The U.S. Does Not Need Compulsory Patriotism

San Francisco 49er quarterback Colin Kaepernick has stirred up a major controversy by sitting, not standing, for the national anthem. There are two aspects of this controversy that should cause serious concern: 1.) the efforts by law enforcement to restrict the freedom of speech of U.S. citizens; and 2,) the attempt to label Kaepernick as disrespecting those military service members who were killed in armed conflicts.

In the wake of the killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, four or five St. Louis Rams football players ran to the playing field, stopped, and assumed the surrender position: "Hands up! Don't shoot!" The  president of the St. Louis police union, representing both county and city officers, demanded an apology from the St. Louis Ram's management; furthermore, he wanted a series of meetings to set norms on how the players should interact with law enforcement.

The president of the New York City benevolent police association blamed protesters of excessive use of force by police for the assassination of two NYC police officers sitting in a police vehicle.

When David Clarke, the sheriff of Milwaukee County, Wisconsin, spoke at the Republican Convention, he said the major point he wanted to make was that "Blue Lives Matter." Clarke, and those who unconditionally support him, don't seem to understand that for a long stretch of U.S. history, black lives didn't matter, or mattered very little. In recent history, the nation has seen and heard numerous instances in which law enforcement officers mistreated minorities, especially African Americans. There have been too many cases in which officers have fatally shot unarmed people. Sheriff Clarke certainly disrespects Black Lives Matter, as he has called members "sub-human creeps," "garbage," and "black slime." Clarke has also infamously said that there is no police violence in America.

Most recently, the San Francisco Police Officer's Association demanded an apology from the San Francisco 49er's management, because Kaepernick had worn socks depicting pigs wearing police officer hats to practice. Some Santa Clara police officers threatened not to do security for the 49er football team, until deterred by a police chief who had a greater understanding of protected civil liberties than they did.

The bottom line here is that law enforcement should not be the arbitrator of what U.S. citizens can say and do in exercising their freedom of speech.

Another aspect of the attacks on Colin Kaepernick is the charge that he has disrespected those who died defending the U.S. in armed conflicts. He did this by sitting, not standing, an act not violent, histrionic, nor damaging to person or property. Are we to assume that that those in the armed forces wanted the outcome of their sacrifices to be a conformist society, in which there was compelled patriotism and specific rules on how that patriotism must be expressed?

Even if we disagree with Colin Kaepernick's contention that law enforcement officers mistreat minorities and criticize him for having no remedy for the problem -- although he did contribute $1 million to social agencies working on the problem -- we should respect his right to express his concern, even if it was done through a change in his bodily position.  

The Uneasy Relationship Between Donald Trump and Mike Pence

After the 2012 presidential election, Reince Priebus, the head of the Republican National Committee, conducted what came to be called an autopsy. The objective of the autopsy was to try to discover how the Republican party could do a better job of reaching out to African Americans, Hispanics and women. Then along came Donald Trump and the outreach effort was effectively destroyed. Not only has Donald Trump vowed to deport the estimated eleven million undocumented immigrants in the U.S., but he has depicted as criminals those Mexicans wanting to come to the United States. He is a harsh critic of Black Lives Matter and his unconditional support of law enforcement officers drives away the many African Americans who have received discriminatory treatment at the hands of law enforcement officers. Moreover, Trump has not proposed programs that might make the lives of minorities better. Trump's many derogatory comments about women; claims that he has engaged in sexual harassment of women; and his conversion to an anti-choice position on abortion have all contributed to the latest polling that Hillary Clinton has a 23 percentage lead on him for the upcoming general election.

When Donald Trump picked Indiana Governor Mike Pence to be his running mate, the general media reaction was that Pence would help him with conservative voters and ease concerns about Trump among what has come to be called the Republican Establishment. Perhaps Pence has helped Trump in the ways described above; however, has he helped in the outreach effort? If we assume that Republican women are much more anti-choice than Democratic women and those women who style themselves Independents are also more pro-choice, than perhaps Pence has hurt, rather than helped the Trump/Pence ticket.

The most recent polls I have seen show that Trump is receiving a  decidedly lower percentage of support from Republican women than either John McCain or Mitt Romney. Pence's record in Congress and in the governor's chair in  Indiana will hardly endear the Republican ticket to pro-choice women. While in the U.S.House of Representatives,  Mike Pence voted to give personhood rights to embryos and cut off funding for Planned Parenthood. He famously or infamously said that mothers with outside jobs will lead to "stunted emotional growth" for their children. For those women who want equal treatment for women in military service, Mike Pence doesn't want a combat role for women.

Another turn-off for Democratic women, in particular, might be that while in Congress, Pence threatened to block Katrina funding unless it was offset by cuts to Medicare, the National School Lunch Program and PBS.

Turning now to the matter of how compatible are Trump and Pence on issues, there were and still are wide differences between the two:
*Pence was a critic of Trump's anti-Muslim ban but has changed his position to align with Trump.
*Pence was never a proponent of torture but now will go beyond waterboarding.
*Pence voted for all, or almost all, free trade treaties that came up for  a vote in Congress.
*Pence voted for the AUMF in 2003 but Trump has given him a pass on it.
*Pence initially signed a bill to allow services to be withheld from L.G.B.T. people based on a moral or religious belief but resubmitted the matter to the state legislature after a firestorm of criticism broke out. Trump was once okay with allowing trans persons to use bathrooms that correspond with their gender choice but now wants to leave the matter up to the states.
*Trump once didn't consider John McCain to be a war hero; however in a clumsy back-and-forth exchange in the  60 Minutes interview, he gave Pence permission to say he respects McCain.

There have been instances during the campaign when Pence has tried to soften or reword something Trump has said, but they have tried to avoid direct contradictions of one another.