Spend time in any small conservative town and you'll hear some variation of the refrain that "the Founding Fathers would be ashamed of what's become of our country" or "we've lost touch with good American values". If you're a liberal-minded person like myself, it's enough to make you roll your eyes and rub your temples. Lately, however, I've been finding myself agreeing with this sentiment.
Spoiler alert: it's not for the reason that you would think.
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I'm going to talk for a minute about Colin Kaepernick (go ahead and get your groans out of the way). I know the situation has been pounded into the collection consciousness of the entire country. Some people think he's brave. Some think he's just trying to salvage attention from a failing career. Some are equating him to a traitor of the state.
The fact that such an act is such a contentious issue really makes me question the state of our nation. You can disagree with the man for what he's doing, but it is outright unconscionable to attack him with such fervor for practicing the first right that is named in the Bill of Rights. Look, I get that people have laid down their lives for our country. Nobody is saying we don't appreciate our service men and women for the sacrifices that they have made over the years. Yet the most common phrase uttered about why Colin Kaepernick refusing to stand is disrespectful is that "men and women have died for your right to sit during the national anthem."
Hold up a second. People died for Kaepernick's right to protest the flag. Correct? And you want him to honor that sacrifice by not practicing that right.
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So, then what did they sacrifice their lives for? The argument doesn't hold up.
Just so you are aware, the service men and women of the United States are sworn to uphold the principles of the Consitution. Among those principles are the right of all citizens to certain civil liberties granted within the Bill of Rights. Remember also these lines from the Declaration of Independence:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.
(emphasis mine)
The values upon which our country was founded are that we are not to be denied our civil liberties. The values that the United States is founded on are essentially that if our government has perpetually failed its citizenry, not only is it our position to call attention to its failings, but it is entirely within our right to "throw off such Government."
Colin Kaepernick and now other athletes are doing just that by practicing their right not to stand, and instead to kneel (a sign of respect for the veterans who have preserved the civil liberties that give these athletes the chance to make their cases heard.)
I would tend to agree with the thought that our country's values are being forgotten and twisted. The ideal of liberty in American culture is gradually being replaced by chauvinism, which in short is a belligerent and exaggerated sense of nationalism which casts aside the thought that our country can do no wrong and anybody who says otherwise is an enemy. You may not agree with the way Colin Kaepernick and other athletes are going about their protest, but you cannot deny that it is part of a broader pattern by which Americans increasingly value the ritualization of nationalist practices over civil liberty, the single most important value on which the Founding Fathers based the creation of our nation.
