If the National anthem is political....

[gtopa1]

It seems that's exactly what you attempt to do.

PS: I have very wide shoulders.

Citizens have the right to peaceably assemble and redress their grievances. Those who call them sons of bitches for doing so is an Authoritarian.

Be sure and do so at your job and see what happens. Disrespecting people that fought, bled, and died for this country is not going to go over big with any real Americans, go figure.

If the NFL continues to allow it, well, they had a good run, had it all in the bag, and then they did that.

The National Anthem is played to honor America, not necessarily, as an homage to fallen veterans.

So not honoring America is cool or something?

When your job depends on Americans, that's a pretty stupid idea.

What's really stupid is seeing someone kneeling as more egregious than police brutality.

So who does that??

Greg

 

[Marion Morrison]

It seems that's exactly what you attempt to do.

PS: I have very wide shoulders.

Citizens have the right to peaceably assemble and redress their grievances. Those who call them sons of bitches for doing so is an Authoritarian.

Be sure and do so at your job and see what happens. Disrespecting people that fought, bled, and died for this country is not going to go over big with any real Americans, go figure.

If the NFL continues to allow it, well, they had a good run, had it all in the bag, and then they did that.

The National Anthem is played to honor America, not necessarily, as an homage to fallen veterans.

So not honoring America is cool or something?

When your job depends on Americans, that's a pretty stupid idea.

What's really stupid is seeing someone kneeling as more egregious than police brutality.

Kneeling and insulting Americans does exactly what to fix police brutality?

 

[Nosmo King]

Citizens have the right to peaceably assemble and redress their grievances. Those who call them sons of bitches for doing so is an Authoritarian.

Be sure and do so at your job and see what happens. Disrespecting people that fought, bled, and died for this country is not going to go over big with any real Americans, go figure.

If the NFL continues to allow it, well, they had a good run, had it all in the bag, and then they did that.

The National Anthem is played to honor America, not necessarily, as an homage to fallen veterans.

So not honoring America is cool or something?

When your job depends on Americans, that's a pretty stupid idea.

What's really stupid is seeing someone kneeling as more egregious than police brutality.

Kneeling and insulting Americans does exactly what to fix police brutality?

It makes you think about it at the very least.

Or should people just roll over and,accept police brutality?

 

[Marion Morrison]

Be sure and do so at your job and see what happens. Disrespecting people that fought, bled, and died for this country is not going to go over big with any real Americans, go figure.

If the NFL continues to allow it, well, they had a good run, had it all in the bag, and then they did that.

The National Anthem is played to honor America, not necessarily, as an homage to fallen veterans.

So not honoring America is cool or something?

When your job depends on Americans, that's a pretty stupid idea.

What's really stupid is seeing someone kneeling as more egregious than police brutality.

Kneeling and insulting Americans does exactly what to fix police brutality?

It makes you think about it at the very least.

Or should people just roll over and,accept police brutality?

STFU retard. NFL kneelers just disrespect America, I'm not down with that.

I've been a victim of police brutality, from a black kid, you?

 

[Nosmo King]

The National Anthem is played to honor America, not necessarily, as an homage to fallen veterans.

So not honoring America is cool or something?

When your job depends on Americans, that's a pretty stupid idea.

What's really stupid is seeing someone kneeling as more egregious than police brutality.

Kneeling and insulting Americans does exactly what to fix police brutality?

It makes you think about it at the very least.

Or should people just roll over and,accept police brutality?

STFU retard. NFL kneelers just disrespect America, I'm not down with that.

I've been a victim of police brutality, from a black kid, you?

You and,Trump see NFL kneeler,that way. You cannot conceive of the daily hazards Black Americans deal with at police stops. Myopic and bitching. The benchmark of today's Trumpian.

 

[Fang]

The National Anthem is apolitical. Bipartisan.

But using it as a political cudgel is pure Trumpian.

What political statement am I making by standing for it? That I love my country and I respect those who fought for it? Liberals. smh lol

It has nothing to do with politics. Patriotism is not a political statement. Folks from both sides of the aisle are patriotic.

It should have nothing to do with politics, but those on the Left can't resist making the anthem political.

 

[BrokeLoser]

Where on the political spectrum does it side?

The anthem invokes positive, supportive emotions toward country, fellow countrymen and Veterans. It unifies GOOD, REAL Americans. The Left hates American pride, American culture / traditions, Veterans and legitimate, REAL Americans.

 

[Pogo]

The National Anthem is apolitical. Bipartisan.

But using it as a political cudgel is pure Trumpian.

So you’re not making a political statement by standing for it. That’s the argument some on the left have. It’s a bogus argument

It depends on what you mean by "political".

Thanks for inviting me to this thread. It looks like what you mean here is "is the national anthem partisan political". Here I agree with Nosmo in that it takes no partisan side -- as a symbol of the country there can be no political faction that is "for" or "against" it per se. If that were the case we would not be a country; we'd be rival factions each with its own anthem or other symbol.

But what you're really asking is, "Does using the national anthem as a robotic mandatory exercise amount to Jingoism?" And the answer to that is yes absolutely. A national symbol is by definition a symbol of the collective, which means unity regardless of individual personal politics -- one that applies to all citizens regardless if they're personally politically "this", politically "that" or politically uninterested.

But when some manipulator uses it to pander toward one political faction and against another, he abuses that symbol counter to its very purpose, since division is the opposite of unity. When a sleazy demagogue tries to hide behind the flag lobbing blasphemy accusations against bona fide American citizens with "fire the sumbitches", that's division, it's dishonest, and it spits on the purpose of a national symbol by using it as a tool for that demagogue's own gain, in this case a Senate candidate of his own party. If a mob corrals another bona fide American citizen and orders him to kiss the flag, that's jingoistic coercion, and when law enforcement arrests that citizen who refused the mob's "orders" and sentences him to 10-20 hard labor in prison, that's fascism --- which is what Jingoism inevitably leads to.

Upon reading this post as it publishes I see that another perfect example of using national symbols to divide and conquer is sitting right above this post, complete with the old standby Sweeping Generalization Fallacy. As if on cue.

So the relevant question is not what the symbol is but who's using it for what kind of tool. And this is easily discerned by the nature of the argument --- Jingoism is purely emotional, because that is the fuel of mob mentality. Again, look no further than post 127 immediately above for the emotional trigger words:

The anthem invokes positive, supportive emotions toward country, fellow countrymen and Veterans. It unifies GOOD, REAL Americans. The Left hates American pride, American culture / traditions, Veterans and legitimate, REAL Americans.

-- "GOOD, REAL Americans". "Positive". "Supportive". "Hate". QED. All emotion, no rationality. The post admits it "unifies" but wants to limit that unifying to "GOOD REAL Americans" thereby excluding whoever he wants --- in other words it sits there dividing while talking about unifying. Dishonest as it gets. Quite a feat when you can "unify"..... only those you want to "unify".

As soon as a pseudo-patriotic exercise becomes mandatory, scripted, coerced or any kind of regularly-scheduled ---- that's jingoism, holding the door open for fascism and saying "come right in".

 

[bodecea]

The National Anthem is apolitical. Bipartisan.

But using it as a political cudgel is pure Trumpian.

So love and respect for your country, which the National Anthem embodies, somehow has something to do with president Trump?

It's very telling that one would think love and respect can be forced. Just like the beliefs of a spouse abuser would have.

 

[whitehall]

Standing for the Anthem is a matter of respect except when sports celebrities turn it into a matter of public disrespect. The interesting thing is that there wasn't any disrespect the Anthem until Hillary lost the election. Players could have sat out the Anthem in the locker room if that's what the voices in their head told them to do but they decided to make it public. The obvious conclusion is that elitist rich out of touch sports celebrities thought they could create a political backlash against the new administration. A funny thing happened though. The elitist celebrities misunderstood the attitude of the NFL fans and were booed and the NFL started losing money.

 

[bodecea]

The National Anthem is apolitical. Bipartisan.

But using it as a political cudgel is pure Trumpian.

So you’re not making a political statement by standing for it. That’s the argument some on the left have. It’s a bogus argument

There was one voice that chastised the protesting players. One voice calling them sons of bitches. One voice calling for them to be fired.

Trumpians and their leader don't like Black people when they protest loudly (see Black Lives Matter). And they don't like,it whenBlack people protest silently (see the anthem curfluffle). One might rightly assume, therefore, Trump and his minions just don't like Black people at all. And using the National Anthem as an aegis in their outrage flies in the face of all things good and proper and fitting about our nation.

No, "one" might not. When blacks protest, (see black lives don't matter anymore than anyone else's), business get looted and cities get burnt to the ground, and when black people kneel during the National Anthem, they're just pissing on the flag and our Anthem. Anyone with a lick of common sense knows this.

President Trump didn't invent patriotism or love for our country. It's been around since long before he was born, as was our flag and anthem. He invited these coddled, disrespectful blacks to the White House to tell him their grievances. I haven't heard of any of them taking him up on his offer yet. Seems as though they have a lot more fun pissing on our flag and national anthem then being sincere about their grievances.

One kneels to pray. How is kneeling equivalent to "pissing on the flag"?

Well then...kneeling in church is pissing on god....see the trumpanzee logic in that?

 

[bodecea]

The National Anthem is apolitical. Bipartisan.

But using it as a political cudgel is pure Trumpian.

Since he wants to violate the law and the US Constitution by forcing others to stand, is he also going to force others to learn the words?

The question is...will HE ever learn the words?

 

[Political Junky]

Why Are NFL Players on the Sidelines for the National Anthem?

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/nfl-sideline-anthem/

For much of the NFL's history, players weren't present on the field during the playing of "The Star-Spangled Banner."

What actually changed in 2009, according to NFL spokesman Brian McCarthy, was that (due to network timing issues) players had previously remained in their locker rooms during the playing of the national anthem for primetime games. After 2009, players appeared in the sidelines for the anthem during primetime games, just as they had been doing all along for Sunday afternoon games. (The distinction often went unnoticed by viewers, as network telecasts frequently didn’t air the pre-game anthem ceremonies.)

 

[Pogo]

Uber butthurt over a song, no response to a bugwit destroying our alliances with all of our closest allies.

The 'feelings' of people that have no clue why any country needs a Constitution.

This debate has been going on for awhile now. Both sides have been passionate about it. There are those on the left that want to take the anthem out of sports, because they feel it’s political and by making players stand they are forcing a brand of politics on them. This thread is to clarify that that is a bogus claim.

Add in the Pledge Of Allegiance. Conservatives love this forcing on students to pledge obedience to the government. It was written by a socialist.

Should any American be forced to pledge allegiance to anything or anyone? That's what Kim Jong Un does. Too many people in the US view symbols as far more important than rights and that spells, over time, death for a democracy.

Of course no one should be forced to do anything. Weird question bro

That's good. Hold that thought while you write to Resident Rump about forcing football players to adopt the State-Sponsored body posture for a fake patriotism exercise. And air it out when you consider the mob ordering Earnest Starr to kiss a flag and then getting him tossed in prison when he doesn't. And have it in your pocket when you go to a professional sports event and they hold up the game for this fake exercise that everybody in the stadium is expected to impersonate a North Korean parade and pressured if they don't.

Actual, real, genuine, legitimate, meaningful patriotism cannot be "scheduled" to happen at 8:04. It cannot be "scripted" to follow a particular wording. That's not patriotism -- that's a prayer. It's the worship of a fetish, also known as an "idol" or in antiquity a "graven image". Once you introduce a prayer to a fetish, you introduce with it the other side of its coin, blasphemy. And when you've created the conditions for idolatry and therefore blasphemy, you bring in its siblings flag-burning and opposition to flag-burning, neither of which would exist if we hadn't created the idol in the first place.

And back to the original point of being forced into these pseudopatriotic exercises -- when we're forced to murmur this prayer to an idol from childhood it's easy to assume that this is some kind of natural thing that people do all over the world, only the name of the country changing. It isn't. Nobody in the world sets up a prayer to its flag except the United States and its former brutalized colony, the Philippines. That such idolatry exists and is taken as a "normal" thing in what ironically calls itself the "land of the free" -- should be cause for immediate concern.

Fun fact: the infamous fascist salute of used to mold and keep citizens in lockstep uniform obedience leading up to and during WW2 was modeled directly after the posture used in the American fetish prayer being used at that time. We quietly changed it in the 1940s and pretended it never happened....

​

We made that change because the association demonstrated what the function of the whole exercise was and is. We can't have people knowing about THAT, because when they do it it's totalitarianism, and totalitarianism bad -- but when we do it it's "patriotism" and patriotism good. And if you don't do it, ve haf vays....

It's not the flag's fault. That's just an inanimate object we made up just as it's not the fault of the swastika. It's again the fault of demagogues who use that symbol for their own self-interested manipulations, that being to control the masses.

 

[Pogo]

Uber butthurt over a song, no response to a bugwit destroying our alliances with all of our closest allies.

The 'feelings' of people that have no clue why any country needs a Constitution.

This debate has been going on for awhile now. Both sides have been passionate about it. There are those on the left that want to take the anthem out of sports, because they feel it’s political and by making players stand they are forcing a brand of politics on them. This thread is to clarify that that is a bogus claim.

Cleanup on Aisle seven ---

What actually has been happening is that some wags here want to disingenuously whine about (in this case) football players "bringing politics into the game" by not-standing for the anthem --- while completely ignoring the question of what a national anthem is even doing there in the first place, in what's supposed to be a sporting event that does not involve different countries. They'd like to have it both ways, defining as "political" the act of declining to march in lockstep to the exercise, and unwelcome in the game setting, yet saying absolutely nothing about the presence of that exercise those players declined to dance to.

Can't have it both ways; if one's 'political' and 'unwelcome' and 'irrelevant to the game', then so is the other. It's a package deal --- like the flag idolatry described above, if we didn't make an idol out of a piece of cloth, then no one would have any point in burning it. You can;t just cherrypick one side of the coin and pretend the other doesn't exist. The fact is if we weren't trotting out players and spectators to fall into line in a fake-display of pseudopatriotism, there would be nothing there to not-participate in.

And for those of you scoring at home, or even if you're by yourself --- that's not "leftism" -that's Liberalism. You know, the hands-off, power to the People philosophy that created this country and wrote its Constitution, which is where this country's heart actually beats ---- not in fetishes and symbols and parades and dances and mandatory State-obedience exercises.

Make no mistake about why the national anthem is trotted out in stadiums. Clearly it has zero to do with the event everybody showed up for. It's there because they have a captive audience of twenty, thirty, even sixty thousand people gathered in one place, you have that much attention, and you can milk it for mass indoctrination. THAT is why it's there. And every time one of these Jingo-bots comes in wagging their finger with the prescribed emotional trigger-words, they demonstrate that the State got exactly the effect it was going for in putting it there.

Hope this clears this up.

 

[IsaacNewton]

"That such idolatry exists and is taken as a "normal" thing in what ironically calls itself the "land of the free" -- should be cause for immediate concern."


Also ironic, many of the very people that would profess to be followers of 'their god' who expressly forbids worship of a false idol, do in fact worship many false idols.

 

[Pogo]

"That such idolatry exists and is taken as a "normal" thing in what ironically calls itself the "land of the free" -- should be cause for immediate concern."


Also ironic, many of the very people that would profess to be followers of 'their god' who expressly forbids worship of a false idol, do in fact worship many false idols.

I kinda left it unsaid but yes it is both markable and re-markable that we find the voices trying to claim "b-but... but...we are a Christian nation" are the same voices most fervently praying to the graven image gods specifically proscribed in the Mosaic (and for that matter the Islamic) religious precepts. It's almost as if the scribes of moral code in Antiquity already knew where idolatry leads.

Again, they like having it both ways. Because it's all about the rhetorical sugar-rush of mob emotion.

 

[Luddly Neddite]

Uber butthurt over a song, no response to a bugwit destroying our alliances with all of our closest allies.

The 'feelings' of people that have no clue why any country needs a Constitution.

This debate has been going on for awhile now. Both sides have been passionate about it. There are those on the left that want to take the anthem out of sports, because they feel it’s political and by making players stand they are forcing a brand of politics on them. This thread is to clarify that that is a bogus claim.

Add in the Pledge Of Allegiance. Conservatives love this forcing on students to pledge obedience to the government. It was written by a socialist.

Should any American be forced to pledge allegiance to anything or anyone? That's what Kim Jong Un does. Too many people in the US view symbols as far more important than rights and that spells, over time, death for a democracy.

Of course no one should be forced to do anything. Weird question bro

That's good. Hold that thought while you write to Resident Rump about forcing football players to adopt the State-Sponsored body posture for a fake patriotism exercise. And air it out when you consider the mob ordering Earnest Starr to kiss a flag and then getting him tossed in prison when he doesn't. And have it in your pocket when you go to a professional sports event and they hold up the game for this fake exercise that everybody in the stadium is expected to impersonate a North Korean parade and pressured if they don't.

Actual, real, genuine, legitimate, meaningful patriotism cannot be "scheduled" to happen at 8:04. It cannot be "scripted" to follow a particular wording. That's not patriotism -- that's a prayer. It's the worship of a fetish, also known as an "idol" or in antiquity a "graven image". Once you introduce a prayer to a fetish, you introduce with it the other side of its coin, blasphemy. And when you've created the conditions for idolatry and therefore blasphemy, you bring in its siblings flag-burning and opposition to flag-burning, neither of which would exist if we hadn't created the idol in the first place.

And back to the original point of being forced into these pseudopatriotic exercises -- when we're forced to murmur this prayer to an idol from childhood it's easy to assume that this is some kind of natural thing that people do all over the world, only the name of the country changing. It isn't. Nobody in the world sets up a prayer to its flag except the United States and its former brutalized colony, the Philippines. That such idolatry exists and is taken as a "normal" thing in what ironically calls itself the "land of the free" -- should be cause for immediate concern.

Fun fact: the infamous fascist salute of used to mold and keep citizens in lockstep uniform obedience leading up to and during WW2 was modeled directly after the posture used in the American fetish prayer being used at that time. We quietly changed it in the 1940s and pretended it never happened....

​

We made that change because the association demonstrated what the function of the whole exercise was and is. We can't have people knowing about THAT, because when they do it it's totalitarianism, and totalitarianism bad -- but when we do it it's "patriotism" and patriotism good. And if you don't do it, ve haf vays....

It's not the flag's fault. That's just an inanimate object we made up just as it's not the fault of the swastika. It's again the fault of demagogues who use that symbol for their own self-interested manipulations, that being to control the masses.

Bravo. And that photo is exactly why the SCOTUS made it unconstitutional.

I'm amazed that trump does not know this. And that trumpkins don't know it.

Pretty sure I learned about SCOTUS and the US Constitution in the 6th grade.

.