Commentary: Colin Kaepernick is acting like a punk...there it is

Colin Kaepernick: Disrespectful to the US

FEATURE COMMENTARY

 By JIM PURCELL

Colin Kaepernick and his protests during the playing of the National Anthem before football games should never have begun. America is not perfect. Since it is a democratic republic, the United States exists by the rule of law. Leaders are elected. There is a lot of bureaucracy in this country. America struggles with hate, conflicted politics, unending wars, an economy that is sometimes predatory, and the span between the ‘haves’ and the ‘have nots’ has never been wider. So, Kaepernick thinks his protest will do…what?

Let’s see…is Kaepernick’s taking a knee at the National Anthem change anything? No. Will his protest put anyone back to work? No. Just what is he ‘raising awareness’ about? I haven’t heard anything. He just decided to protest because the United States isn’t perfect. Well, as imperfect as this country is, it is still the freest nation in the world. Don’t believe it? Go shopping for another country and move. Try it out.

I respect protest. I have protested for peace during the early days of the Iraq War. I have protested for civil rights in New Jersey during my tenure as an NAACP volunteer. In both cases, both kinds of protest were specific. I protested the war in Downtown Manhattan as part of a group that had its specific ideas about Iraq – and why the U.S. shouldn’t be fighting there – broadcast on television, in the newspapers and online. When it came to the NAACP, we protested establishments that were, in the group’s view, demonstrating bias based on race and color. Before and during the protests, the targets of those protests were met with and very specific goals for policy changes were submitted to the persons concerned.

How is Kaepernick’s protest different? Because he doesn’t make a clear case about what he is protesting. Without that, I suppose he is just protesting an imperfect world. He is not protesting whomever he believes is doing wrong. He is protesting in front of scores of people who neither know nor care about what he doesn’t like. He is protesting as part of his job as an over-paid, only so-so quarterback talent for a poorly performing 49er team. His message is to disrespect the American flag and our National Anthem because it’s fun and can be done.

Baseball Hall-of-Famer Reggie Jackson

According to CBS Sports, Kaepernick does give about $1 million per year to charity. Meanwhile, I guarantee you that the money he gives to charity does 1000 percent more for real problems than taking a knee and telling the country responsible for his success to ‘go blow.’

I haven’t watched much of the NFL this year, because I am sick and tired of over-indulged, high-priced, mediocre players who have been given everything and seem to give back only nonsense, guff and headlines for stupidity. This Kaepernick is just the icing on the cake for me.

Reggie Jackson was a free thinker. I have met Reggie before, at a job I used to work at for a sports memorabilia company. By the way, he was nothing like the showman he portrayed during his Yankee days. He was a prince: modest, affable and just a total gentleman. 

Reggie was probably the most dangerous two-strike hitter ever in MLB ever, but certainly so in the late 1970s. He was considered a showboat and not a team guy by some people. He made fun of most everything – but never the United States, its flag or its National Anthem. Why? It’s a matter of class. Class can’t be bought or paid for, it cannot be ordered through Amazon, someone can only fake class for so long and then there is knowing that there’s a line and being cognizant of where it is so someone doesn’t cross over it.

All-time great Roy White

Colin Kaepernick gives the game a bad image. His actions reflect not just on him and the 49ers, but the National Football League. By the by, why the heck hasn’t anyone at the top of the NFL stopped this mockery?

The problem doesn’t begin or end at with Colin Kaepernick, the 49ers or even the NFL. The problem is that athletes today act like spoiled children, not role models. I weep for sports.

I have met, a few times, Roy White, the steady handed outfielder for the New York Yankees during the Bronx Zoo days of the late 1970s. I have never asked him about how he would feel about someone protesting during a game. So, what I am giving is my own opinion, not his. 

Roy was a steady .290 hitter against some of the toughest major league pitching talent that ever existed, from Nolan Ryan, in his prime, to Jim Palmer, Mike Cuellar, Luis Tiant, Bill Lee, and so on.  He is grateful for his playing days, for the fans that followed his career. He is a real gentleman and created his own business from the ground up during and after his playing days. Roy White was also a black ball player when it wasn’t an everyday thing. He suffered being under-paid, harassed for his color and a mercurial fan base and club house that might make many of us shrink.

Why didn’t Roy White protest? Oh yeah, he is a grown man, unspoiled by life. He understands the world as it is. He respects people, especially his fellow players and fans, and he loves this country. Roy White got noticed for his exceptional play at a time when the talent pool of MLB was extraordinarily high, before expansion when people who should have still been playing AA or AAA ball were in the minors and not playing in the show. He didn’t get noticed because he took a knee for some ridiculous protest.

The NFL will little note nor long remember the career of Colin Kaepernick. Yes, he is a good quarterback – not great, not very good, not particularly all that talented. What he will be remembered for after his playing days won’t be his touchdown to interception ratio, or his passing statistics or anything that happens on the field. He will be the guy who told the United States to go shove it on some of the biggest stages of his day. He’s a punk and there it is.

Service, patriotism and professionalism

AMERICA: Love it or get the hell out

I served in the United States Army and its various components between 1983 and 1998. I was nothing special, just another soldier doing the best he could, among so many other soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines doing the exact same thing.

What disturbs me about today, on Facebook and other social media, on television, radio and along Main Street, USA, is this feeling that individual members of the Armed Forces should be so loud and vehement about their political or personal feelings regarding the American president (regardless of who it might happen to be) or Congress and what is 'right' or 'wrong' governmentally in this nation.

I think there is a point here that bears repeating at least once: Members of the Armed Forces preserve the principles of our Democratic Republic, they do not participate in them. Consequently, they serve to protect the freedom of speech for all Americans, which does not mean they possess it while on Active Duty in any way, shape or form.

A professional armed service is not staffed by professional philosophers, loud civic naysayers or the barroom politicians who spend their time 'devil's advocating' for un-American causes (like those who advocate domestic overthrow and the like). Advocating too loudly for causes potentially hostile to the elected U.S. Government is and has always been punishable under the Uniform Code of Military Justice for very good reasons.

Besides, the U.S. armed services have never been melting pots for the opinions of the disenfranchised, disloyal or deranged opinions of its members and I do not advocate for them becoming so now.

I have heard service members speaking loudly about their dislike for the current president, Barack Obama. I have heard extreme things said by some of them, particularly on Facebook -- in agreement with causes like the "Tea Party Movement," which I do not think particularly well of as a so-called "American" political entity. Regardless, though, of the agency of the derision against the Government of the United States and the governments establish by the governments of the United States, be it Democrat or Republican, Communist or Socialist, Pepsi or Coca Cola, a member of the armed forces of the United States adding their voice to any echo of dissent is patently wrong.

Inasmuch as I do not approve of the Tea Party or its principles, it is my right, according to the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights, for me to be able to express this feeling loudly and publicly. In addition, should a president be selected from the ranks of the Tea Party Movement (God forbid), it is my right to protest actions by that president in all the ways acceptable to our government. Why? Well, I am no longer in the military: I am a civilian.

When I served in the military, I did not particularly like several actions taken by then-President George H.W. Bush. I thought he was a good person but some of the things he did were inappropriate where it involved the U.S. military. But, while I held these opinions privately, I did not make these views public in any way. At the time, I was a soldier serving in the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault). It would have been a clear conflict to my service to make disparaging remarks about the commander-in-chief. And, I am fairly certain that, at the time, my chain-of-command would have rightfully pursued charges against me for doing so if I had.

Today, though, as the country is more polarized as it has ever been between what is perceived as "Republican" or "Democrat," "Conservative" or "Liberal," "Ignorant" or "Progressive," service members have indulged themselves to new heights of participating in political arguments -- while in uniform and on Active Duty -- than ever before, in my humble opinion. It would take an investigator only a few moments to find nests of ne'er-do-well service members on Facebook, making outrageous claims and boasts about what they will or will not do when ordered by the chain-of-command to perform various orders. And, I find that quite alarming. Since when did the U.S. military become a haven for people of questionable or marginal loyalty to the country and the officers appointed over them?

I have said several times I do not find the evolving way of the world to my liking very much, insofar as technology, relationships, education, the economy or politics. Nevertheless, I have equally made the statement that simply because I do not like something does not mean it is bad or innately wrong -- I simply might not like certain things (as I am entitled to do). But, where the new 'trend' becomes disloyalty to one's nation while serving under arms -- I draw the damn line.

Is it wrong for members of the Armed Forces to protest? I say 'yes'

The first soldier of our American Republic was a fellow named George Washington: surveyor, planter and back woodsman. He was also commander of the Continental Army during the Revolution and our nation's first soldier and president. After the Revolution, when victory had been secured, many officers in the U.S. Army thought it best that Gen. Washington be offered a kind of kingship over the newly minted American colonies and so they approached him with this idea and offered him the services of the U.S. Army to facilitate his transition to power.

Washington was outraged that officers, all of whom he had led during the Revolution, would ever contemplate such a thing. He turned away and railed against any notion of the United States being a monarchy or of the Army daring to usurp a civilian-elected government. He was astonished that his soldiers would ever dream of such a thing.

It was a 'lesson learned' early in the history of this nation that soldiers with too much time on their hands and too much leniency to speak and act in the realm of the political create havoc, tyranny and disorder. However, the very job of military service, in itself, is intended to be the very example of order and discipline. Well, Washington sorted that nonsense out, and so have commanders for time immemorial after him, right up until today.

In my opinion, American service members who loudly protest the elected Government of the United States are not suitable for military service. Members of our military are trained to and, in the course of their service, do use firearms and are given assignments of great trust. No one needs such things to be done by an unstable person, unsure of their loyalty or the responsibilities of their positions.

"The Great Experiment" of the United States is now almost 250 years old. It has weathered a great deal, but there are surely storms ahead. Yet, the prospect of compromising the political seclusion of members of the armed services, and the granting of permission to them to participate in political processes of this country, is nothing but dangerous and flirts with disaster for every man, woman and child in this country.

Excellent service to this nation while in uniform is characterized by many things, and among those things is political silence. Patriots do not attempt to abridge the codes of conduct that our nation's fighting men and women have lived by for centuries. Rather, they make every effort to abide by the codes and provisions in place for political involvement of Active Duty military service members.

Of course, service members are welcome to take part in the revolution that takes place at the polls in every city and hamlet, from sea to shining sea, in the United States at the end of every office holder's term -- it's called an election. During elections, which currently only about 20 percent of Americans participate in, on average, who will or will not serve in office is decided. Once that election is over and the votes are counted then the result of that election is characterized as "...the will of the people."

To be plain, I thought the presidency of George Bush (the younger) was terrible. I thought and still believe he was an absolute idiot. Consequently, I legally protested the Iraqi War in New York City in 2004 and wrote one or two editorials (in the newspaper I published at the time), decrying some of his policies. Well, this is how Americans are permitted to agitate for change when they are not in the U.S. military. When they are in the military, after they have sworn an oath to serve and protect the United States and accept orders from the president of the United States and those officers appointed over them, it is a whole other kettle of fish.

Even if "W" were the president during my tenure in service, I would have shut my mouth, voted my conscience and concentrated upon my work -- not make a spectacle out of myself or, by extension, my branch and chain-of-command.

Yes, things change -- they certainly do. Everything marches on, from hairstyles to television shows, sports and even social norms. However, generations tinker with fire when they move too far away from the blue print first established by the framers of this nation; a blue print, I might add, that was etched in the blood and service of countless men and women through the march of time.

Sometimes, on rare occasion, it can unilaterally be said that change is not for the better. And, in this case, I think it is so. What would I do with members of the Active Duty U.S. military who engage in political activities, the likes of which I have described in this opinion? I would identify them, charge them and adjudicate them and, subsequently, separate them from the U.S. military with an "other than honorable" discharge.