what i'm not responsible for is knowing the answer to the question, tho i do think if a *private* RD wants concessions and permission from a *public* venue then that private RD should say in advance that it intends to punish its customers if those customers do not comport with that private RD's particular wishes that are tangential to the event itself. otherwise that RD is going to likely face some scrutiny when it wants those permits the following year.

what i am responsible for is the comportment of folks on this forum. this is arguably better argued in the lavender room, but i'll leave it here. so, you're right, i'm the one issuing the DQ here.

me, i stand for the anthem. i love our country, i love what it stands for, i honor the sacrifices made. nevertheless, at 61 years old, i reflect on what i thought i knew *for certain* at age-21, at age-31, at age-41, and i note how i know a lot less for certain now than i did then. my world grew. my empathy grew. my understanding grew. and i found i needed to be a lot more flexible in my thinking or else i would end up dying having lived a rather fruitless life.

i can't imagine life as a female, black, or asian, or gay, or muslim, or someone much richer or poorer than i am, and the only thing i really require for someone to be an american is patriotism. how people display their patriotism is not mine to decide. but my world had to get bigger for me to wrap my arms around that.

so, if you really want to get banned, i'll oblige. but what i'd rather see happen is that you understand that your world is going to get bigger, or it's going to get smaller. it's up to you which way that goes. entropy and laziness causes my world to get smaller. it's kind of like wheelsucking. that's the easy route. for your world to get bigger you're going to have to stick your own nose into the wind and take a risk.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

If you say that you don't interpret someone standing for the anthem as someone who agrees with everything, I'm sure you can also accept that someone who sits does not disagree with everything or even most things.

Not sure it's quite that simple, since the players are part of a union and as such have collective bargaining rights. So that whole thing falls under contract law, breach of contract can be subject to penalties under the contract.

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I was simply trying to express a call to action to facilitate change. Maybe the OP is involved in other ways to bring about changes to the injustices he sees. If so great! It is similar to posting on a forum such as this. A person can vent, express views, lash out a bit, etc. In the end it will not facilitate much change. Doing so coupled with other involvement in the issue is a way to start making the changes we want to happen. Sit, stand, kneel that is your choice, just as I can choose to be offended or not.

That's fair. Agreed.

But yet such a widely held notion among people. And the irony of their post is probably lost on them completely.

Didn't take long, what, 2nd post?

No, it's as patriotic as the guys who fight in our wars. The first Americans who risked death by treason at the hands of not bowing to the British.

Are you the kind of blind person who would let something Nazi Germany roll in and start shooting people for not doing the salute? Some patriot you would make, blindly accepting anything.

How about your cronies fixing the VA then now that they've been in charge for two years. We've got that ongoing crying shame going on and people like you are more concerned about acting like Hitler forcing people to salute a flap of fabric.

They've got the white house and the houses of congress, what's the problem? Fix the VA and respect our troops already dammit!

You're going to piss on about a flag instead ehhh?

Every one of you hides your screwed up personal agendas behind "dishonoring veterans and the flag".

If we honor them so much, why is the VA a mess and why do we have vets living in the streets. Why is the current administration deporting people who served?

Freaking hypocrites.

So, high school civics teacher here. Always willing to correct my understanding, but I teach that our representative republic is a type of democracy. OP didn’t say “direct democracy”. I’ve always understood democracy to to be the broad category.

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Aaron Bales
Lansing Triathlon Team

So where would you go? What country is this Utopia that you seek?

I have visited a fair number of countries, and lived in a couple, and EVERY country that I've every heard of has its warts, has issues with how certain groups of its citizens are treated, and has issues with its relationships with other countries. So what do you do? pack up and leave, or try and make your home a better one?

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Presumably your reason for behaving in a specific way during the national anthem is more important to you than any race. And in that case, who cares what anyone on this forum, any race participants or any race organizers think about your decision? Do what you think is correct and deal with the consequences as they come. But maybe consult a lawyer friend and the race organizer before you make a cross-country drive for a race though.

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Of all the sporting events I've been to, i think triathletes are the least respectful during the national anthem. At bike races, the vast majority of racers take their helmets off, stand still, and keep their mouth shut. At skating races it's the same. I've seen people kneel at some of my speed skating events, but at least they were still and quiet (even though it appeared as though they were trying to draw attention to themselves and not really their cause). Runners are about the same.

Triathletes? Much different. It seems like about half keep rummaging around transition, weaving in and out of the other half that are standing still with their hands over their hearts. They can't stop worrying about themselves for the 1:22 it takes to stand still and reflect on how blessed we are to live in this country. I know a lot of our races are international, but it seems like even the non-americans are more respectful to our anthem than the people born here.

Like others have said, you have the right not to stand. You can continue doing whatever it is you think is more important. But, I will probably lose a little respect for you. Honestly, I won't lose a ton of respect, because I get it. It wasn't until i served in the Air Force that my perspective changed. We all have different life events, so we all have different perspectives. When i was a senior in high school my History teacher taught us that we didn't have to stand for the pledge, so i stopped standing. I even got into an argument with another teacher about it, and i was 100% right... but i was also an immature and disrespectful jerk for it.

Just FYI...I'm a veteran as well

you could ACTUALLY be a huge p*ssy and decide you do not have a little bit of respect for something that means so much to so many people.

You obviously miss the part of his post where he mentions that he actually served in the military. You obviously did not. The irony of you calling him a pussy and suggesting that he's not patriotic

GAAAAaaaa! Well, that's it then....I'm going for a run.

Totally. Previous generations have fought and suffered for the right to protest and oppose, but when future generations exercise that right, they're p*ssies? As if no US citizens are permitted to have grievances in real-time.

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Great post.

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I have lots of thoughts on the whole notion of using the anthem as a way to protest, mainly as far as finding those who criticize protesters extremely misguided in their thinking. Firstly, I believe one of the core principles driving the foundation of this country is the idea of protesting perceived injustices (taxation without representation and all that). Those who choose to protest during the anthem aren't "disrespecting" the nation or the flag or the anthem (last I checked, flags and songs don't have feelings), they are showing that this country is still broken in many ways and want to call attention to things we can do better.

The other argument thrown out there is that protesting is disrespectful to the military. Of course, we've seen many argue that they serve to protect individuals' right to protest. But the rhetoric that we wouldn't have freedom without military is, in my opinion, overblown. Yes there are times when people were called to defend our country and there will be other times in the future, but our freedom comes not from the military, but according to our founding documents, it's inherent part of existence and established for this country by the ideas of those earlier revolutionaries. No offense to those here who have served, but there are many who serve the public in other capacities, which I find equally patriotic (while I'm not super-patriot, I work in the public sector and it's a calling in my own life, and in an area that has much greater day to day impact on the lives of most people than defense does). I just get the sense that military/veterans have somehow been named the gatekeepers of deciding what is patriotic, I just feel that no single group gets to be the arbiter of what is or isn't patriotic.

Anyhow the TLDR version, I stand, but it's to honor the principles of the nation, not to honor a piece of cloth, a song, or a subset of people.

Just responding to you since you were the last post. It doesn't really seem like many who have posted here really understand what the protests are about. No one is protesting the military, veterans, or the flag. What they are protesting, like Slowman said, is the unequal and unfair treatment of pretty much any non-white males in this country. And guess what you see a lot of at a triathlon? Middle/upper middle class white people who get to live in a place where they do not have to look over their shoulder everyday or fear that if they get pulled over they might get shot by a cop. Or where parking illegally ends up resulting in getting a taser shot at them and beaten up.

I grew up, live, and teach in a community that is very diverse and we still go through many of these same issues. Racism and sexism has become something that seems to be accepted again and that is completely unacceptable. So people are protesting in ways that are non violent to try to raise awareness. I for one do not want my 5 month old daughter to grow up in a time where it is ok for people to "grab people by the p" and for Nazi's to be freely marching spreading such terrible hate speech. It is also ironic that those are the same people telling people to leave their country when it is no more their country than the people's who's families were forced here many years ago. I am proud of my student athletes for kneeling during the anthem because they are choosing to take a stand in what they believe in. Now if they just did it to do it I don't love that part but if they an explain why they are doing it I become a proud coach and teacher.

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Same here, Social Studies teacher. Have taught that that our representative republic is a representative democracy. Which is different then a direct democracy like ancient Greece.

I'm with Leddy, although I'm also sure the OP is trolling.

The way I see the Anthem controversy is not a battle between right and wrong. It's people getting angry that others are using something held sacred by some to protest unrelated things.

Take the NFL, for example. If the issue is police treatment of black and brown people, why not keep the Anthem out of it and go protest in front of police stations? And, before anyone gets in my face, I'm not telling people how to protest. I'm simply pointing out that many see no connection between the two and view it as an intentional (and unnecessary) poke in the eye.

I'd also point out that, if the goal is bringing attention to police brutality, they are failing miserably because when this subject comes up everyone talks about everything but that.

You know what I used to like to do? I used to love calling things "retarded" to bring attention to something I thought was really dumb. There's no better way to get someone's attention than to say something is retarded (never mind when I used "retarded" we wouldn't argue about the stupid thing, we would argue about whether "retarded" was OK to say). Then, one day, someone really got me to understand how hurtful that word is. So I stopped saying it.

Kneeling/disrespecting the Anthem is very hurtful to some. People have verbalized that and they have verbalized it very emotionally. If you are doing it because it's your best vessel for raising awareness, I disagree with that tactic, as do many others. People are asking you to stop because it's so hurtful. If you want to protest the police, have at it, but you don't need to hurt others to do so.

Now imagine you are one of the many vets who I see at my tri's. Imagine you have a permanent limp because you still have a bullet in your hip from IRAQ. Imagine completing this tri is something you've worked very hard to do and you know you're in for an excruciating amount of pain to do so. Now imagine the Anthem is playing and you see a person choosing to "not to stand for something they don't believe in". Imagine the anger you will feel in that moment.

Do you really want to cause that anger? I don't, so I show respect for lots of things I don't care about or believe in.

I'm not forcing you stand.

I'm not going to bully you.

I'm simply going to ask you, as a human being, will you please show respect for something that I hold dear? In return, we can march on police stations together until the cows come home.

That's a bit of a stretch.

I moved to the US from the UK a while ago & didn't quite know what to do during the anthem. I've settled on standing for it but not putting my hand over my heart (seems inappropriate as I'm not a US citizen).

If you really don't want to be around for it just head off somewhere else (porta-potty queue tends to thin out)

Fair enough - I concede to the both of you that you know more about the difference than I. After looking at it more, I understand where you are coming from and don't disagree with what either of you have said. I've always equated the term democracy as a direct democracy, but I see that there is disambiguation of the definition.

NW PA and the same here. National anthem every single race.

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TEAM HD
Each day is what you make of it so make it the best day possible.

We are a Constitutional Republic and not subject to the whims of the majority, therefore not a pure democracy. We have features of democracy such as the direct election of members of both Houses of Congress. Examples of non-democratic features are the electoral college and the process of amending the Constitution. The Senate with equal representation for each state regardless of population is also not "democratic". In a true democracy (direct or representative) the Majority rules. In our Republic we protect the rights of the minority from the potential abuse of the majority. These protections of the Minority are one of the best features in my opinion.