Anthem worship

This just in from the National Anthem front, in which black football players kneeling quietly with their heads bowed during the National Anthem became an issue mainly because President Donald J. Trump, Fake Patriot, decided to make it one.

Goodness. The shiny objects an unscrupulous man will use to distract us while he sells us out to hostile regimes. And it's working!

Anyway ... the news from the self-appointed Anthem Police is that it's not just kneeling that's regarded as disrespectful. Apparently you have to stand a certain way now, or you're whizzing all over the  anthem, and the flag, and the troops, and, I don't know, maybe even Mom and apple pie.

Courtesy of Deadspin, here is the tale of one Laurie Vandenberg, a baseball fan in Alaska who went to a minor-league game and was irked that one of the players stood with his hands behind his back during the anthem, finding it as disrespectful as kneeling. So she confronted both the player, Kona Quiggle, and a couple of team execs, threatening to shame them on Facebook, which she did.

Blessedly, the team execs treated Anthem Cop Laurie's concerns with the seriousness they deserved, which is to say not very seriously. They said they had no issue with the way Quiggle was standing for the anthem, and planned to do, well, nothing about it. And Quiggle himself explained he was standing that way -- in the military it's known as parade rest -- to honor a friend who was killed in Iraq in 2004.

What's appalling about this is that the guy even felt compelled to explain himself. It directly contradicts everything for which his friend died, and everything the anthem and the flag and all the other nonsense the anthem cops have chosen to wrap up in it represents. What business is it of theirs how Quiggle or anyone else chooses to stand, sit or kneel for the national anthem? And why should their opinion -- or that of Our Only Available President -- be the official word in that matter?

I thought the whole point of America is that there should be no official word in these matters. I thought that's what we were all standing (or, yes, kneeling) to honor. Silly me.

Look. The Blob has long been on record as saying it finds nothing inherently disrespectful in football players choosing to kneel during the anthem to call attention to racial injustice in this country. They're not mooning the flag or shaking their fists at it or cursing at it. They're not disrupting it by trying to drown it out. They're simply kneeling, as you would in church.

Myself, I, too, stand with my hands behind my back during the anthem. I always have, not because I'm consciously honoring the military, but because it feels more genuine (and therefore more respectful).These days I also tend to bow my head in prayer for a nation that's clearly lost its mind, given that this sort of lunacy has actually become a political issue. I suppose that would be seen as disrespectful by the anthem police, too.

Well, it's not. And do you know why it's not?

Because when I stand for the national anthem, it's only my opinion of how and why I do it that matters. I really don't care what you or Laurie Vandenberg or the charlatan in the White House thinks.

In America, freedom is never having to explain yourself in these matters, or answer to any self-appointed arbiter's idea of what is properly respectful of that freedom. Who doesn't get that?

Well. Other than the self-appointed arbiters, that is.