FB: College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin

[Titan Q]

I am sure many people share that opinion, but it doesn't infringe on his right to protest in this manner.

Agree 100% with this too.  I don't think this is the best way for them to accomplish what they're trying to accomplish, but you get to do this in the United States.

[Pat Coleman]

If only going to an expensive school somehow sheltered young black men from the type of routine discrimination that pervades their lives in this great nation of ours. (I don't suspect it does, however.)

[AndOne]

You want to protest, fine. Stand, but don't put your hand over your heart during the Anthem. Write a letter to the newspaper or the school paper. Appear at a forum discussion on the subject you're upset about. But remember, you have many benefits from living in the United States so don't disrespect the nation entirely by kneeling during the National Anthem.

Including the right to peaceful protest in the manner of your choosing that doesn't infringe upon the rights of others, so ...

Yes, Pat.
And let us also not forget the sacrifices made by those like my uncle who gave their lives so that these kids could exercise that right to peaceful protest!!!

My uncle, and hundreds of thousands of others who served under the flag of our nation, paid the ultimate price for that freedom. So if someone, college football player or not, wants to protest something, how about their doing so in a peaceful and legal way that does not dishonor the service and ultimate sacrifice made by those who gave their lives in order for today's generations to be able to both enjoy and exercise those freedoms. Not by refusing to honor the flag under which they served.

Just because you stand during the National Anthem doesn't mean you agree with everything about the country. It does mean you respect the honor of those who sacrificed so you could enjoy those things about America which you are grateful for, and that you can approriately exercise the freedoms that their service helped guarantee. 🇱🇷

[Pat Coleman]

Well, Mark, I think the crux here is that what you view as exercising "appropriately" may not be what someone else does, and you are not the one who gets to decide what is appropriate. I didn't take Con Law but I think you have to take that up with the Attorney General.

[AndOne]

Well, Mark, I think the crux here is that what you view as exercising "appropriately" may not be what someone else does, and you are not the one who gets to decide what is appropriate. I didn't take Con Law but I think you have to take that up with the Attorney General.

I know many will consider what was done at the IWU/NCC game was "appropriate."
But I just don't think this is the case when you refuse to honor the flag under which many served and died. And, as I said, standing during the Anthem does not mean you agree with everything about the country.
I also sense most of those who went to the game last night were there to see football, not something else.

[kiko]

All I am saying Bob, is that these kids have a lot to be thankful for by living in the US, and it would seem that one of those things would be being able to attend a college as good as and as expensive as IWU.

I don't think you get it.

I am quite certain that he doesn't get it.

[kiko]

However, when you disrespect the flag by not standing during the National Anthem, what you are saying is that you disagree with everything about America because, as I said, the flag is a symbol of the nation as a whole.

Just because you stand during the National Anthem doesn't mean you agree with everything about the country.

The logic here is ... breathtaking.

[CardinalAlum]

Back to our regularly scheduled football discussions....

Here's the article from the Pantagraph regarding yesterday's game.

http://www.pantagraph.com/sports/college/football/big-first-half-sends-no-north-central-past-iwu/article_d63b24c2-8cf4-5a51-b7f1-350fafb9b9cb.html

I always find Norm's post game comments humorous.   For him to say that it was "a game of breaks" is a joke.   Maybe one of these days, Norm will man up and say he got beat by a better football team!  Titan Q fairly wrote a couple of posts back about how NCC is at a different level right now than IWU.   We shall see how different as the season goes on but NCC was the better team last night by a wide margin.  Norm is forever the Weenie we love to hate!

[Kovo]

You want to protest, fine. Stand, but don't put your hand over your heart during the Anthem. Write a letter to the newspaper or the school paper. Appear at a forum discussion on the subject you're upset about. But remember, you have many benefits from living in the United States so don't disrespect the nation entirely by kneeling during the National Anthem.

Including the right to peaceful protest in the manner of your choosing that doesn't infringe upon the rights of others, so ...

Peaceful only in that there was no actual physical violence.  The middle finger and lots of foul language was always on full display.  Again, within one's right.

By way of full disclosure, I grew up on Air Force bases throughout the United States and Europe while my father served a career in the USAF.  And (being old), I had the "privilege" of experiencing some of the Vietnam era "peaceful protests" first hand-- pardon me if I am a bit cynical.


So while I absolutely agree that one has the right to peaceful protest, it does not stop such conduct from being disrespectful.  I too, believe that there are more respectful and effective methods of bringing change.

I am sure many people share that opinion, but it doesn't infringe on his right to protest in this manner.

Not having been alive for the "peaceful protests" you put in quotation marks, I'm guessing they involve something more than silently kneeling during the national anthem, yes? Probably not a great comparison to draw.

[Gregory Sager]

I am sure many people share that opinion, but it doesn't infringe on his right to protest in this manner.

Agree 100% with this too.  I don't think this is the best way for them to accomplish what they're trying to accomplish, but you get to do this in the United States.

My thoughts as well.

You want to protest, fine. Stand, but don't put your hand over your heart during the Anthem. Write a letter to the newspaper or the school paper. Appear at a forum discussion on the subject you're upset about. But remember, you have many benefits from living in the United States so don't disrespect the nation entirely by kneeling during the National Anthem.

Including the right to peaceful protest in the manner of your choosing that doesn't infringe upon the rights of others, so ...

Yes, Pat.
And let us also not forget the sacrifices made by those like my uncle who gave their lives so that these kids could exercise that right to peaceful protest!!!

Who's forgotten them? This country has an entire day set aside every year at the end of May just to remember those who made the ultimate sacrifice. And we also have an entire day set aside every year in November to remember everybody who ever served in our country's armed forces.

Nobody's forgotten them, Mark. But it's clear that not everybody understands what they were fighting for. They weren't fighting on behalf of a rectangular piece of cloth, or on behalf of a not-particularly-good song about the bombardment of a fort in Baltimore Harbor during the War of 1812. They were fighting on behalf of freedom, or, as you put it, "so that these kids could exercise that right to peaceful protest." So why are you dumping on "these kids" for exercising that very right for which our servicemen fought and died?

As Pat said, nothing that those two IWU players did infringed upon the rights of others. All that they did was exercise their rights as Americans to demonstrate through their actions what they believe, which is a form of freedom of speech -- the right that is a big chunk of the very cornerstone of our nation.

Furthermore, in pointing out the fact that IWU costs $52,316, what I am saying is that a kid who both individually and, I would think from a family standpoint, has benefited from the American way of life to the point of being able to afford to attend this expensive of a school, needs to think twice about condemning the nation totally by disrespecting the flag which is the symbol of the nation as a whole.

Leaving aside the poor-little-rich-kids boondoggle over which several other posters have already challenged you, I vehemently disagree with you that they are "condemning the nation totally." Where is their press release that indicates that? Colin Kaepernick's gone on the public record as saying some pretty specific things about his personal beliefs regarding this country. These kids haven't said anything. All they did was kneel during "The Star-Spangled Banner." You're therefore making a wide-sweeping and unsupportable inference about their beliefs.

While I'm just as in-the-dark about what Quincy Butler and Jamal Jackson truly think on the topic of America as are you and everybody else who reads this page, I'm willing to bet that there's some things that they love about this country and some things that they don't love at all about it, an ambivalence which pretty much puts them in the same boat as the rest of us, more or less. What they don't love about America, I'm also willing to bet (given their race, plus the timing and similarity of their protests to Kaepernick's), is the way that young black men are often treated by the police. I'm a big supporter of the law enforcement community, but there's no denying that there's some real problems there -- and I know for a fact that it's common for young black men who have absolutely no reason to be suspected of anything to be hassled by the police. They don't need either you or I to legitimize that grievance for them. Again, I'm with the other posters who say that this demonstration of theirs wasn't necessarily the most constructive way to draw attention to their grievances (especially since, unlike Kaepernick, they made no verbal statement). But to castigate them as "condemning the nation totally" is to simply draw unproven conclusions on your part and then overstate them.

Certainly, there are several issues that exist today that disenfranchise many of the segments of society. Issues that not only those affected segments, but many others among us also find disturbing. However, when you disrespect the flag by not standing during the National Anthem, what you are saying is that you disagree with everything about America because, as I said, the flag is a symbol of the nation as a whole.

No. This is not true. One fact does not follow the other.

You want to protest, fine. Stand, but don't put your hand over your heart during the Anthem. Write a letter to the newspaper or the school paper. Appear at a forum discussion on the subject you're upset about. But remember, you have many benefits from living in the United States so don't disrespect the nation entirely by kneeling during the National Anthem.

I do not believe that they "disrespect[ed] the nation entirely by kneeling during the National Anthem." On the contrary, they exercised the freedom guaranteed by the nation -- and, unless you're engaging in subversion (and I strongly doubt that the Illinois Wesleyan football team is some sort of revolutionary fifth column), to exercise a freedom is the ultimate form of respect for it.

My uncle, and hundreds of thousands of others who served under the flag of our nation, paid the ultimate price for that freedom. So if someone, college football player or not, wants to protest something, how about their doing so in a peaceful and legal way that does not dishonor the service and ultimate sacrifice made by those who gave their lives in order for today's generations to be able to both enjoy and exercise those freedoms. Not by refusing to honor the flag under which they served.

I disagree with both of your unproven premises. First, I don't think that their actions dishonor anyone's service and/or sacrifice, because, as you yourself pointed out, wearing the uniform and going into harm's way for the country's sake was a task undertaken for the expressed purpose of making protests like these possible. What is the point of fighting abroad to maintain freedom if it will only be denied by self-appointed censors at home? Freedom only exists if it is allowed to be exercised.

Second, I disagree that honoring the flag (or "The Star-Spangled Banner") is the proper action one should take in order to show one's patriotism. The flag and the anthem are both symbols. They do not hold the full meaning of abstractions such as patriotism and freedom in and of themselves. Like all symbols, they point to something else. And a significant part of what they point to is the sacrifice and service made on behalf of the rest of us by those who wore the uniform. That's what's truly worth honoring.

Just because you stand during the National Anthem doesn't mean you agree with everything about the country.

Well, good ... because, otherwise, we'd all be sitting down whenever it's played.

It does mean you respect the honor of those who sacrificed so you could enjoy those things about America which you are grateful for,

... which, as I said, they respect and honor by exercising something about America for which they are most likely pretty grateful: freedom of speech.

and that you can approriately exercise the freedoms that their service helped guarantee. 🇱🇷

And you're the arbiter of what's an appropriate exercise of freedom and what isn't? Who died and made you King George III?

[Gregory Sager]

However, when you disrespect the flag by not standing during the National Anthem, what you are saying is that you disagree with everything about America because, as I said, the flag is a symbol of the nation as a whole.

Just because you stand during the National Anthem doesn't mean you agree with everything about the country.

The logic here is ... breathtaking.

That's one way to put it.

[Pat Coleman]

I had just gotten Hamilton out of my head, too. And you put it right back in!

[Gregory Sager]

Back to our regularly scheduled football discussions....

Here's the article from the Pantagraph regarding yesterday's game.

http://www.pantagraph.com/sports/college/football/big-first-half-sends-no-north-central-past-iwu/article_d63b24c2-8cf4-5a51-b7f1-350fafb9b9cb.html

I always find Norm's post game comments humorous.   For him to say that it was "a game of breaks" is a joke.   Maybe one of these days, Norm will man up and say he got beat by a better football team!  Titan Q fairly wrote a couple of posts back about how NCC is at a different level right now than IWU.   We shall see how different as the season goes on but NCC was the better team last night by a wide margin.  Norm is forever the Weenie we love to hate!

This was my favorite quote of his from the article:

"It was a championship game, but it wasn't for a championship. When you play your first conference game you've got to understand that one game does not make a season," said IWU coach Norm Eash.

What does that even mean?

[CardinalAlum]

Back to our regularly scheduled football discussions....

Here's the article from the Pantagraph regarding yesterday's game.

http://www.pantagraph.com/sports/college/football/big-first-half-sends-no-north-central-past-iwu/article_d63b24c2-8cf4-5a51-b7f1-350fafb9b9cb.html

I always find Norm's post game comments humorous.   For him to say that it was "a game of breaks" is a joke.   Maybe one of these days, Norm will man up and say he got beat by a better football team!  Titan Q fairly wrote a couple of posts back about how NCC is at a different level right now than IWU.   We shall see how different as the season goes on but NCC was the better team last night by a wide margin.  Norm is forever the Weenie we love to hate!

This was my favorite quote of his from the article:

"It was a championship game, but it wasn't for a championship. When you play your first conference game you've got to understand that one game does not make a season," said IWU coach Norm Eash.

What does that even mean?

More excuses for a poor showing!

[wally_wabash]