The NFL/national anthem/kneeling controversy was back in the news about a week ago. It coincidentally resurfaced a few days before Memorial Day, when there's an uptick in patriotic displays. In a way, I find that convenient, because I see the holiday and the debate over kneeling as being somewhat related. Memorial Day is meant to acknowledge and honor this country's fallen servicemen and servicewomen, and one of the main criticisms of kneeling during the national anthem is that is disrespectful to those same fallen.
Anyway, the issue made headlines again because the NFL recently released its revised policy concerning kneeling and other forms of protest during the playing of the anthem. Naturally, President Trump weighed in and the media ran with it, because neither of them can pass up an opportunity to generate sensational clickbait. I posted a link and a few sentences about it on Facebook (see the screenshot below), but I'd like to expand on it a little.
Here are my thoughts.
First, if your opinion resembles Trump's on this issue (or just about any issue, really), you may want to rethink that opinion. Trump has no concept of things like selflessness, sacrifice, loyalty, duty, courage, or any of the other qualities that make a good soldier; and he doesn't have any interest in showing any respect to the armed forces. (Trump isn't a good human being for that matter, and if someone can't figure that out after ten seconds of hearing him speak, that person is a horrible judge of character.) He has made that clear on countless occasions: he belittled a POW, he disrespected a Gold Star Widow, he still hasn't visited any troops in active combat zones, he made his commencement speech at the 2017 Coast Guard Academy graduation ceremony about him--to name a few examples. He does not give two shits about the flag, the troops, or the country, so he's not someone anybody should look to when it comes to what is or isn't patriotic. Which leads me to my next point.
Second, anybody who tries to frame patriotism as an in- vs out-group thing should be treated with skepticism. They usually have an ulterior motive. It could be an attempt to derail a discussion--calling someone unpatriotic tends to put them on the defensive and reframe the debate really quick. For example, remember the backlash against the Dixie Chicks after they criticized former president Bush in 2003? Or how Joe McCarthy exploited anti-Communist fervor for political gain? You'd think this would be obvious, but there seem to be a lot of people out there who don't get it.
Third (and last), here are two things that patriotism should not be. It should not be coercive, and it should not be unquestioning. You can express your patriotism however you wish, but you should not expect others to express it in the same way. You should also not shy away from asking the hard questions--particularly to how the armed forces are employed, since "respecting the troops" is at the core of this debate. Disagreement is not disloyalty, and citizens should be automatically skeptical when the civilian leadership calls for the troops to be committed somewhere around the globe. American troops are deployed in a number of places that, despite doing work to improve the local conditions, have very little to do with protecting America and its citizens. Why, for example, are we in Afghanistan some seventeen years later? And how does getting involved in the Syrian civil war make us all safer? These are the questions people need to ask - no, demand - of their elected representatives, and it's not unpatriotic to do so.
That's all I've got. I hope everyone had a good Memorial Day weekend, and is enjoying what remains of it.
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