President Trump

First of all, I respect you @John3:16 and that's not even considering your service.

I dislike talking politics or anything unrelated to the Lakers, but its undeniable that politics have now infiltrated sports and its out of my respect for you bro that I'm even going to step into this conversation before I run on out of it. Also I really hope that I don't offend anyone with my comments.

Now I'm a lame when it comes to history, so can someone explain to me how "battle" within a "game" among Americans on baseball fields, on football fields and on basketball courts relates to battles our military is conducting in wars abroad? Whats the relation between playing the national anthem before contests where the the loss is a game in comparison to warfare where the loss is a life? National recognition, pride and allegiance during "games" like the Olympics, where competition is among different counties and conducted in foreign lands makes sense to me...but demonstrating patriotism before "games" stateside among your fellow US citizens is something I don't understand. There has to be better venues (ie state of the union, national parades, Memorial/Independence/Veterans Day where we should extend it to a Month, etc) and forms of appreciation (ie pen-pal, donations, fundraisers, volunteer service for disabled/injured servicemen, etc) that we can show towards our military than sports events...right?

Speaking of allegiance pertaining to the flag, here is what the original version of that pledge was suppose to read as:

Then it changed over time to "the flag of the United States of America" and "one nation under God". Now I'm not going to go down the rabbit hole of religion, but if you look at the consistent portions of the pledge of allegiance, its that one nation remain "indivisible, with liberty and justice for all". I interpret the reason Kaep decided to protest during the national anthem is due to what the flag is used as: a symbol to the pledge of our allegiance.

The Star Spangled Banner became the national anthem and was used by the military while the American flag was raised. However sports were played without the "Flag Code" and the national anthem till 1942 when the US was actively participating in World War 2. It became indoctrinated into sports because at the time, we were at war. Here are the lyrics to the national anthem:

Again, the majority of those lyrics imply war and how our flag remained through the "perilous fight"...I understand that you can injure yourself during sports, but can we really consider it a "perilous fight"? Yet you can't overlook the "land of the free", so again, I see why Kaep chose the national anthem and "pledging" to the flag as the opportunity to demonstrate peaceful protest towards injustices toward his fellow "free" men. How can you have "justice for all" when unarmed minorities are literally dying at the hands of fellow US civilians who chose to "service" the community and not be at "war" killing them?

I sincerely have no idea how sports (involving fellow US civilians competing in a friendly competition on domestic territory) has any correlation to war (perilously fighting non-country men on foreign soil) and why its necessary to show your patriotism during those "games". I'm not trying to be confrontational and condescending...I just hope someone can enlighten me as to why a pledge for our flag/military needs to be acknowledged before a sporting event? Whats the correlation other than "battle" and if it is that, then how is that type of "battle" even comparable to the battles of war...how can loses in "games" be compared to loses in war?

Essentially, if there was no national anthem and pledging to the flag before games, then Kaep would not be in a position to demonstrate and "disrespect" the flag. He would have to find another way in demonstrating his protest.

Our nation was founded on protest and a separation of county to another land. Minorities protested what was law till they forced a reevaluation of civil rights and amendments were made to the laws accordingly. There is something disturbingly wrong in fellow Americans senselessly killing other fellow Americans. We're all fully aware there are bad apples in every camp, but clearly there is a problem (see graphs below) and I applaud Kaep for attempting to shed light on this and seeking some sort of restitution and restoration to civility while our president seems to want to encourage the chasm.

These graphs were included in an article written by Todd Beer:
(Note that Kaep started protesting Aug. 14th 2016)

 

While Donald gets played by N. Korea and is good at pissing off most other countries .... now Russia and China cozy up with massive war games. Swell.




https://www.yahoo.com/news/russia-launches-biggest-ever-war-014450339.html

 

Yahoo is a liberal dish rag. Always consider your source before reading.

 

Yeah my Yahoo front page and wording of its headlines is definitely all that. But doubt this is that because of the scope reported.

 

Good points and I went off half cocked when I see reports (my bad admitted) that I don't verify, or how could I, that satellite intel or simple misinformation on line indicates that they are still a go with their nuclear operations on the ground or more likely under it.

So of course I don't know. I hope you're right.

 

What do you guys think about what's going on with Kavanaugh's confirmation?

 

What makes you sure Kaep is masterminding his own actions?

 

Congratulations Left.

Helped the Right get some youngings.

https://www.spiked-online.com/2018/07/02/why-young-white-men-are-abandoning-the-democrats/

 

As a Democrat, I am concerned going into these midterms. The party was poised to have a big election, but I'm afraid this whole Kavanaugh ordeal will backfire. As much as I think properly vetting a supreme court candidate is worthwhile and sexual assault allegations should be taken seriously, I feel like dragging out this process is off-putting to middle America and if anything, will mobilize the Trump base as well as shift a lot of independents/undecideds in favor of the GOP.

Of course, this is just my lowly opinion. We'll see I guess, going to be interesting to watch.

 

The Kavanaugh drama made both parties look bad IMO. Grown men and women acting out like drama queens. If anything, independents/undecideds may look more at 3rd parties.