American Patriotism or Facism? Let 'em Kneel

Telling National Football League players that they can't take a knee or raise a fist before the American flag during the national anthem, is like telling a man that he can't pray -- or that he must.

Contrary to reactionary cries, enflamed by a demagogic President, the protests, and the defense there of, have never been about disrespecting the flag or our veterans -- but honoring them both.

And NFL owners should have no say in whether a player decides to stand, sit or kneel during the anthem. Indeed, freedom isn't free. 

Hundreds of thousands of brave American men and women have fought and died on the battefield to defend our Democratic ideals of equality and justice, which were fundamental to the founding of this country 242 years ago.

By kneeling during the "Star-Spangled Banner," NFL players are exercising the very freedoms that same banner represents, and our war heroes died for -- purportedly, for all Americans. 

And any past or ongoing player protests (hence, the two Miami Dolphin players who took a knee on opening day) are demonstrating and preserving those treasured, professed values that our soldiers died to protect. 

One of those values is called free speech under the First Amendment. And one of the reasons "Old Glory" flies, is to protect that right.

Do we really believe in truth, justice and the American way?

What good are those Democratic ideals of equality that our American war heroes sacraficed everything for, if we, the people, just take them for granted? 

How can we Americans purport to embrace Godly values when standing before the flag, but then sit quietly by in the face of injustice? 

Now, more than ever, we should be treasuring those privelages spelled out in the U.S. Constitution's Bill of Rights -- particularly in light of President Trump's clear autocratic agenda.

"Black Lives Matter" arose after several video-taped cases of cops shooting unarmed black man found exposure on social media.

In 2015, police killed at least 104 unarmed black men in the U.S. -- five times the number of unarmed white men killed by cops.

The Washington Post reported that 34 percent of the unarmed people shot and killed by police in 2016 were black males, which make up only 6 percent of the U.S. population.

What the American flag represents is much bigger than the flag itself. Our fellow Christians should know this as well as anyone. The Bible instructs to be aware of "idols" or "false gods" that take the place of God. 

When honoring a flag becomes more important than defending the Godly values the flag is supposed to represent, it's an idol.

And the protesting NFL players kneeling in support of social justice aren't a bunch of spoiled rich kids. NFL players' salaries may be out of touch with most of ours, but it's not like they all were born with silver spoons in their mouths.

For many players, the NFL was their ticket out of the slums, where poverty, crime and drugs swallow up lives, daily. They know what racial profiling looks like first hand.

And if not high-profile citizens like the NFL players to give this crucial social issue a national platform at a time when much of America is watching, who will -- and when?

Do Americans truly stand behind the two most penetrating phrases of Francis Scott Key's 1814 "Star-Spangled Banner" -- "land of the free" and "home of the brave"? Many NFL players clearly do.

It's easy to go through the motions. It's easy to point an accusatory finger from the safety of the masses and ridicule a man whose heart has ached too long over blatant discrimination of his brothers and sisters.

Trump's periodic picking on mostly black NFL players for trying to shine the national spotlight onto one of the darkest, unresolved aspects of our country's past, should be concerning for the discerning.

United States citizens schooled in their history, should know that a country's flag can be a unifying symbol, particularly in war time, as well as a sinister means of control.

And the latter is how our 'so-called' President has been attempting to exploit the American flag and our anthem since his first attack on players and the NFL at the start of the year.

How many dictators have employed patriotism, and its accompanying symbolic flag, ultimately as a tool of oppression? The Furher Adolph Hitler's Nazi Swastika, in 1934, temporarily became the national flag of Germany, representing anti-semitism that would rally a war agenda and result in the Holocaust that killed six million jews.

America has an opioid epidemic, an unhealthy love affair with firearms and a long-entrenched lethal problem with systematic racism, particularly evident in cop's treatment of blacks.

Sticking our collective fingers in our ears and pretending that any of those societal woes don't exist, only exacerbates them. A disease first must be diagnosed, before it can be treated and eradicated.

Until we have a President that acknowledges that racism is running rampant, costing innocent lives across the homeland, our fight for equality and a social consciousness will only get more grating.

More people will needlessly suffer and die. And the bottled up, righteous anger of the oppressed will only build.

By demonstrating during the national anthem, NFL players are reminding us of who we are as United States citizens -- or, at least who, as "one nation under God," we are supposed to be.