Your smack talk about Colin Kaepernick contrasts with "perhaps the greatest defense of freedom of expression ever formulated by a Supreme Court Justice."

Time for some learnin', thanks to a recommendation by Stephen. After all, Brain Injury Ball need not be damaging to your OWN noggin.

COLIN KAEPERNICK AND A LANDMARK SUPREME COURT CASE, by Jeffrey Toobin (New Yorker)

The decision by Colin Kaepernick, a quarterback for the San Francisco 49ers, first to sit and then to kneel, rather than stand, during the national anthem before his team’s games has set off a national debate. The 49ers grudgingly supported his right to protest against the ritual, and other players have now joined him, while some politicians, like Senator Ted Cruz, of Texas, have denounced the defiant, if silent, gestures. The best answer to the anthem conundrum, however, can be found in the most eloquent opinion in the history of the Supreme Court.

And a concurring opinion: Kaepernick has made his fellow Americans think about what they’re standing for, and why.

Tuesday Heresy Quartet 1 of 4: Validating American values by scrapping the Pledge of Allegiance.

At meetings, I'll stand for the pledge for only one reason: My father's military service, and by extension, the service of all others.

That's a matter of individual conscience, not mandated public compliance, and one's individual conscience extends to the wording of the pledge, which I don't repeat aloud.

That's because the addition of "Under God" is my personal deal-breaker; however, you're free to comply or dissent as you please. Just know that coercion as it pertains to the exercise of conscience has a tendency to negate the values purportedly being espoused.

The pledge of allegiance must go: A daily loyalty oath has become a toxic, nationalistic ritual, by David Niose (Salon)

We make students salute national greatness for 13 years. No wonder Trumpian anti-intellectuallism is on the march

The final straw came when a teacher accused Alicia, a high school sophomore, of treason.

Alicia (not her real name) hardly comes across as subversive. She’s not one of those kids who is intrigued by anti-American propaganda from ISIS, for example, nor is she one who has been duped by homegrown anti-government groups calling for a citizens’ rebellion. She’s pretty much an ordinary, intelligent teenager—interested in politics, current events and government, but hardly a fringe radical.

Her offense in the eyes of her homeroom teacher, however, was that she chose to sit out the Pledge of Allegiance. This act, for Alicia and countless other young Americans, has brought on the wrath of authority, with teachers and school administrators unleashing mean-spirited accusations and hostility toward students who dare to question the wisdom of a daily loyalty oath. We may be a free country, but any kid who chooses to sit out the collective exercise of exalting America runs a risk of official ostracization.

For refusing to say "Under God," his grades should have been raised.

If the principles of the founders have any meaning at all, then a "pledge of allegiance" to a piece of cloth, spoken aloud by rote, is in itself an entirely unnecessary act.

Inserting the words "under God" into it? That's just egregious, and offensive to anyone who sees the merits in separating church and state.

Placing one's hand on a Bible as part of a ritual to be "sworn" into office?

Ditto.

Making the whole process obligatory in a public, secular school system and placing a grade on it? That sounds like the sort of Tea Party goofiness about to be proposed by the likes of Lee Ann Wisehart.

I'll stand during the pledge as a token of esteem to my father and other veterans, but in this, as in these other considerations, shouldn't they be a matter of personal conscience, and not compulsion?

Student Omits ‘Under God’ From the Pledge of Allegiance, School Vindictively Lowers His Grades, by John Prager (AATTP.org)

A California High School student was punished for omitting “under God” from the Pledge of Allegiance. Derek Giardina, 17, a student at Merrill F. West High School in Tracy, California, said the Pledge of Allegiance properly as instructed as part of the morning announcements. While he omitted only two words, which were added during the anti-Communist panic of the 1950’s.

Unfortunately, the school lacks the necessary knowledge of American history to appreciate the traditional manner of reciting the Pledge, arguing that if a student is going to lead the school, the pledge must promote one specific deity — or, the “traditional way,” as the school says.

Giardina says he was required to lead the school in the pledge as part of a debate class assignment, but that he would normally abstain because he is disillusioned with our country, and is not at all religious ...