Kurt Warner standing up for kneeling NFL players
One of the most admired and respected sports figures in Arizona is former Cardinals quarterback Kurt Warner, who not only was a great player, but is a great husband, father and citizen.
Last week, Warner used his Twitter account to speak out on the controversy over NFL players taking a knee during the playing of the national anthem.
Social media is a fast-paced, fickle medium. It doesn’t allow for much reasoned contemplation. But that is what Warner was hoping to encourage.
He’d seen a video on Twitter showing Texas Democratic Rep. Beto O’Rourke, who is challenging Republican Sen. Ted Cruz in that state’s Senate race, answering a question about the NFL protests. O’Rourke was asked if he found such protests disrespectful. After watching O’Rourke’s answer, Warner linked to O’Rourke’s comments and tweeted:
“Every past & present fan of NFL - please listen - I believe he hit the nail on the head & he did so not by dividing the 2 sides but by joining them together in realizing the freedoms of our country have been forged by soldiers but also by many others who have fought in diff ways!”
O’Rourke was speaking at what appeared to be a campaign town-hall event where he took questions. He begins his answer by thanking and paying homage to those who served or are serving in the military.
Then he says, “My short answer is no, I don’t think it’s disrespectful.”
He adds, “My longer answer, but I’m going to try to make sure I make — that I get this right — because I think it’s a really important question. And reasonable people can disagree on this issue; let’s begin there. And it makes them no less American to come down on a different conclusion on this issue, right? You can feel as the young man (who asked the question) does, you can feel as I do, you’re every bit as American, all the same.
“But I’m reminded — someone mentioned reading the Taylor Branch book … ‘Parting the Waters: (America) in the King Years.’ And when you read that book and find out what Dr. King and this non-violent, peaceful movement to secure better — ’cause they didn’t get full — civil rights for their fellow Americans, the challenges that they face.
“Those who died in Philadelphia, Mississippi, for the crime of trying to be a man, trying to be a woman in this country, the young girls who died in the church bombing. Those who were beaten within an inch of their life
crossing the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, with John Lewis; those who were punched in the face, spat on, dragged out by their collar at the Woolworth lunch counter for sitting with white people at that same lunch counter, in the same country, where their fathers may have bled the same blood on the battlefields of Omaha Beach or Okinawa or anywhere that anyone ever served this country.
“The freedoms we have were purchased not just by those in uniform, and they definitely were. But also by those who took their lives into their hands riding those Greyhound buses, the Freedom Riders in the Deep South in the 1960s, who knew full well that they would be arrested, and they were, serving time in the Mississippi State Penitentiary. Rosa Parks, getting from the back of the bus to the front of the bus.
“Peaceful, non-violent protests, including taking a knee at a football game to point out that black men, unarmed, black teenagers, unarmed, and black children, unarmed, are being killed at a frightening level right now, including by members of law enforcement, without accountability and without justice. And this problem — as grave as it is — is not going to fix itself. And they’re frustrated, frankly, with people like me and those in positions of public trust and power, who have been unable to resolve this or bring justice for what has been done and to stop it from continuing to happen in this country. So non-violent, peacefully, while the eyes of this country are watching these games, they take a knee to bring our attention and our focus to this problem to ensure that we fix it.” O’Rourke’s answer has gone viral.
Lots and lots of people have watched the video of his answer. People who include Kurt Warner, who summed up very well the point O’Rourke was making.
Our freedoms were forged by soldiers in foreign wars, as well as those who risked everything within our country. Because we are free to express our opinions, any citizen can find the NFL protests offensive. But un-American?
Actually, they are uniquely, preciously American. I defer in this argument to the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, whose career was, in the words of President Donald Trump, “defined by his reverence for the Constitution and his legacy of protecting Americans’ most cherished freedoms.”
Scalia said of flag-burning, which most people would find way more offensive than taking a knee: “If I were king, I would not allow people to go around burning the American flag. However, we have a First Amendment, which says that the right of free speech shall not be abridged — and it is addressed in particular to speech critical of the government. That was the main kind of speech that tyrants would seek to suppress.”