Homegrown anti-American activists are a dishonest bunch. Maybe some of them mean well, though I doubt it. Either way, in order for us to listen to them, or support them, we have to accept the premise that underlies their movement: everything is someone else's fault, especially America in general. This is where the good-hearted or gullible fall into traps set by the frauds, because the cause is almost never what it appears. We are not correcting America. We are erasing it.
Take Colin Kaepernick. He would have you believe that racial injustice in America motivates him to disrespect the National Anthem and our flag. Let us assume, for the sake of argument, that this black American multi-millionaire sincerely believes that the country is racist and oppressive, and that despite his own success, his own success isn't achievable because the country is so racist. Yes, I know that it is utterly contradictory, but Kaepernick isn't renowned for his brilliance. He throws a football well.
Mr. Kaepernick blames the country for what he thinks is happening to others, and he is obviously not alone. Increasing numbers of black athletes and celebrities, each of whom is living proof of the falsity of their own argument, feel the same way. By kneeling, or raising a black power salute, they spit at the country that enabled their success rather than their supposed oppression.
Missing entirely from their simplistic reasoning is that free will has vastly more to do with the lives and outcomes of millions of Americans, white or black or anything else, than the country they live in when they make those choices. As a preliminary matter, let us acknowledge that the supposedly oppressed people for whom Colin Kaepernick and his ilk purport to speak are making their choices as free people, something denied to hundreds of millions of other people around the world. Anti-American protesters will never acknowledge this, because it is the first step in the debunking of their premise that our uniquely American system is the problem. Truly oppressed people don't get to choose whether they are oppressed, so it hardly advances the narrative to admit that black Americans who have not achieved at the same levels as others ended up where they did because of their choices.
By the way, this same rationale works for every race. Whites who are not billionaires made choices, too, millions of them along the way, which explain why they are where they are now, good or bad. It's how real life works.
America-haters cannot afford to admit that outcomes are determined by choices rather than geography. If the "oppressed" put themselves where they are, whether by their personal choices or by the votes they cast for those whose policies will keep them there, then their unfortunate circumstances derive from their own errors. That they remain there, as well, is a product of their choices, even to the point of choosing not to do anything affirmative to change their own circumstances.
Our entire history as a nation is infused with the stories of millions of people who rose above limitations and obstacles to advance themselves and their families. Now, sadly, their offspring have been taught to blame America rather than take actions calculated to change their circumstances, as their ancestors did.
When we see people like Kaepernick, and all those other millionaire athletes, movie stars, and celebrities, and even our petulant president, we rationally ask ourselves, "If our country is so oppressive, how have all of them done what other blacks have not?" How, we ask ourselves, can there be a black president in a racist nation? The obvious answer is, there can't be. It's either racist and oppressive or it is a nation where people are free to achieve at the limits of their abilities. Some have, and some have not, but those who have not are in their present circumstances not because of racism, or oppression, or any other such nonsense. Their lives are a product of their choices, just like everyone else in every race. Denying this is a lie.
It is here that people like Colin Kaepernick have not only missed the boat, but purposefully chosen to contribute to a dishonest narrative. Kaepernick's message could have been "Look at me; look at what I and others who look like me (and you) have achieved in this fantastic country."
Instead, Kaepernick, and those whose success belies the claim of oppression, blames the United States for the outcomes produced by each individual's thousands of choices each day. Rather than be true agents of change, as they say they want to be, they are agents of the status quo. They are advocates for failure by utterly misidentifying the one dynamic that has the greatest impact on success or failure: personal choice. America allowed Kaepernick and his friends to succeed.
Once upon a time, true activism required courage, because there were real wrongs to be righted. It took courage to fight forces that truly oppressed. There were no Colin Kaepernicks then, or very few of them. Now Colin Kaepernicks are a dime a dozen. What honest people would have celebrated as a sign of all the progress that has been made is something modern activists would have us ignore, understanding the hypocrisy and contradiction they represent. Now, like the good little American "racists" we have been told we are while not actually oppressing anyone, we are expected to take the accusation, to absorb the lie, without thinking or questioning whether the premise is even remotely valid.
The Kaepernicks of the world are not courageous. They are simple-minded tools. Those whose actions have divided us and put us at each other's throats sit back and smile to themselves. It is so easy to create division, and there are so many willing soldiers.
As we watch the dramas unfold, we should be mindful that these distractions, these false narratives, are themselves the products of choices being made by those who wish to see our country erased. We must understand that those who shout the loudest against oppression are pursuing it with all of the resources at their disposal. Shame on all those who continue to give themselves to this exercise in national suicide.
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