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US women soccer players who stood for their national anthem as their league got underway again have been labelled 'dumb white bitches' for not kneeling. How has patriotism now become a cause for offence?
The world has really gone bonkers when it is seemingly an act of defiance to stand for your own country's national anthem. It used to be the least controversial thing in the world, indeed the polite thing to do. Personally, I tend to do it for countries other than my own as well, as a mark of respect, whether that be at an international sports fixture, or just at an event where the anthem is played.
I'm British so we don't play ours a great deal. We do at Royal events obviously (the song is, after all, for Her Majesty), before England plays a football match, and at the FA cup final and so on, but for the most part that's it. But Americans play their national anthem a lot. The Star-Spangled Banner is belted out before virtually every sporting fixture from little league right up to the professional leagues.
I've always quite liked that aspect, it feels like a good unifier before, for example, a bunch of blokes knock seven bells out of each other on an NFL field. Even though the song is literally about the Yanks giving my boys a hell of a beating during the War of 1812; I've always stood up and dutifully removed my hat just before "Oh, say can you see..." rings out around the stadium, or wherever.
Comment: While the author seems to be rather off in some of his pronouncements, the big picture is on-track - that climate alarmism is a dangerous cult that is as misinformed as it is radical, unnecessarily scaring the public and blaming them for their climate sins. One hopes his book will get some traction and make some of the radicals question their assumptions. No wonder Forbes scrubbed it.
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