Another Thought on The NFL Protests

Protests are as American as apple pie, baseball, and neckin' at the drive-in movies.

Protests are supposed to hit you in the gut and make you think.

Protests are legal, especially at work. Workers protest at work all the time in the form of labor strikes, many of which are contractually forbidden, such as teachers, pilots, and sports personalities.

Don't confuse this latest iteration of Kaepernick's protest, as a continuation of his protesting injustice to people of color in America. This latest iteration is a clear and unmistakeable protesting of President Trump, and his statement during a GOP rally in Alabama a week ago. Its hard to blame the players, when the league, and team owners, even the cowboys owner, also protested the President's statement.

My friend pulled out of the football pool, and refuses to watch NFL football saying that this is tearing the country apart. Who is tearing the country apart? The protesters, or the Protested? Who's still showing up for the games, drinking beer, wearing team jerseys? Who's taking this just a little bit too harshly?

The truth can hurt. Whether a person is hurt because they supported President Trump, or even because they, like me, support the Office of the President, or because they don't agree with the original protest, I think this protest has hit a national nerve.

Either our President doesn't agree with the original protest, or he doesn't realize how his statements can affect the country, or he is impressively ignorant of both. Either way, the country has reacted, and is once again deeply divided, not over what the still unemployed Colin Kaeperlin achieved, but what our President said.

If President Trump had said nothing about football last Friday, we football watching citizens, would have less to be aware of, instead we, as a country, have two things to be aware of.

1. We needed to be aware of President Trumps general ignorance to the power of his office, or maybe it is sheer genius on his part, and his response was a planned, and expected social response, either of which is purely divisive, and worse than ignorance.

2. We needed to be aware of social injustice to people of color.

Peace,

Campy Out!


https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/early-lead/wp/2017/09/25/cowboys-players-take-a-knee-with-owner-jerry-jones-before-standing-for-anthem/?utm_term=.a2409835f8ae

Veteran on Rendering Honors to Our Flag

I'll say that as a 20 year veteran of the United States Navy, with over 11 years at sea, most on submarines...

I don't like the fact that someone wants to sit, kneel, drink beer, talk, buy peanuts, or wear their hat, during the national anthem.

However, I do support their Right to make a statement in protest as they see fit,

Because it is their "Unalienable Right" to do so, and is guaranteed by our Constitution.

Don't give into the emotion these people, and our president, are stirring in you.

Be smarter than that.

Lodge your own protest by showing the protesting kneelers, and sitters, that we are better than that.

Stand tall, be proud, take off your hat, put your hand over your left chest, and sing the anthem loud!

But don't begrudge those who protest! Protesting is just as patriotic as saluting the flag, and had been just as costly throughout history.

Respect YOUR Rights!

That's what this veteran, and my brothers and sisters who gave the ultimate price were protecting.

We continue to defend YOUR Constitution,

which includes

YOUR Bill of Rights.

Campy Out!

United States Flag, Our Old Glory, Our Flag

Our flag is a piece of cloth, most probably made in some other country, as was the thread, and the die that colors her red, white, and blue.

Our flag represents an idea, a philosophy of freedom, a government of free people, for free people, and by free people.

The flag is a piece of cloth, one that shows people where the truth can be found.

Our flag is a piece of cloth who's ideals have never let us down.

Our flag is just a piece of cloth, a piece of cloth that wraps her children who have given their lives to the belief that all men are created equal.

Our flag, that piece of cloth, has been folded neatly, and handed to mothers, and wives, of our fallen brothers and sisters.

Our flag was born out of protest, protesting a king that taxed, stole from, and jailed the people from his new world colonies.

The very idea of freedom, of liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, this piece of cloth we call our flag, our "Old Glory", hangs on the very pole of protest, and proudly waves in the faces of those who would limit our liberties.

And we Americans should settle for no less.

She's one kick ass flag! She has been beaten up, spit on, burned, trampled, muddied, shot at, and shredded, yet she still waves defiantly in the proud spirit of protest, ready for the next challenge.

Yeah... She's one "kicked assed" piece of cloth that wouldn't mean half as much as she would without the freedom to protest.

Campy Out!