One Solution to the National Anthem Protests

Last Sunday night members of the San Francisco 49ers, Seattle Seahawks, and other teams in the NFL knelt during the national anthem as part of an ongoing protest against racial injustice. I was watching the New England Patriots school the Atlanta Falcons – "The Rematch," as it was billed, since it was the first time the two teams have met since Super Bowl LI when the Pats completed a cycle of unlikely upsets that started around Brexit and continued with the election of Donald J. Trump.

My wife and I were finishing up a nature documentary and tuned in to the game a few minutes late, so I have no idea what happened when it was time to sing for Old Glory in Foxborough, Massachusetts. Did Tom Brady stand? What about The Gronk? I honestly don't care. Nor should you.

Nor should anybody.

This tiff between the NFL, team players, angry fans, ESPN, and now even the President of the United States is the biggest distraction since line dancing, and equally as unnecessary. Whatever shall we do?

For starters, let's get a little perspective. There are more than 250 games in an NFL season, and a whole lot more professional sports games when we add in the the MLB, the NHL, and the NBA. And then there's all the minor league games and college games and little league games. Do we really need to sing the National Anthem before every single one of them?

The whole country was almost 130 years old before we even had a national anthem; President Wilson decreed it by executive order in 1916. Before that we fought a bloody civil war, freed the slaves, and conquered a continent. Somehow all that was accomplished without demanding we all stand up and remove our caps every time somebody wants to toss a ball around.

Maybe we should save the national anthem for special occasions – perhaps when the Queen of England visits, or during the Olympics?

Actually being awesome is infinitely preferable to this constant, mindless recitation of a two hundred year old poem written during the most pointless war of our nation's history – most pointless, that is, until George "W is for War" Bush sent troops to Iraq and set the Middle East on fire. Prodigious patriotism only makes Americans seem pathetic and insecure, like feminists or Miley Cyrus.

The United States is steadily slipping down the Freedom Index, our government is $20+ trillion in debt, we've got troops in over a hundred countries, North Korea is threatening to start a nuclear war, our infrastructure is decrepit, crime is rising, we're at each other's throats, the economy still sucks, and photography is actually considered art. Maybe we have bigger problems than worrying about who stands and sits during a song. Stop playing the damn thing so often and then Colin Kaepernick et al will get back to work.