Bingo. Kaepernick is using his platform as a notable professional athlete to bring awareness to an issue, which is exactly what society has been asking athletes and other celebrities to do for some time.

Great. Now I’m crying in a McDonald’s. And it's not for any of the usual reasons.

What pains me about this episode is to see so much ignorance emanating from all corners regarding Kaepernick. I am genuinely convinced that not a single person whining about his protest has actually read what he said. I see endless shitty memes being shared on Facebook and Instagram trying to say he claimed he was…

This. Soldiers fighting to ensure democracy and freedom abroad then throwing a hissy fit over somebody exercising those rights at home would be hilarious if it wasn’t so pathetic.

American here, it’s best to not try and understand the noise, because most Americans don’t really understand it either. That said, your post is pretty accurate.

You’re exactly correct. Unfortunately there’s a moronic subset of the population in this country that are so blindly loyal to the symbols of this country (not the ideals mind you, they’d never live up to those) that any challenge to one of them is a challenge to all of them. So you get a situation where a guy doesn’t…

Marine here again. I can’t stand how conflated “the flag” has become with “the military.” I also can’t stand the knee-jerk “patriots” whose default position toward the military is genuflection, and anyone who fails to bend the knee is shunned. These are not the hallmarks of a free society.

Intent is everything here. His intent is raise awareness and spark discussion about racial issues in America by not standing for the national anthem. If you’re at an event where the anthem is played, and you see someone not standing because they’re just oblivious or whatever, then you can get pissed. THAT is a lack of…

But if it’s not about the military...

Non-American here, not really getting all this noise, I was under the impression that the purpose of your military was to protect the interests of the country abroad and (when required) defend the country and constitution from attack. If that is accurate, then does the military not EXIST to protect the right to free…

Well said. It's why dialogue is just as dead as print journalism these days. Why consider other viewpoints or the details of someone's thoughts when you can just build your own little online community of like-minded people who are more than happy to reinforce whatever you want to think about something?

USN vet here: neither myself or any fellow vets I know have a problem with what he's doing.

This.

I mean realistically though its hard to be surprised at reactions to this. People prefer to have things as simple, black/white (no pun intended) as possible, because discussing nuance, trade-offs, etc. is inconvenient and takes too much effort. It’s why cable news has reached its current state. Soundbites and slogans…

I’ve said this before, but if standing and facing the flag during a national anthem is solely about respecting the troops, then why the hell does Switzerland have a flag and an anthem?

Good on Colin (and good article). Folks are going to believe what they wish to justify their indignation, but it’s not zero sum here. You can have all the respect in the world for military personnel (not that this has anything to do with them to begin with) and simply not agree with where and why they’re being…

Of course it’s not, because he never once mentioned anything about veterans or their efforts. No, that connection was made by reflexive morons who work a lot harder on composing their perfect Facebook response than they do actually thinking about what he was talking about. Because thinking is fucking hard, man!