NEW YORK — Professional athletes have every right to protest law enforcement during the singing of our national anthem at sporting events. We can picture the conversations between players and coaches where a guy like Colin Kaepernick would insist that he’d feel like a fake, like a complete phony, if he were to put his hand over his heart to honor a country that he feels continues to treat people of African descent unfairly, or minority groups in general.

Understood. And on some level Mr. Kaepernick should be commended for staying true to his beliefs. It is also easy to see why coaches, team managers and owners have not seen it fit to scorn anyone who refuses to do that which they feel uncomfortable; that which they see as going along with empty and hollow symbolism for a country they do not deem as worth honoring, or worth respecting in moments such as these.

No, they should not be forced to stand at attention, hand over heart, for the singing of an anthem they simply don’t believe in, and no one, anywhere, should be demanding that they do.

The problem is not in these players taking a knee in protest of American law enforcement or America at large. The problem goes much deeper than such things, and is multifold.

For starters, many of the very people who are behind Kaepernick and others protesting on ball fields were outraged when Tim Tebow took a knee thanking God (what he sees as his Lord and Savior) for those winning moments at his games. Why people angry with Mr. Tebow and supportive of Mr. Kaepernick is highly problematic.

Tebow was not kneeling in protest, but in gratitude, expressing his freedom of religion.

But anyone who was against him for expressing his religious beliefs, who today feels that Kaepernick and company should take a stand against America, should be shunned by any American patriot, and by any God fearing, God loving human being.

The point here is that this is just one example of many such highly questionable thought patterns from the left. This is also something indicative of a movement in our country that condemns a sitting president for speaking out about these actions, and a movement that condemns our country itself.

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Another problem with what these players do upon the singing of our national anthem is the sheer stupidity of it all.

If someone has been fortunate enough to gain celebrity status, and wants to use it to bring attention to causes they believe in, more power to them. But there is a smart way of going about it, and this ain’t it.

Kaepernick and his boys can use their star power to create lines out the door at town hall meetings, for example, and laser-beam the instances that they speak of within the specific context of their cause.

It’s within their ability to truly create a movement within the democratic process and go after those people in uniform or otherwise, who are behaving in a way that is hurtful toward minorities. Bring real attention to the cause itself, and take action that can truly make a difference within our communities, in the streets of US cities. Take action that we can all believe in, action that is grounded in sincerity and that shines a bright light on racial injustice.

“To protest your country which allows you the right to disrespect the national anthem, as you prepare to play a sport that gives you the platform to earn tens of millions of dollars, is painfully ironic. ”

It smacks of an insincere ploy. America is not a racist country, rather it’s a country that has racists in it, just like any country, anywhere, anyway, in the world. This is not an exclusive problem of the USA. If these players were in some country in Europe, disrespecting an anthem of national pride there, or, say, in one of the former soviet republics, they might just get a beating for their troubles; a beating from fans and patriots and, well, probably from the polizia, the poliziesco, the poliziesca, the polizie, the poliziesche, or the… well we all get the point.

No thoughtful person should subscribe to the silly little notion that these athletes aren’t behaving horribly on those fields, notwithstanding their right to do so, and while no one should demand that they stop their anti-American antics, neither should anyone be supportive of them. They do have their inalienable rights as US citizens, and so too, do fans and patriots, and the big bosses at the NFL.

Football players are there to go out on that field and run hard, throw hard, catch, block, flip, jump, and score touchdowns. There is a time and a place for everything, and for anyone to not know those moments and places is beyond me. The football field is the exact wrong time and place for such anti-American behavior and shows an underlying lack of knowledge of this time-honored sport, and of the greatness of our country.

These men are not out there making enough money to sustain multiple generations of their family trees to belittle our country with their warped sense of racial injustice; they are out there, let’s say it again, to play the damn game of football.

And if they are so against this country as to protest it on those fields, then it might make sense for them to go find a country that they can believe in, a country with a national anthem they do like. Of course, the ignorance so evident in their protest of this country strongly suggests that they would have no clue of what country might be acceptable to them.

Perhaps they can find a country where all of the law enforcement officials will love them, hold their hands, pat them on the heads and apologize to them if they were in any way offended by them for doing their enormously difficult jobs. That’s right, treat them like the kings they so evidently see themselves as.

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They’re not seeking equality, but entitlement, and the royal treatment at every turn.

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These men absolutely have every right to protest what they wish, where and when they wish to do so. And just as surely, the rest of us with a patriotic soul, has every right to opine about the outrageous ignorance of doing so here. President Donald Trump has every right, in fact, probably an actual duty, as a true patriot holding that high office, to opine as well, and opine he sure as hell did.

For anyone to attack the president for doing so, while defending the other side is wrong on the face of it, and typical of the liberal left.

Think like us and we’ll love you to pieces, think differently and you are an enemy to be viciously attacked, especially if you are in any way white. And the knee-jerk reaction to President Trump speaking to the issue is as plain damn stupid as the pathetic, little, childlike act of defiance in the first place.

Yes, it is commendable for anyone, including these athletes, to stand for what he believes in, and to not pretend to believe in something they do not. What is not commendable, and outstrips any feelings of admiration, is the lack of respect for others in so doing.

Having the right to do something is not akin to being right, and hating on America is as wrong as it gets, particularly if you are gaining tremendous wealth by being able to play ball here (such a dichotomy should spin the head of any sensible person). These men squawk about racial injustice and oppression, and then hop into their extremely expensive sports cars and drive to their multi-million dollar, palatial, mansions.

If their argument to this is that they are the aberration, they need to get over themselves. Police officers of America are not a bunch of evil racists looking to jail and kill young black men. They are far more likely to ask famous athletes who their children idolize for their autographs.

Unless said famous athlete show themselves to be racist themselves, people who hate white people on sight, who continue to attack our country with a rage that only makes sense in minds with lots of missing pieces.

And for any of these pro athletes to say that it is President Trump who is using sports to divide our country is a fantastic example of those missing pieces.

No, Mr. multi-millionaire ball-player who lives high on the hog, thanks to the United States of America, and the multitudes of people who fought and died for that flag that ‘oh, say, you cannot see’, it is not our president who divided us with sports. It is sports figures who divide us by using sporting events as platforms to clumsily protest that which they don’t even fully understand.

Rather than using sporting events to just go out and play the sport they get paid so handsomely to play, and to unite as a team regardless of skin colors on it, and to unite as Americans on an American field, to unite a city and state, they first choose to disrespect us all with their foolish lack of sensibility. The lack of respect for the country that gives them the right to say that they have no rights.

In the end, all Americans have the right to be that foolish. And in the end, all of us have the right to ignore them and their games that we can do without, anyway.

And all of us, any loyalist who loves this country, should fully understand that the president is perfectly well within his rights to have cursed them out for their lack of respect, for their anti-American stupidity, and to urge anyone with power within the sports world to fire their insincere asses.

See, because any big boss in sports, who loves this country in his heart, who can see through pseudo causes that are steeped in an ill-conceived hatred of our country, does have the right to do that, too.

For the other slant on NFL protests, read more here.

~ Rob Arnold