigger than football and it would be selfish on my part to look the other way. There are bodies in the street and people getting paid leave and getting away with murder." http://www.businessinsider.com/why-nfl-players-protest-anthem-colin-kaepernick-2017-9
Barack Obama made black football players feel uppity? Btw, go read a biography of Muhammad Ali. There is nothing new under the sun.
It started immediately following the Milwaukee incident, Kap's home town. To him the Milwaukee incident where an armed black criminal was shot by a black cop was an example of oppression of black people and "people of color" Yes, Kap is a moron, as were those who rioted as a result of that incident. Upset that he missed out on the riot, Kap started sitting on the bench during the anthem. When no one noticed, he went to the press telling them that he was doing it and started going out on the field to take a knee in order to make his nonsense more visible and to have people looking for it. Like it or not, this whole BS boils down to a criminal with a stolen gun being shot by police completely legally and justifiably so.
Whether or not you agree with him doesn't matter. To falsely claim that it started because of a single incident, and then be upset that people ignored your false claim is just silly.
His actions were a direct result of the Milwaukee incident, to claim otherwise is....well it's you trying to re-write history to make it more kind to the knuckle dragging r****ds who are currently kneeling in support of an armed criminal who was shot by a black man that don't even realize that's the reason it started.
Jackie Robinson did stand for the anthem during his time in major league baseball. Also, I am not sure when any of us are expected to "salute" the flag. The "black power" salute at the Olympics was selfish and maybe to some degree inappropriate, but they did stand and honor the flag while they were doing it. It was roughly comparable to the arm-locking that the Texans did yesterday (while standing at attention during the national anthem). Muhammad Ali was openly anti-American and a real piece of $%!&, but he was charged and convicted by the US government for refusing to serve. I do not know if presidents Johnson or Nixon made any public comments about this situation, but I am 100% certain that if they thought that saying something about this did more good than depriving Ali of the public attention that he sought, they would have gladly done so, and the comments from either of them would have likely been harsher than Trump's towards this current issue.
then why are you using that quote. Scalia's point was a fairly basic one about the first amendment protecting hated speech from government intervention. What in the world would this have to do with Scalia's first amendment quote? To answer your question though, I don't approve of Trump's statement (even though he was obviously right about everything) just like I didn't approve of Obama calling out police on numerous occasions (who was wrong every time).
This is what Jackie Robinson said... "I cannot stand and sing the anthem. I cannot salute the flag; I know that I am a black man in a white world." Of course, Ali was a true patriot who utilized his guaranteed rights. Johnson didn't comment on it. Ali's conviction was rightly overturned. Sorry black athletes have been taking stands against the United States policies and race relations long before Obama.
I think my main problem with this whole nonsense is how divorced from reality it is. They make the claim that innocent black men are being hunted down and murdered in the streets.....well yeah, that's true, but they aren't being hunted down and murdered in the streets by cops, the innocent black men are being hunted down and murdered in the streets by the very same criminals that end up getting shot by cops in incidents like the one that sparked Kap's BS. Largely the people that the kneeling nonsense is standing up for are the very people hunting down and murdering innocent black men in the streets. There aren't words to describe just how brain dead this whole thing is.
Quoting the person who started it when they themselves stated clearly why they were doing it, isn't rewriting history. It's hilarious that you are talking about rewriting history when you are denying the statements made at the point in history we are discussing by the person who started the whole thing. You are inserting your own reason why he did that and ignoring the reason he himself gave at the time for doing the protest. Yet you claim that I am the one rewriting history? LOL
Why are you more concerned about athletes not abiding by a trivial arbitrary ritual than officers using improper judgement leading to unarmed humans being killed? One is actually within the scope of the President's worries and results in tangible harm in communities while the other is red meat to people triggered by a knee bending. Get your damn priorities straight.
Ali was a coward who simply didn't want to get drafted, let's not pretend his true reasons were anything other than that. He thought he was too good to have to do what thousands of others were having to do at the time.
