Forced Patriotism

If you believe, as I do, that "The Star Spangled Banner" is a song about a war that we lost, and how the big positive of the deal is that "the flag was still there," then maybe you'll get this.  Whatever ....

There has been a lot of bluster, screaming, outrage, and other stuff over the National Anthem and what people do while it is played - at sporting events, mostly - because that's where they play it, mostly.

Stand, kneel, sit, take off your cap ... do whatever they tell you, right?

And, for the record, I have stood at Fort McHenry and looked out at the place where "the flag was still there," and yeah, I got a little chill thinking about it, but that's where it stopped.  Mostly, it's because of the ceremony of the thing.  Otherwise, it's just a song praising war.  But I digress...

The kerfuffle started when a few NFL players decided to do something other than stand at attention while the song was being played.  That caused one of those Internet Outrages that have become so popular.  One wonders what would have happened if it was 1971.  I suppose TV stations would have gotten a hundred phone calls and newspapers would get twenty letters. But, as it is, the Internet allows us to vent our outrage instantly and have the comments pile up like horse dung on a parade route.

So, the National Football League (emphasis on National) in its infinite wisdom (?) has decided that, after much debate (?) that players must either stand in silence during the anthem or wait in the locker room until game time.  Show your protest, but do it on your own time.  There's nothing to see here.

Either stand and salute, or be fined, they said.  One wonders how forced patriotism is patriotism at all. Or, is it fascism? Or worse?  I don't know. Talk amongst yourselves.  I only know that making people do things doesn't make the people better.

When I was a kid, I was forced to attend something called Vacation Bible School.  I cherished my summers off from school, and being forced to attend a daily "school" regardless of its intent, didn't make me a better person.  It merely reinforced the idea that I had no control over my life, since I had neither a driver's license or adult free will.  So, off I went.  Was I a better kid? No, but that didn't mean that Vacation Bible School wasn't a raging success, because we all showed-up.  I never asked the other kids in school whether or not they wanted to be there, but I digress ...

Here we have this National Anthem thing, and somehow, if you don't stand, remove your cap and salute the flag, you are somehow not a patriot - whatever that is.  Last year, I went to an Alabama University football game.  When they played the anthem, almost everyone there stood with their hands over their heart (or where their heart was presumed to be) while the song was being played.  I didn't, since I wasn't brought up that way.  I wondered if they were better Americans than me. No.

It's just a song, really.  And, ask yourself (as I have) why do we only play it before sporting events?  Why not movies, theater, concerts, or other stuff like prior to the start of our work day?  What gives sports the exclusive rights to the thing?  And, what ties sports into patriotism?  So many questions, and I guess that makes me horrible for asking, but I'll ask anyway.

I have the idea that most of the people who stand and do all those things while the song is being played don't know why they're doing it - other than, "Somebody told me to."  Well, as my mother used to say, "If somebody told you to jump off the Ben Franklin Bridge, would you do it?"  Blind obedience and forced behavior doesn't make you a better American than the other guy.  It just makes you more subservient. 

And what has being subservient ever gotten anyone in America?  Wasn't the country founded on not being that?