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Protesting NFL players and progressive activist journalists have not been having a good week. In an attempt to “raise awareness” of their cause they’ve become the Westboro Baptist Church of the national anthem. Although that makes me happy because I’m not a fan of frauds, I want to take a moment to let them and their fellow traveler progressives know what should be self-evident to anyone who thinks beyond the level of a 5-year-old: If you choose a bad method, your message does not matter.

As media boobs like Chris Matthews, Chris Cuomo, and Don Lemon predictably skip down their well-worn paths of claiming criticism of the protests are racists, we’re finding that apparently even the black people who don’t like it. Is to they and others with an IQ higher than their shoe size to whom I’d like to speak.

Almost everyone loves puppies, right? So, let’s pretend for a moment that I want to raise awareness about how puppies are great. After careful consideration, I settle on the idea of writing “Puppies Rule!” on a Band-Aid I’ll wear on my middle finger. And every time I meet or see someone I show them my middle finger, raised in pride for my cause.

How much awareness do you think I’m going to raise compared to how many people I tick off? Toward which side will that scale would tilt?

I suspect most people who love puppies still wouldn’t appreciate me flipping them the bird randomly, no matter how on board with my cause they were. Many would return the one-finger salute and, undoubtedly, a few fists would fly.

Now, I could just claim victim status – that everyone who flipped me off back or threw a punch at me did so simply because they hate puppies and people who love them. And some undoubtedly would. But only a tiny fraction of those who just had a knee-jerk emotional reaction to having me give them the finger out of the blue.

Being a rational person, after a couple of weeks of dirty looks, complaints, and swings at my head, I might stop and wonder if, perhaps, my chosen method of conveyance for my message was not the best.

Once I came to the proper, rational conclusion, I’d change my method, take the Band-Aid off my middle finger and switch to wearing a hat or shirt, or actually speaking to people about the virtues of puppies.

That’s what a sane person would do. That’s not what the left does.

Colin Kaepernick started kneeling during the national anthem at NFL games because he wanted the attention and all the negativity that has come with it. He likely didn’t think it’d harm his career the way it has, but since he’s been radicalized he hasn’t been known for rational thought or ability on the field.

Lack of rational thought or not, there’s no way he didn’t know the reaction would be similar to flipping everyone the bird upon meeting them. If not at first, certainly soon thereafter.

He could have done something before or after the anthem, but he chose during to show his contempt for the country during the one moment everyone united.

There is an audience for that mindset, and many of them have press passes. Some of the most successful people in the country despise the country that empowered them to obtain that success. It’s an inherent flaw in the progressive mind I’m glad I don’t understand.

Kaepernick also could have articulated his message into the microphones he had access to on a daily basis rather than on the field. He knew what he was doing, and the NFL knew what it was letting happen.

There’s no point in addressing Kaepernick’s cause; it’s bogus. Police are not hunting unarmed black men, the country isn’t built on systemic racism, there is no mass incarceration epidemic. You want to avoid going to prison, avoid breaking the law.

Do mistakes happen? Yes. Are there some bad people out there? Or course. But neither of these are anywhere close to more than a blip on the radar. If you want to believe you were pulled over because a police officer noticed your race as you blew past their car on the freeway at 85 miles per hour, knock yourself out.

You can think whatever you like to inoculate yourself from the fact that the only thing limiting how far you excel in life is you. But your dislike of reality doesn’t make it any less real.

The idea that the United States is a racist country is a lie, and so is the idea that protesting during the national anthem isn’t about the national anthem. That’s why they’re protesting during the national anthem. If they really cared about their cause they’d make a case, not a spectacle. But their case is bogus, so the spectacle is all they have. It’s enough for the media, but it’s also “enough” for a lot the American people too…just in a completely different way.

But hey, I’m just raising awareness about puppies…even though I’m really more of a cat person.