4 incidents of anti-Americanism for the 4th

At a time our country is suffering from extreme political divisiveness, one would hope we could at least come together to celebrate America's 243rd birthday. Those hopes have been dampened by America-bashers both old and new seeking to crash the celebration as the four incidents below reveal.

First involved an old hand at bashing America – quarterback Colin Kaepernick. He is back at doing what he does best in denigrating the flag we love.

Americans will remember Kaepernick as the catalyst for giving rise to the National Football League's controversy over kneeling during the national anthem – an action it now bans. His motivation was to take a stand against a black mark on America's history – her role in slavery.

Undoubtedly over the past 243 years, there are other historical black marks with which Americans today could find fault. There examples, unfortunately, are numerous: the fight for legal equality by women, discrimination against various ethnic groups such as the Irish or religious groups such as the Jews, etc. While the vast majority of Americans recognize that these black marks on our history stem from an imperfect America striving over the centuries to become better, Kaepernick makes it clear our nation is forever to be condemned.

Thus, Kaepernick sought to ruin the moment of pride the rest of us feel for our flag during the national anthem by kneeling as it is played. (A good defense for an opposing team would have been to play the national anthem whenever Kaepernick had the ball in play to see if he would stop and kneel.) Sadly, for demonstrating his anti-Americanism, Kaepernick was rewarded in various ways, receiving the National Education Association's highest honorary award and being selected by Nike as its "Just Do It" poster child.

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In preparation to celebrate July 4, 2019, Nike designed the "Air Max 1 USA" shoe to go on sale this week. But Kaepernick, after seeing that its design included the American flag, informed Nike he and others found the flag offensive, again due to America's role in slavery. Nike canceled the shoe's release, asking retailers to return the merchandise, even though the version of the flag incorporated into the design also honored an historic female figure, Betsy Ross.

Keeping in mind Kaepernick unabashedly wears clothing promoting police as pigs and Fidel Castro positively, it was a hypocritical decision by Nike. That same week, it pulled products in China designed by Jun Takahashi for his promoting the Hong Kong pro-democracy protests.

While some Christians wear bracelets with the letters "WWJD," meaning "What Would Jesus Do," Nike's management apparently neglected to heed their own "WWKD" ("What Would Kaepernick Do") bracelets by failing to consult with him ahead of time. Kaepernick has become an anti-flag Frankenstein of Nike's own creation, and it now suffers the consequences of having done it – as does all of America. Like a spoiled child on whose behavior no limits are placed, Kaepernick seeks to push the edge of the envelope. If Nike feels so committed to allowing Kaepernick to influence its business decisions, perhaps it should have him run the company – at least it would save them money on designs he might later find offensive.

It has been refreshing, however, to see the backlash Nike's decision not to sell the shoe has triggered. Many on social media are threatening to boycott the shoe manufacturer. And kudos to Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey who announced he has ordered the state's Commerce Authority to withdraw all financial incentive dollars offered earlier to encourage Nike to build a manufacturing plant in the state.

A second incident of flag denigration involves another old hand seeking to undermine free speech when it comes to promoting patriotism for our flag: Facebook.

The Wes Cook Band is a country music group that wrote a new song in time to be released for the July 4th holiday. The song, which Kaepernick would also probably find offensive, is titled, "I Stand for the Flag." The group applied to have Facebook use its paid promotional tools and was approved. However, Facebook later did a 180-degree turn, revoking the application for "political content." The revocation is absurd as the song's lyrics only encourage community unity with words such as:

"Don't care if you're black or white, or who you love,
I stand for the flag, and the flag stands for all of us."

Promoting a kinder, gentler America, the lead singer croons:

"I stand for showing kindness, treating everyone with love. Be proud of who you are, don't forget where you came from."

Who possibly could find fault with this, other than Kaepernick? One senses, because of Kaepernick's flag kneeling history, perhaps the song was intended as a political rebuttal. While that is not the case, it is sad Kaepernick could so influence Facebook.

A third incident occurring just before celebrating America's 243rd birthday involved another established America-basher, U.S. women's soccer team co-captain Megan Rapinoe. She started kneeling for the national anthem in 2016 in support of Black Lives Matter, later expanding it to include a range of other proclaimed injustices. Just last week, evidently excited about the upcoming July 4th holiday, she extended her kneeling campaign also to cover saying "F--k you to Trump" and his racism. Adding, "I'm not going to the f--king White House," Rapinoe is proving to be quite an eloquent ambassador to represent America!

The fourth incident involves a newbie to the denigrating of America game: Minnesota's St. Louis Park City Council.

With July 4th approaching, the city council took a vote last month on whether it should end the practice of saying the Pledge of Allegiance before its meetings. In what turned out to be an outrageous unanimous vote, members voted to do away with the pledge, arguing it would serve a more "diverse community." The backlash from the vote has been such that the council indicated it will revisit the issue.

Like a virus, we are being exposed to a strain of anti-Americanism that is causing some among us to act outrageously. While this virus is fueled by political correctness gone amok, we reject at our peril curing ourselves of it before it destroys the very fabric of the spirit of community that once made this country great.