(Psst -- it's not about the flag or the military, and it never has been.)

I'm often reminded of Thomas Jefferson's words:

"Mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed."

To avoid misinformed confusion, readers old enough to remember the Vietnam War era will recall Tricky Dicky Nixon's law-and-order platform, as a blunt missile aimed squarely against "anti-American" war protesters (attacking the flag and our soldiers overseas) and African-Americans (being all uppity about rights and freedoms).

A space alien (or Mr. Spock) might ask: But was the overseas war just, and did the civil rights protesters have a point?

If you're saying to yourself, well, I never protest, and when I do it is done tastefully, so as to be inoffensive to others ... you just might be revealing yourself as a privileged societal cog unable to fathom injustice.

Would you have participated in the American Revolution?

If so, on which side?

You see, etiquette typically goes out the window when TJ's tipping point occurs, as it did in America in 1776, or in Russia in 1917.

Of course, the plain fact is that NFL protests have been breathtakingly sober and polite. If you're upset about free speech and conscience, but not troubled by the mangled brains of players who perform so you can remain safely inside your bubble, there isn't much more anyone can say except "dude, I'm so very sorry for you."

It’s Not About the Flag or the Military. It Never Has Been.

When athletes protest during the national anthem, they are acting on behalf of people who can’t speak as loudly.

By Andrew Cohen (Brennan Center for Justice)

President Trump’s weekend attack on athletes exercising their constitutional right to protest followed the longtime model used by police unions. Instead of acknowledging the legitimacy of the complaint that there is discrimination and misconduct in policing — Trump, like the unions, changed the subject, lashing out at the athletes as unpatriotic, even anti-American. The protests were mischaracterized as attacks on the flag, the anthem, the military, or the nation itself. As if it were ordained somewhere that one must stand, as opposed to kneel, for the anthem.

This is nonsense, of course. There is nothing more American than protesting injustice when it is manifest, nothing more patriotic than speaking for those who do not have a voice or whose voices are rarely heard. When people protest police misconduct, and racial disparities in our criminal justice systems, they are acting to improve the conditions of their fellow Americans, acting to force necessary reform on people (like Trump) and institutions (like police unions) that resist this change. This is “anti-American” or unpatriotic only if you believe the protections of the First Amendment are overrated or unnecessary. And only if you believe it’s unpatriotic to want to make America more just ...

Iceland: The greatest nation ever to occupy the island where Iceland is located.

In an otherwise hackneyed posting about Barack Obama’s wife, in which the usual lunatic fringe invective gets indiscriminately pepper-sprayed around a mostly empty room, local blogger Daniel Short included this observation:

Most of us are proud of the ole USA no matter who is in control. Most of us believe it is the greatest nation on Earth.

Since I enjoy being a gadfly, I responded.

The only question is this: Why does it matter?

Daniel’s answer, in part, read thusly:

You see Roger, a lot of liberals do not really like America. I suspect that given your affection for Europe that you deep down harbor ill feelings toward America. Liberals believe the U.S. is the cause of the world's troubles, that we are war lovers and mother nature haters. It matters because if someone doesn't believe in the idea of America, how can they govern a place that is that idea?

A brief discussion followed, with my cohort Bluegill making a few typically concise points, and John Manzo contributing a brilliant exposition of the liberal/conservative wartime dichotomy. You can follow the above link to read all of it.

As for me, I can’t help observing that in a time when the Euro zone is shredding the efficacy of the dollar, the charge of being a Europhile apparently now carries as much negative impact as Communist, humanist and atheist.

It’s cartoonish to suggest that there are Communists lurking through New Albany’s foggy pumpkin patches. As for the other three perceived denigrations, I’m right there, although not thumping my chest like a child. Things like that are embarrassing, don't you think?

My purpose here is not to speak for Daniel, who is quite capable of digging his own deep holes without requiring me to dirty my hands helping with the shoveling.

Rather, it’s simply to say that discussing “the greatest” anything is an exercise in futility, that I’ve never understood the chest-thumping impulse, and that I agree with the athlete Edwin Moses, who I recall eschewing the contrived, flag-waving Hollywood pageantry of the ’84 Olympics to insist that he regarded himself as a citizen of the universe.

Funny, then, that a Christianity which incessantly professes to be universal in application must ultimately rest on the armed “might” of a particular “greatest” nation, at least in the minds of so many Americans. It’s hard indeed to fathom any Prince of Peace accepting that particular syllogism.

But what do I know. I’ve not been indoctrinated, have I?

However, when it comes to patriotism and religion, the re-education camps are never very far away, are they?

Pick a Striegel, any Striegel: Guest columnist seeks truth in all the wrong places.

I saw the headline on today’s Tribune “Opinions” page, glanced idly at the photo displayed alongside, and did a double take that hurt my neck and caused coffee to spill all over my nice clean pants.

Something’s screwy, indeed.

STRIEGEL: Celebrate our country, one nation under God, by Dr. Aaron Striegel, Local Guest Columnist.

The problem? Embarrassingly, the photo was of Judge Richard Striegel, and not the evangelistic writer of the subsequent 727-word essay in historical revisionism, who began his screed in this gentle fashion:

The other day I was driving down the road when I spotted a bumper sticker that said, “Liberal? Maybe just more educated!” A more accurate sticker would read, “Liberal? Maybe, just not properly educated.” Why? In 1962 prayer was removed from our public schools. Bible reading was banned in 1963 and in 1980 the posting of the 10 commandments were banned from public buildings.

The less said about it, the better … but I just can’t help myself.

For decades, we’ve been subjected to similar collections of quotes offered entirely out of context, blended artfully into an appeal for all-purpose godliness, and purporting to somehow “prove” that a wide variety of religious convictions on the part of numerous dead white men in the nation’s history adds up to better living through a doctrine-specific Christian theocracy.

It’s hogwash, but apparently it has the same appeal to Americans as sitting on the front porch for hours on end listening to single firecrackers pop, while remaining truly clueless as to the universal meaning of the holiday being celebrated today -- which has as much to do with freedom from religion as it does freedom to practice the faith of one's choice.

Judge Striegel should be highly annoyed.

Who wants his face associated with such drivel?