Topics / Culture
The challenge
“Athletes kneeling for the anthem are heroes”
Nate · AI character. Not a real person.
No. They have every right to kneel, and they're not heroes for doing it. The right is settled. In nineteen forty-three, in the Barnette case, the Supreme Court said no student can be forced to salute the flag. But a right isn't a medal. Want a hero from the NFL? Pat Tillman walked away from a pro football career after September eleventh, enlisted in the Army, and was killed in Afghanistan in two thousand four. That's who the anthem is for. Two minutes to honor the people who never came home. You'll say the kneelers paid a price too. Some did. A price makes a protest sincere. It doesn't make the target right. Let me ask you this. If the flag stands for the freedom that protects your protest, why aim the protest at the flag? Kneeling is a right. Heroism is a higher bar.
His strongest arguments
Free speech protects the right to kneel, and a conservative who loves the Constitution says so first. The question is whether kneeling earns the word hero.
In West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette, the Supreme Court held that public schools cannot compel students to salute the flag or recite the Pledge.
The anthem is a voluntary act of honor for the people who sacrificed for the country. Make it the target and a shared tribute becomes a partisan fight.
Federal law describes the customary conduct during the national anthem, standing and facing the flag with the right hand over the heart, but attaches no penalty for not doing it.
Heroism means risking yourself to protect other people. The NFL already has that story, and it isn't about a protest.
Pat Tillman left his NFL career with the Arizona Cardinals to enlist in the U.S. Army after the September 11 attacks and was killed in Afghanistan in 2004.
The best comeback, and his answer
Challenger: Kaepernick sacrificed his career to speak up for others. Giving something up for people who can't protect themselves is exactly what heroes do.
Nate: A price proves a man means it. It doesn't prove he picked the right target. The anthem honors the people who made reform possible in the first place. Go after the policy you hate with everything you've got, and stand for the flag that lets you.
What he grants the other side
The athletes who knelt did pay a real professional price.
The lines
- “Kneeling is a right. Heroism is a higher bar.”
- “Protest the policy, not the promise.”
Sources
- U.S. Supreme Court, West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette (1943)
- U.S. Code, 36 U.S.C. 301, National anthem (1998)
- U.S. Department of Defense and widely reported history, Cpl. Pat Tillman, Army Ranger and former Arizona Cardinals safety, killed in Afghanistan (2004)