....As Shepherd Smith points out this is not about the flag and to say it is is to be complicit.
Smith has become something of a DNC bot himself. No one on my side gives a crap what he thinks. It's funny but you may be the only one here who actually watches him.
But to the point, intent has little relevance here. If my wife has a baby and I happily shoot a gun in the air to celebrate the birth but the bullet comes down, goes through your wife's brain and kills her, would my intent matter to you? (for this question, we assume you like your wife).
What if I am driving drunk and run over your dog, does me telling you it was not my intent to flatten your best dog matter to you?
What if I was President and I wanted to make sure all the poor people had health insurance, but in trying to do that I instead destroyed the best healthcare system in the world, causing premiums to skyrocket and over half the people to lose their doctors? Would folks just forgive me because my intent was
good?
In this matter, the players picked this time and opportunity to do what they did. They had plenty of options to make their point in different ways at different times. This makes what they did intentional. It was a mistake. They screwed up. Some of them have already begun to try and crabwalk it back. The owners screwed up too by allowing it, which they did not have to do (as I pointed out in a previous post, the 1st Amendment has no application here).
But there is one more part you seem unwilling to acknowledge. Fans have options too. They are the customers of this product after all. Which means they get to take this 'protest' however they want. And, as all the polling on this shows, they are taking it as disrespect for the flag and anthem. They dont like it. For example, I was watching the Texans @ Pats Game on Sunday. While the Texans all stood for the flag, some of the Pats' players (~12 of them) kneeled. They got booed. Lustily. By their own fans. And this is a fan base (justifiably) in love with its home team. But Pats fans wanted no part of anyone disrespecting the US flag like that.
As I have pointed out in the past, your analysis of issues is simplistic and lazy. You look at who did or said something, decide whether that person is someone you like or dont like, then agree or disagree with them on this basis alone. No matter what it was they did or said. This is unprincipled. Which is the root of all of your issues as a social/political commentator.
