I absolutely agree with what he is doing to express his right to free speech, however the entire story with Kaepernick is entirely a much more than just taking a knee. First off, I am one that believes the National Anthem shouldn't be played at sporting events. Now with that being said, Kaepernick has moved himself into a category that he is now "unsignable" as a NFL quarterback. There isn't a team out there that is going to sign someone with this much publicity surrounding them unless they were a player that was top talent. Kaepernick isn't that. He is a marginal QB at best and, in my opinion, his QB play along with the publicity has again made him off limits to teams in need. This is Kaepernick's own doing. So all the attacks toward the NFL teams that haven't signed him are unwarranted. Be angry at Goddell all you want, he mishandled this from the beginning, but in my opinion, Kaepernick's career has become it's own martyr.

Complicated:

His first two weeks he sat disgruntled and looked like he was just being lazy. >>I found that offensive.

Then he kneeled. That I saw as protest. I may think the subject of the protest is disproportionately blown out. I support his First Amendment right to protest.

I have mixed feelings about this mainly since I choose to look beyond the individual.

First off the NFL with the exception of championship games did not require their players to even exit the locker until the national anthem was over before 2009.

So for people to freak out about this is simply idiotic especially since I’m sure most of them had never served in either the military nor law enforcement.
They’re just being Americans and letting the media incite them by pointing out their differences.

Do I totally side with him? No he didn’t even think like this until his girlfriend got ahold of him.

Do I side with the cause that he’s promoting? Yes
Absolutely it’s only been 40 years since the civil rights movement and even though we’re all governed by the same laws and are expected to pay taxes to fund the government that creates and enforces those laws.

We are segregated, policed, educated, medicated and our citizenships are all unequal.
We sit around and ask why doesn’t everyone like America or where’s your patriotic spirit??

Well it’s in a crowded housing development that 4 generations of family has lived because they were denied housing back when they were considered as equals.
And since they occupy these areas their neighboring counties have gone and given tax exemptions to the majority of industrial and large companies.
So therefore all of the good jobs are out of the way or in some cases not even on the bus line which matters because all you have is a government check and a minimum wage job your choices of transportation are very very limited.

But wait somehow every ghetto or project development was able to send out representatives to South America to arrange for the purchase and delivery of cocaine. Seriously our government must think that we’re just plain fucking stupid with that one.

But wait though drugs were flowing in and out of these areas for decades and the arrest of these individuals was minimal until Nixon took office and it’s because he promised all of those who wanted revenge for the civil rights act being passed a way to even the score.

So here we go the original war on drugs began and every minority and hippie that supported them was under attack. And it didn’t stop there once the drugs made it into the suburbs both Reagan and Clinton responded with even tougher penalties and sentences.

And if it wasn’t enough we finally got to see what power the police actually had when they beat Rodney King within an inch of his life and they all damn near got away with it.

But the government did respond and the DOJ changed the use of force continuum to be that of de escalation and no greater force to be used than what challenged with.

And as someone who worked in law enforcement it was challenging but we went home with fewer cuts and bruises and a hell of a lot less paperwork and lawsuits.
But 9/11 happened and the rules changed again. Now we’re being instructed to respond based upon our perception of the threat in front of us and to whatever force we deemed necessary.

Now if you don’t understand what that means then I’ll tell you. If I believed that you had a weapon and I was to perceive that your intentions was to harm me or anyone else with and from that I personally felt fear for my life or someone else’s then I could shoot you with my weapon and you were to die from it.

All that by law is expected of me is to convince the investigators and the DA that I perceived that you were attempting to harm or me or other people.
And by the use of force continuum I acted legally.

Now the missing key here is that when they rewrote the UFC they were thinking combatting an immediate terrorist threat because you can’t expect a cop to talk a terrorist into surrendering like the previous rules demanded.

Seriously if they’d just put the word terrorist in the description or even if they had considered that they were going to have law enforcement officers who had been kicking in doors and shooting anything that moved in Iraq and Afghanistan for possibly years. Which is why left btw. Had a kid in the car with me drinking monster, wearing his shades at 1am and asking me how many people have I killed on this job and laughing when I said none.

And since then I reached out to multiple government officials, the media, aclu, southern poverty and finally Black Lives Matter during the Bernie campaign and I told each every person that I spoke with that the UFC had to be reviewed and reworded so that law enforcement would have to clearly identify the threat as being terrorist and not civilian.

Believe it or not the only person I saw taking notes on what I had to say was a guy from BLM and last year I actually heard someone addressing on tv
But we definitely had the wrong AG in place to properly do anything with it.

So anyway yes I get the why and I support all who protest but I just wanna know for that their heart is in it and not their celebrity status.

I love his hair, but I do not watch football.

All for him. Freedom of speech.