Once again, many American citizens can’t avert being affronted doing something as simple as going to the store to buy a pair of running shoes. Nike has given a paycheck to a person whose claim to fame is using the national anthem as the opportunity to express his radical social views. A NFL fan had to put up with it during the 2017 season and now Nike, with Kaepernick unemployed, has hired him to peddle their wares. Nike has the freedom to hire him; Kaepernick has the freedom to push his babble; and I have the freedom not to subsidize his extremist views. I’ll refuse to participate by steering clear of the “swoosh”.
Oh how muddled is the thinking of some. George Takei of Star Trek fame tweeted the rubbish, “Protest is patriotic”, during Kaepernick’s 2017 kneeling crusade – a takeoff of the old mental kabuki, “Dissent is the highest form of patriotism”. The saying has no provable author, but the left from Howard Zinn to the 60’s neo-socialist SDS have tried to attribute it to Jefferson – wrongly – or exploit it to justify spitting on returning Vietnam vets.
If Nike thinks nobility lies in hawking Kaepernick, they are mistaken. No, dissent isn’t the highest form of patriotism. Follow the logic. If dissent is patriotic, treason is the highest form of dissent, and, therefore, treason must be the highest form of patriotism (Thanks Jonah Goldberg for the witticism). George, it’s called a syllogism. Now we’re in the land of Timothy Leary and psychedelics.
Soiling the flag and anthem while forcing others to bear the spectacle is an unhealthy way to run a league or shoe company. Nike can burnish indecency as decency and Americans can avoid the corruption by staying away. Shame on you, Nike.
RogerG