{"id":14159,"date":"2016-11-03T18:50:54","date_gmt":"2016-11-03T22:50:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/?p=14159"},"modified":"2022-08-01T07:42:59","modified_gmt":"2022-08-01T11:42:59","slug":"the-home-of-the-brave","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/2016\/11\/the-home-of-the-brave\/","title":{"rendered":"The Home of the Brave"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-content\/uploads\/kaeper.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright wp-image-14318\" title=\"Colin Kaepernick -  Image via Getty\/Thearon W. Henderson\" src=\"http:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-content\/uploads\/kaeper-300x253.jpg\" alt=\"Colin Kaepernick -  Image via Getty\/Thearon W. Henderson\" width=\"240\" height=\"203\" style=\"width:240px;\" \/><\/a>The kneel-down protest\u00a0by NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick and his supporters during performances of <em>The Star Spangled Banner<\/em> has had an Edward Snowden-like effect: it has forced Americans to take sides on an issue that was heretofore invisible.\u00a0 And it has produced a very interesting and unexpected twist: according to the current narrative, how we act during our national anthem is indicative of our level of support for United States military forces.<\/p>\n<p>When did our armed forces hijack our national anthem, I ask?\u00a0 The answer is, they didn&#8217;t.<\/p>\n<p>U.S. military forces are once again pawns in our political games.\u00a0 Soldiers, sailors, pilots and marines are America&#8217;s poster children: because they cannot be legitimately attacked, every political persuasion attempts to use them as the human shield for their cause.\u00a0 If you believe X (where X is what my opponent believes), then you are against our servicemen and servicewomen, and shame on you for being anti-American, and who cares what you think anyway, you ingrate.\u00a0 You should be thankful that our soldiers protect your sorry ass.<\/p>\n<p>That&#8217;s the narrative, anyway.\u00a0 For the record, I decided that I&#8217;m OK with Mr. Kaepernick.\u00a0 Black lives matter.\u00a0 Period.\u00a0 There is still much fighting to do on that front, and Kaepernick has enlisted as one of the soldiers in that battle.\u00a0 So I ask, please, support our troops.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The kneel-down protest\u00a0by NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick and his supporters during performances of The Star Spangled Banner has had an Edward Snowden-like effect: it has forced Americans to take sides on an issue that was heretofore invisible.\u00a0 And it has &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/2016\/11\/the-home-of-the-brave\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14159","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-commentary"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14159","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14159"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14159\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17995,"href":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14159\/revisions\/17995"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14159"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14159"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14159"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}