What makes them Anti American?

They haven't renounced their citizenship like the Confederates. 

They haven't taken up arms against the country like the Confederates.

They haven't killed thousands of Americans like the Confederates.

And, unless you believe equality in law enforcement is inconsistent with American ideals, they haven't advocated for anything Anti American like the Confederates.

Yet self righteous conservatives like yourself revere the Confederates while having the gall to wrap yourselves in the American flag to castigate the players.

  If the players succeed in their protests, the "worst" that happens is that more criminal suspects of color will actually make it to trial instead of being shot by police and those acting like police under dubious rationales.  If the Confederates succeeded, the American flag would have at least thirteen fewer stars and the country would be a fraction of its current size and strength, and the anti American ideals they blatantly admitted to would have prevailed.  Yet conservatives, from Trump on down, jump on the proverbial grenades to protect icons of the Confederacy from removal or criticism.

It has NOTHING to do with Anti-American thoughts or deeds on the part of the players.


It has everything to do with more pernicious motives of the conservatives that bash the players.

This is a fundamental misconstruction of the civil war. The confederates were statesman first and Americans second. They believed the contract they entered with the United States allowed them to govern themselves with limited interference from the federal government. When the government overstepped their boundaries (in the eyes of the confederates), the south chose to withdraw from that contract. The north said otherwise. The civil war settled the dispute over which power was sovereign: states or the federal government. Functionally, the government contract was changed after the civil war. Citizens at the time would have a completely different perspective then than we have now. Calling them traitors is disingenuous.

If conservatives embrace aspects of confederacy, it's because they still value limited government and incorporate that symbolism. In this regard, your analogy is appropriate: that choosing your symbols is important. A symbol that is divisive can actually detract from your point and cause serious backlash. This shouldn't be a surprise to anyone.

Please keep your Confederate apologist Jedi mind tricks to yourself.  They won't work on me.

The Confederates openly acknowledged that white supremacy and Slavery were their primary motivating factors for secession, not some vague breach of contract cause of action.

https://www.duvalpride.com/showthread.ph...pid1012022

While I will not reproduce the entire post here, the relevant part of Vice President of the Confederacy's Andrew Stephens' Cornerstone of the Confederacy speech is instructive.

"The new constitution has put at rest, forever, all the agitating questions relating to our peculiar institution African slavery as it exists amongst us the proper status of the negro in our form of civilization. This was the immediate cause of the late rupture and present revolution. Jefferson in his forecast, had anticipated this, as the “rock upon which the old Union would split.” He was right. What was conjecture with him, is now a realized fact. But whether he fully comprehended the great truth upon which that rock stood and stands, may be doubted. The prevailing ideas entertained by him and most of the leading statesmen at the time of the formation of the old constitution, were that the enslavement of the African was in violation of the laws of nature; that it was wrong in principle, socially, morally, and politically. It was an evil they knew not well how to deal with, but the general opinion of the men of that day was that, somehow or other in the order of Providence, the institution would be evanescent and pass away. This idea, though not incorporated in the constitution, was the prevailing idea at that time. The constitution, it is true, secured every essential guarantee to the institution while it should last, and hence no argument can be justly urged against the constitutional guarantees thus secured, because of the common sentiment of the day. Those ideas, however, were fundamentally wrong. They rested upon the assumption of the equality of races. This was an error. It was a sandy foundation, and the government built upon it fell when the “storm came and the wind blew.”


Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its corner- stone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth." (Emphasis added)

The thing is, the Constitution of the United States establishes instances where a state can file suit against either another state or the federal government in the Supreme Court, giving it original jurisdiction over these and a few other controversies.  

Stephens was a lawyer.  He was fully capable of articulating a breach of contract case against the federal government if that was his intent, or if it were a reflection of the true reasons for secession.  He didn't.  He said slavery was the immediate cause of the rupture, as did several of the states in their various declarations of secession.  He and the confederacy could have used the American legal system to achieve the desired results and lived with the consequences.  They didn't.  Because they didn't get their way in having the unmitigated ability to oppress blacks, they voluntarily withdrew from this country and took up arms against it, even after reaping the benefits of being part of this republic.  They posed an existential threat to this country.  They were disloyal and traitorous by almost every conceivable measure.  If those of you so outraged by this protest were so singularly driven by patriotism as your angst against the protesting players suggest, any reverence reserved for the Confederacy would be met with exponentially more revulsion than what has been directed towards the players here.  But I defy you to explore the threads debating the confederacy and the removal of Confederate monuments and show me any who lean conservative on these boards who have expressed as much dismay towards the confederate betrayal of our country as they have towards these players.

Conservatives embrace aspects of the confederacy, including resentment of the federal government.  But that shared resentment is rooted in anti black antipathy at its core.

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Worst to 1st.  Curse Reversed!

"There is no "millionaire's exception" to the first amendment. Their status as millionaires doesn't make them immune from the things they are protesting about (see:  Bennett, Michael)."

Of all the stuff you said you're really gonna make a case for that liar?

And imagine if a white DE did a nazi salute after a sack like Bennett raises a black fist..

The world would explode..

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Boy, I can tell you all one thing. Trump mentions something and people start talking. Take this very board where there has been a thread ( Kap )to discuss this topic since early August. It is six pages and around a 100 replies. Trump opens his yap and you have this thread going on 15 pages. Why do you all think that is?

Because when Trump walks off a bridge, 33% of America won't shut up about how right he was to do so, and how anyone opposed to his walking off a bridge is an ISIS-sympathizing snowflake.

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Teflon Trump comes out of this unscathed. Goodell, not so much.

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Teflon Trump comes out of this unscathed. Goodell, not so much.

Meanwhile in the real world, an indictment is expected against Paul Manafort any day now, and Jared and Ivanka Clinton have been using personal email servers for White House business.

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Teflon Trump comes out of this unscathed. Goodell, not so much.

Meanwhile in the real world, an indictment is expected against Paul Manafort any day now, and Jared and Ivanka Clinton have been using personal email servers for White House business.

So what does that have to do with Teflon? If DOJ indicts Jared and Ivanka, then Hillary is just screwed.

---

Meanwhile in the real world, an indictment is expected against Paul Manafort any day now, and Jared and Ivanka Clinton have been using personal email servers for White House business.

So what does that have to do with Teflon? If DOJ indicts Jared and Ivanka, then Hillary is just screwed.

The impeachment charge is coming. Or the surprise resignation. I'm just kicking back waiting to see the Trumpette's heads explode while the lefty nuts make like Laker fans and burn down Washington to celebrate.

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MalabarJag
   So your defense of the anti-American actions of some of the players (they stood for "God Save the Queen") is that their anti-Americanism wasn't as bad as the slave masters of the Confederacy?
   Talk about damning with faint praise.

No, my defense of the players is that nothing they have done to this point is even remotely anti American.

The First Amendment of the Constitution reads thusly: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." (emphasis added).  The Founding Fathers felt the freedom of speech was important enough to make it the first right to codify in the Bill of Rights.  Citizens have the right to peaceably assemble and to air grievances.  Nothing the players have done in kneeling silently before a football game during the national anthem, or raising their fists during the same time exceeds the rights delineated above.  There has been no violence associated with those players pre game body positions.  The players have not destroyed any property in their silent protests.  The players have not burned any flags when conducting these protests.  It is doubtful any of the players who kneel or raise a fist prior to a football game have violated any tangentially related time, place or manner restrictions passed as local ordinances. If so, there have been no arrests based upon that.  Their actions have been wholly consistent with the constitution.  


My contrasting their actions with those of the Confederates is to highlight the staggering degree of hypocrisy on this subject from the right.  People who literally declared war on and conducted war against this country are revered as heroes by the right.  Meanwhile, those who silently protest in the effort to help form a more perfect union are reviled as traitors by the same right.

Again, it isn't about patriotism.

What the right has functionally expressed is that people of color have no right to voice dissent the right is bound to honor or respect.

What else explains the disparate treatment diametrically opposed to the degree and severity of dissent raised by the groups in question?

1. So you admit that the 100,000 word screed you wrote about the Confederacy was an off-topic strawman argument. I don't recall anyone here calling any Confederates heroes.

2. As far as anti-American, how can a person who shows more respect for the British anthem than the US anthem be considered anything other than anti-American? I wonder what other countries' anthems the protesting players would prefer? We'll see if any player sits for the Mexican anthem in a few weeks. Maybe Kaepernick would stand for the Cuban anthem.

3. You talk about freedom of speech. Doesn't Trump have that same right to freedom of speech? He was expressing his opinion, not giving an executive order. We may not agree with his opinion, but as an American he has the right to express it. He does not have the right to use government power to enforce his preferred outcome, and he has not done that.

1.  Perhaps I answered hastily.  My citation of the Confederacy addressed two overlapping arguments, not two mutually exclusive arguments.  Nevertheless, there was no straw man, either in intent or in effect.  No, nobody in this thread stated explicitly the confederates were "heroes."  But we can easily conclude as much based on the totality of the circumstances.  You could attend a Jaguars football game wearing a Jaguars shirt.  Couldn't the reasonable person reasonably surmise that you were a Jaguars fan, even if your gear did not say the magic words "I, Malabarjag, am a Jaguars fan?"  Similarly, if you see a guy driving a truck with the confederate flag displayed on it, and he gets out of the truck wearing a shirt and or cap and or belt buckle with confederate emblems on them, does any of his gear have to explicitly state he loves the confederacy in order to surmise he has a favorable view of the Confederacy and that imagery? How often do communities erect statues, monuments, and name school and streets after people they revile?  Should we expect to see statutes honoring Osama Bin Laden  or the Pharma Bro?  Is it reasonable to expect to see a Timothy McVeigh Boulevard in Oklahoma City any time soon?    Why not?  On  the other hand, if a municipality allocates the requisite funds to erect statues and monuments to particular individuals, it suffices to say a significant portion of that community finds the individuals or entities so memorialized admirable.   It's not a stretch to conclude that when people in that community defend the various memorials from criticism or removal, they are doing so in part out of admiration for those persons or entities so memorialized.  It's not a particularly subtle or difficult argument to discern.

2.  Did you ever stop to consider they remained standing for the British national anthem because they were a guest in that country and that Britain was not the immediate cause of their grievance/protest?  Why protest a country if you have no grievance against them?  Not kneeling during the British national anthem is NOT anti American.

3.  Yes, Donald Trump has the constitutional guaranteed freedom of speech as an American citizen that all US citizens enjoy.  I have no problem with that.  The problem I have is that Trump exercises his rights in the most injudicious ways imaginable, wholly devoid of tact and civility and categorically averse to fact and truth.  The negative effect of his unfortunate habits are exacerbated when he engages in these unfortunate diatribes-first as a public figure, and currently as president of the United States.  He used his platform to undermine the credibility of his immediate presidential predecessor by spreading baseless claims about President Obama being born elsewhere, only to ultimately acknowledge that yes, President Obama was born in the United States.  He is currently using his platform to antagonize an unstable leader of a nuclear country, putting us closer to nuclear war than at any time since the Cold War ended, and almost as much as the Cuban Missile crisis.  He is currently using his platform to antagonize a small number of players who were exercising their first amendment right to silently protest police brutality-NOT the military, the flag, or the national anthem.  What was once a dying controversy has now been brought into the forefront and renewed by his senseless prattle.

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Worst to 1st.  Curse Reversed!

"There is no "millionaire's exception" to the first amendment. Their status as millionaires doesn't make them immune from the things they are protesting about (see:  Bennett, Michael)."

Of all the stuff you said you're really gonna make a case for that liar?

And imagine if a white DE did a nazi salute after a sack like Bennett raises a black fist..

The world would explode..

Actually it wouldn't.

The president would call him a nice guy, and his minions would readily agree.

The only explosive thing I see is the explosively humorous and ludicrous false equivalency between an expression used to assert the empowerment of a minority that has traditionally been disenfranchised-politically, socially, and economically vs an expression that symbolizes white Aryan supremacy, utilized initially by individuals responsible for the deaths of six million Jews and millions of others in World War II, to say nothing of the horrific medical experiments and other related suffering of millions of others.

It's more obvious (or should be) than the distinction between a welcome mat and a keep out sign.

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Worst to 1st.  Curse Reversed!

No - you are totally missing the point.  

America is a great country - not because Trump wants to "Make America Great Again" or anything like that.  It's because America is the land of opportunity, where someone who is poor can become rich, where anyone can become President of the United States, regardless of sex, race, or religion. 

NFL players want to protest - go ahead, but doing it by disrespecting the flag and national anthem isn't the way to sway people to your cause. 

Trump was elected by the people and the people are getting what they elected.  

That's the American way. 

The whole problem is that people take sides in the debate and never want to listen to other side.  It's Republican vs Democrat, conservative vs liberal.  We've gotten to the point where it's all about who can yell the loudest and throw the biggest tantrums rather than having rational discussion and debate to move the entire country forward. 

Sure, America has it's problems, but there are much worse places to live in the world than here.  I've been all over the world and there is nowhere I would rather live than here (although I will admit Paris is my favorite city - followed by Haifa).  

As the saying goes "Can't we all just get along?"  Can't we all work together to actually resolve the problems in America rather than just yell and scream - and tweet - about things to see who can end up on top?

(Emphasis added)

How exactly do the players who are protesting disrespect the flag or the national anthem?

Have they burned or otherwise desecrated it?  Have they flown it upside down as some did when Obama was president?
Did they somehow let the flag hit the ground?  Have they worn the flag as bikinis, bandanas, or underwear?  Did they have mattress sales on flag day?

Have they changed the words to the anthem, or somehow offered a "remix?"

Why does silent kneeling equate to disrespect?

If Tim Tebow took a knee during the anthem to pray, does that constitute disrespect towards the flag or the anthem?  It's the same bodily position, and it detracts from the purpose of that national anthem.

If anything disrespects the flag, the anthem, the military and the ideals for which they ostensibly stand, it's those who would wrongly deprive their fellow citizens  of the ability to exercise their rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, whether by gunshot and chokehold, or censorship of their ability to peaceably assemble and express grievances.

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Worst to 1st.  Curse Reversed!

"There is no "millionaire's exception" to the first amendment. Their status as millionaires doesn't make them immune from the things they are protesting about (see:  Bennett, Michael)."

Of all the stuff you said you're really gonna make a case for that liar?

Let's look at the facts:

1.  Michael Bennett was not arrested or charged with the underlying crime that caused the police investigation in the first place.

2.  Michael Bennett was not arrested or charged with obstructing justice or interfering with an investigation, or aiding and abetting  the perpetrator of the original incident cited in 1.

3.  Michael Bennett was not arrested for or charged with assault (threatening, creating the reasonable apprehension of immediate death or severe bodily injury), or battery (the actual physical attack) on a LEO.

4.  It was alleged there was a shooting at the casino?

Is it wholly unreasonable for a person in the area of what is thought by the crowd to be a shooting to hide behind something for cover?

With this in mind, tell me again why a police officer found it necessary to threaten to blow the head off of an innocent man?

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Worst to 1st.  Curse Reversed!

"There is no "millionaire's exception" to the first amendment. Their status as millionaires doesn't make them immune from the things they are protesting about (see:  Bennett, Michael)."

Of all the stuff you said you're really gonna make a case for that liar?

And imagine if a white DE did a nazi salute after a sack like Bennett raises a black fist..

The world would explode..

Yea except for the fact that Bennett wants equality for every man and woman while nazis.... well.... they don’t.

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And imagine if a white DE did a nazi salute after a sack like Bennett raises a black fist..

The world would explode..

Yea except for the fact that Bennett wants equality for every man and woman while nazis.... well.... they don’t.

So you're saying that it's OK to raise an arm in a manner that supports a murderous group as long as it's your approved murderous group?

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"Why should I give information to you when all you want to do is find something wrong with it?"

No - you are totally missing the point.  

America is a great country - not because Trump wants to "Make America Great Again" or anything like that.  It's because America is the land of opportunity, where someone who is poor can become rich, where anyone can become President of the United States, regardless of sex, race, or religion. 

NFL players want to protest - go ahead, but doing it by disrespecting the flag and national anthem isn't the way to sway people to your cause. 

Trump was elected by the people and the people are getting what they elected.  

That's the American way. 

The whole problem is that people take sides in the debate and never want to listen to other side.  It's Republican vs Democrat, conservative vs liberal.  We've gotten to the point where it's all about who can yell the loudest and throw the biggest tantrums rather than having rational discussion and debate to move the entire country forward. 

Sure, America has it's problems, but there are much worse places to live in the world than here.  I've been all over the world and there is nowhere I would rather live than here (although I will admit Paris is my favorite city - followed by Haifa).  

As the saying goes "Can't we all just get along?"  Can't we all work together to actually resolve the problems in America rather than just yell and scream - and tweet - about things to see who can end up on top?

(Emphasis added)

How exactly do the players who are protesting disrespect the flag or the national anthem?

Have they burned or otherwise desecrated it?  Have they flown it upside down as some did when Obama was president?
Did they somehow let the flag hit the ground?  Have they worn the flag as bikinis, bandanas, or underwear?  Did they have mattress sales on flag day?

Have they changed the words to the anthem, or somehow offered a "remix?"

Why does silent kneeling equate to disrespect?

If Tim Tebow took a knee during the anthem to pray, does that constitute disrespect towards the flag or the anthem?  It's the same bodily position, and it detracts from the purpose of that national anthem.

If anything disrespects the flag, the anthem, the military and the ideals for which they ostensibly stand, it's those who would wrongly deprive their fellow citizens  of the ability to exercise their rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, whether by gunshot and chokehold, or censorship of their ability to peaceably assemble and express grievances.

You learn protocol in grade school.

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/36/301

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"And equality of law enforcement is an American ideal. Within the arena of ideas if one is going to propose that there is widespread systemic racism then there should be some factual statistical basis for that argument. Instead, in this discussion not only is evidence not presented, it's not even asked for. The reality of the situation shows that both black and white people are shot in direct proportion to their interactions with police. Their interactions with police are in direct proportion to the amount of crimes reported. The major premise that in some way America has an unspoken institutional conspiracy to deprive people of color of basic due process doesn't pass any level of real scrutiny. Instead we cherry pick one or two cases, write a bumper sticker and kneel to the ground. "

Yea this is the one thing that really prevents me from being on board with the narrative is the facts don't really support it.  As you said, when you account for there being higher levels of crime in black communities, cops use deadly force against whites and blacks at an equal rate.  The one thing this doesn't account for is more innocent black people just going about their business are more likely to be subjected to tougher policing than some innocent white person.  But I think that has more to do with surrounding environment.  There are bad cops, just like there are bad people.  The more interactions you have with cops, the more interaction you will have with a bad cop.  Black people living in these communities not only have to deal with the violence, but the presence of more police and more interactions with police.  But if there truly was overt, undeniable racism in policing, it should play out in the statistics.  But it just doesn't.   Here are the numbers...  compare to the rates of crime, especially violent crime, and there is no proof of the narrative.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/...ings-2017/

And the ironic thing is, even if you had a bunch of super cops that never did wrong, always used proper discretion, were impeccable stewards of the community, how much better would these inner city areas be?  Would crime reduce dramatically?  Would marriage rates improve?  Would children born out of wedlock reduce?  Would the school systems get better?  Any changes would be at the margin.  And obviously no black person likes to be lectured about the problem in these communities.  We all know what they are.  And we all know how the history of racism played a part in them being this way.  Thats why we send tens of billions of dollars a year into the inner city.  Give black students preferential treatment getting into college.  Affirmative action for jobs.  We do this to help level the playing field from past discriminations.  But none of those things really matter until these communities can improve in their underlying issues.  And blaming bad policing probably isn't going to do much to make things better.

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________________________________________________
Scouting well is all that matters.  Draft philosophy is all fluff.

(Emphasis added)

How exactly do the players who are protesting disrespect the flag or the national anthem?

Have they burned or otherwise desecrated it?  Have they flown it upside down as some did when Obama was president?
Did they somehow let the flag hit the ground?  Have they worn the flag as bikinis, bandanas, or underwear?  Did they have mattress sales on flag day?

Have they changed the words to the anthem, or somehow offered a "remix?"

Why does silent kneeling equate to disrespect?

If Tim Tebow took a knee during the anthem to pray, does that constitute disrespect towards the flag or the anthem?  It's the same bodily position, and it detracts from the purpose of that national anthem.

If anything disrespects the flag, the anthem, the military and the ideals for which they ostensibly stand, it's those who would wrongly deprive their fellow citizens  of the ability to exercise their rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, whether by gunshot and chokehold, or censorship of their ability to peaceably assemble and express grievances.

You learn protocol in grade school.

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/36/301

Yet you cite a law school website?

So address the underlying premise of my closing paragraph.

Does the unjust deprivation of the fundamental rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, and the first amendment right of freedom of speech and the right to peacable assembly betray the principles embodied by the American Flag and the National Anthem? 

Why or why not?

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Worst to 1st.  Curse Reversed!

Yea except for the fact that Bennett wants equality for every man and woman while nazis.... well.... they don’t.

So you're saying that it's OK to raise an arm in a manner that supports a murderous group as long as it's your approved murderous group?

Pretty stupid eh?

---

Yea except for the fact that Bennett wants equality for every man and woman while nazis.... well.... they don’t.

So you're saying that it's OK to raise an arm in a manner that supports a murderous group as long as it's your approved murderous group?

What murderous group is embodied by the raised fist?

Were the 1968 olympians who had their medals stripped murderous? Assuming you are talking about BLM, is there any evidence a) BLM existed in 1968; b) BLM condoned any murders that happened during these protests?

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Worst to 1st.  Curse Reversed!

1. So you admit that the 100,000 word screed you wrote about the Confederacy was an off-topic strawman argument. I don't recall anyone here calling any Confederates heroes.

2. As far as anti-American, how can a person who shows more respect for the British anthem than the US anthem be considered anything other than anti-American? I wonder what other countries' anthems the protesting players would prefer? We'll see if any player sits for the Mexican anthem in a few weeks. Maybe Kaepernick would stand for the Cuban anthem.

3. You talk about freedom of speech. Doesn't Trump have that same right to freedom of speech? He was expressing his opinion, not giving an executive order. We may not agree with his opinion, but as an American he has the right to express it. He does not have the right to use government power to enforce his preferred outcome, and he has not done that.

1.  Perhaps I answered hastily.  My citation of the Confederacy addressed two overlapping arguments, not two mutually exclusive arguments.  Nevertheless, there was no straw man, either in intent or in effect.  No, nobody in this thread stated explicitly the confederates were "heroes."  But we can easily conclude as much based on the totality of the circumstances.  You could attend a Jaguars football game wearing a Jaguars shirt.  Couldn't the reasonable person reasonably surmise that you were a Jaguars fan, even if your gear did not say the magic words "I, Malabarjag, am a Jaguars fan?"  Similarly, if you see a guy driving a truck with the confederate flag displayed on it, and he gets out of the truck wearing a shirt and or cap and or belt buckle with confederate emblems on them, does any of his gear have to explicitly state he loves the confederacy in order to surmise he has a favorable view of the Confederacy and that imagery? How often do communities erect statues, monuments, and name school and streets after people they revile?  Should we expect to see statutes honoring Osama Bin Laden  or the Pharma Bro?  Is it reasonable to expect to see a Timothy McVeigh Boulevard in Oklahoma City any time soon?    Why not?  On  the other hand, if a municipality allocates the requisite funds to erect statues and monuments to particular individuals, it suffices to say a significant portion of that community finds the individuals or entities so memorialized admirable.   It's not a stretch to conclude that when people in that community defend the various memorials from criticism or removal, they are doing so in part out of admiration for those persons or entities so memorialized.  It's not a particularly subtle or difficult argument to discern.

2.  Did you ever stop to consider they remained standing for the British national anthem because they were a guest in that country and that Britain was not the immediate cause of their grievance/protest?  Why protest a country if you have no grievance against them?  Not kneeling during the British national anthem is NOT anti American.

3.  Yes, Donald Trump has the constitutional guaranteed freedom of speech as an American citizen that all US citizens enjoy.  I have no problem with that.  The problem I have is that Trump exercises his rights in the most injudicious ways imaginable, wholly devoid of tact and civility and categorically averse to fact and truth.  The negative effect of his unfortunate habits are exacerbated when he engages in these unfortunate diatribes-first as a public figure, and currently as president of the United States.  He used his platform to undermine the credibility of his immediate presidential predecessor by spreading baseless claims about President Obama being born elsewhere, only to ultimately acknowledge that yes, President Obama was born in the United States.  He is currently using his platform to antagonize an unstable leader of a nuclear country, putting us closer to nuclear war than at any time since the Cold War ended, and almost as much as the Cuban Missile crisis.  He is currently using his platform to antagonize a small number of  players who were exercising their first amendment right to silently protest police brutality-NOT the military, the flag, or the national anthem.  What was once a dying controversy has now been brought into the forefront and renewed by his senseless prattle.

1. Who on this board drives around with a Confederate flag? Whether or not one approves or disapproves of tearing down Confederate statues has nothing to do with the fan response to the demonstrations, and what right the POTUS has to make statements.

Yes, it's 100% a strawman argument. This thread is not the place to argue about the Confederacy, which is 90% of your text here.

2. Making an exception with the British anthem is tantamount to claiming that Britain is better than the US. I see it as anti-American and I suspect around half the US population does too. Will the kneelers also stand for the Mexican anthem because they are "guests"? The history of the Mexican police as far as the rights of suspects are treated is not exactly stellar.

3. Heaven knows Trump needs to learn the art of keeping his opinions to himself. But it's hypocritical to ignore the fact that he has just as much right to state a wrong opinion as anyone else. His history of making statements that are wrong does not change that. So far, unlike his predecessor, he hasn't used the power of the Federal government to enforce his opinion.

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"Why should I give information to you when all you want to do is find something wrong with it?"

You can't have your cake and eat it too.. Only way racism ends if by defeating the far right and the far left. That's the Klan and Black Panthers. Want to get rid of racist statues? That's cool. I'm all for it. But also get rid of MLK statues since he was a womanizer and a communist.. And don't even get me started on Malcolm X. Pure racist, yet, those statues will never come down because of stupidity..
.

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