AM I SUPPOSED TO BE OUTRAGED OVER COLIN KAEPERNICK?

AM I SUPPOSED TO BE OUTRAGED OVER COLIN KAEPERNICK?
by Greg Drobny

Am I supposed to be Outraged Over Colin Kaepernick?

Because I’ll be completely honest with you—I’m just…not.

Sure, the guy seems like kind of a douchebag who is making a “protest” for something he doesn’t quite understand and he’s doing it from a position that appears to be nothing less than the definition of hypocrisy. I don’t think there’s much question about that.

But forgive me for not yelling and screaming about yet another pro athlete/celebrity who says/does something about the National Anthem. I have to welcome the criticism by simply saying that I find most of this rabble to be pretty silly.

I don’t care if a pro athlete doesn’t stand for the National Anthem. If those who spend their hard-earned dollars on watching the NFL (whose player unions, by the way, channel money into political efforts that are anything but “pro freedom”) want to get pissed off at this guy, great—they will make their voices heard through their debit cards and stop watching him play. Or they won’t and this will pass like every other outrage that pops up on the national stage.

You know what I do care about? You know what actually is worthy of being pissed off about?

Last week it was revealed that the US Army “lost” about a trillion dollars. That’s with a “t.” Taxpayer money. Lost. That’s a big deal.

Sudden outrage over the cost of EpiPens has once again demonstrated a profound ignorance over the way lobbying and regulations work in this country (or don’t work, depending on how you look at it), inspiring people to scream and shout for…more regulation, i.e. exactly what we don’t need. That’s a big deal.

Veterans are still committing suicide at a tremendously high rate—some of them while they wait in the VA parking lot. That’s a big deal.

The individual most likely to be our next president ran a State Department that operated on a “pay-to-play” operational model that was deeply entwined with her own charity foundation, which contributed most of its earnings back to its own namesake, making it pretty obvious that her supporters have a very different definition of the term “ethics” than I do. That’s a big deal.

All of that and more—lawmakers trying to slap fees and regulations on people trying to help flood victims, Obama Administration reversing course and pushing the pedal down on a failed drug war policy, and a presidential election that is sure to make you question what America even means any more—are reasons for outrage.

Those are all big deals.

A punk kid football star who makes a ton of money not standing for a National Anthem? Sorry if I’m not outraged. I just don’t see how, in light of what is going on right now, that should even be on the same page as things that piss me off—let alone near the top of the list.

So, if you don’t mind, I will quietly scroll by the “like and share if you think Colin Kaepernick should be______!!!!!” posts on social media without engaging. I think there are bigger issues at hand, and to be quite frank, threatening to kick a person out of the country or enact harm upon him because he won’t stand for an anthem that in many ways doesn’t make sense right now—well let’s just say I find that pretty anti-liberty and leave it at that.

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This post originally appeared on Unapologetically American and was republished with permission.