Irony Is Wasted On The Stupid

In a year where the Dallas Cowboys went from wanting to a wear helmet stickers to honor five murdered Dallas cops to protesting against cops, fans of professional football are now witness to self-righteous, overprivileged athletes who disrespect this country, her people and her history.

I used to idolize the Green Bay Packers, but then I’m a bit of a dinosaur.  I came to love the Packers because Bart Starr, the quarterback from 1956 to 1971, was a graduate of Alabama.  Anyone who follows this blog knows well that I am a rabid Crimson Tide fan.  Starr was the only quarterback in NFL history to lead a team to five league championships before Patriots QB Tom Brady tied the record in 2016.  Starr and the Packers epitomized clean play on the field and wholesome values off the field.

I have written on the subject of Colin Kaepernick numerous times but I doubt I will waste another moment or expend the energy banging away on a keyboard about him after today.

Whether you agree with the president’s characterization of protesting players taking a knee as “sons of bitches” or not it is important to remember Kaepernick, Stephen Curry and LeBron James, et al are the inciters who turned our beloved sports into a political battlefield.

From my post in 2016:

"The Star-Spangled Banner and American athletics have a nearly indissoluble marriage. Hatched during one war, institutionalized during another, this song has become so entrenched in our sports identity that it's almost impossible to think of one without the other.” 

“Those chords were ringing loudly on Sept. 17, 2001, the day Major League Baseball resumed following 9/11. The country was in mourning, hurting in ways it could hardly have imagined a week earlier. And when the nation collectively decided to right itself, to acknowledge tragedy while reclaiming everyday life, it turned to sports -- and to the anthem. Across MLB, teams surrounded the song with tributes to the victims and the country's public servants. In Los Angeles, police officer Rosalind Iams sang the song while members of the Dodgers and Padres helped firefighters and police officers unfurl a colossal stars and stripes that stretched almost entirely across the playing field. That same night in Pittsburgh, two members of the Air Force Reserve were called on to sing the anthem as spectators donned ‘I Love New York’ buttons. And in every ballpark for weeks afterward, tears were shed over what it took Francis Scott Key's lyrics to remind them of: ‘Our flag was still there.’"

The song is sacred and its first unbreakable bond with the sports world began in 1918 during Game 1 of the World Series between the Red Sox and the Cubbies.  The assembled crowd sat silent during Boston’s 1-0 victory.  The Cubs’ front office noticed they sang along as a military band played the anthem during the seventh-inning stretch.  The band was instructed to play the anthem for the next two games with the hope of exciting fans at the ballpark.  The Red Sox took the practice a step further when the series moved back to Fenway making it a part of the pregame festivities.  

Is it a sin to be patriotic today?  It is abundantly clear the NFL and the hive mind of the left yearn to have us forget what the flag and the National Anthem stands for or where Old Glory has been─Anzio, Iwo Jima, Chosin Reservoir, Hamburger Hill, Baghdad, Ganjgal and the surface of the moon in 1969.

The progressive forces of identity politics started this poisoning of America’s favorite spectator sport.  Those who have chosen to take a knee or sit or link arms in protest are, in fact, sons of bitches.

Colin Kaepernick said, “At the end of the day the flag is just a piece of cloth and I am not going to value a piece of cloth over people’s lives.”