It seems to me that the entire “stand for the anthem” tempest-in-a-teacup might be summed up in the following way:
By requiring athletes to stand and honor the flag when the national anthem is played at sports events, and punishing them if they do not, those who wish to promulgate this rule have, in most basic fact, dishonored the flag. This country is all about freedom, and that’s the symbolism of the American flag. Such a rule restricting the freedom of the athletes to choose to honor, or not, the flag, to coerce those athletes into a possibly empty gesture, dishonors the flag and robs the athletes of a potent form of communication.
Those would-be rule makers, these would-be protectors of the United States’ flag, should stand-down and carefully think through the symbolism of their own planned actions, and then renounce them as destructive to the very nation they claim to love.
