Taking a Knee vs. Spreading Lies

The NFL is no stranger to controversy, but few stories have ignited such a fierce debate as the uproar that surrounded Colin Kaepernick’s decision to take a knee during the national anthem. While some agreed with him and others defended his right to protest as he saw fit, even when they did not agree with him, the loudest voices were those calling for his ouster from the NFL and labeling him as unpatriotic, unAmerican, or similarly reprehensible. By contrast, Aaron Rodgers has been pushing baseless conspiracy theories for years that make the Federal Government out to be a criminal organization with massive amounts of blood on the hands of its officials and ill-gotten gains in their pockets. Yet almost no one has questioned if Rodgers is a good American.

Kaepernick initially sat out the anthem in 2016. After discussing with former Green Beret Nate Boyer, he decided that kneeling would be more respectful, particularly towards the military. Regardless what others thought about it, Kaepernick saw this gesture as a sign of respect while still protesting. And when asked, explained:

“I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color. To me, this is bigger than football and it would be selfish on my part to look the other way. There are bodies in the street and people getting paid leave and getting away with murder.”

Some may say that Kaepernick is being overly dramatic, or they deny that America has any ongoing problems stemming from our long history of White Supremacy, but their need to deny reality doesn’t change reality. My own sense of how bad these problems still are was dramatically heightened by the killing of George Floyd and the casual disregard the officers had for Floyd’s suffering. Clearly they thought of him as subhuman. 

As for the manner in which Kaepernick chose to express his frustration with endless injustices, I, like many, don’t see the flag the same way he does and would not make a similar choice. For me, the flag is a symbol of how much this republic has achieved, and a promise to strive for a better tomorrow. But I am not black, or a person of color, and I have never lived in fear of what the police might do to me or my family. As I saw it, and still see it, Kaepernick’s peaceful act of protest was a reasonable way to challenged the status quo on a critical issue, but even if one chooses to see him as rude and self-centered, there was little potential for hurt from his actions. At worse, he was making a small contribution to the general cynicism millions of Americans already had about the United States.

To his credit, Aaron Rodgers was one of the people who also agreed that Kaepernick had a right to do what he was doing and people were overreacting to it. Beyond that, however, I see little to respect in Rodgers’ worldview. Like any other, average, tinfoil hat variety, unknown conspiracy theorist (CTer), Rodgers has shown a disturbing willingness to spread misinformation and dangerous conspiracy theories with very little effort to actually educate himself on any of these things.

Despite his reckless pronouncements, Rodgers has become a media darling. His comments on vaccinations during the Covid pandemic, which helped to put peoples’ lives at risk, and his more recent claims suggesting the AIDS epidemic was another government-orchestrated scam, are both outlandishly stupid and profoundly repulsive. Rodgers appears to believe that the US Government is capable of anything and everything that his fellow CTers can make up. He is hardly alone in this, but that doesn’t make it okay. He has allegedly pushed 9-11 “Trutherism,” in private, and he has openly rejected the findings of the Warren Commission in President Kennedy’s assassination, in public. Such nonsense may have become normalized in many parts of the country, but stop and think about what this actually means. If government officials can maintain multigenerational plots, faking viruses or profiting from real ones they made, blowing up buildings with thousands of civilians inside, murdering the Commander-in-chief, and staging school shootings and manipulating us with fluoride—without a single shred of actual evidence getting out — then our entire republic has failed. All the systems our Founding Fathers put in place, which generations upon generations refined and fought for — the separation of powers, free and fair elections, the rule of law, freedom of the press, etc. — it’s all worthless garbage, because the “Deep State” or some other boogiemen are really running everything and faking all the news. What could be more unpatriotic than that?

But where are the calls for Roger’s head? Who is labeling him as unAmerican? Yes, he has been criticized for adversely affecting public health, but that is hardly the same thing.

How can kneeling during the anthem possibly be seen as a greater offense than accusing the government of orchestrating deadly diseases, faking acts of mass murder, committing acts of mass murder, and the assassination of the Commander-in-Chief? There simply is no rational way for this to happen, but who said people are rational?

The drastically different reactions to Kaepernick and Rodgers highlight a few troubling facts: 1) White guys can generally deviate from societal norms without paying the same price that black guys do. 2) The better you are at playing sports, or the greater your celebrity status in any number of areas, the more people will tend to overlook your behavior. 3) In general, people like simple things they can easily divide into good and evil. You completely, “respect the flag,” i.e. you follow the herd or you are evil. At the same time, they don’t want to get into the complexities of breaking down conspiracy theories and separating fact from fiction. Nor do they want to admit how disgusting and dangerous the CTer mindset is, so they just say, “That guy has some crazy ideas,” and move on. 4) No matter how much damage misinformation and disinformation does, the majority of the population refuses to take it seriously.

For those who desperately still wish to believe that Rodgers is some kind of hero for, “asking questions,” and, “doing his own research,” allow me to explain why these bumpersticker slogans prove nothing.

Like so many others, myself included, Rodger’s gateway drug into the conspiracist community was the JFK assassination. As he has said, repeatedly, “when I read, back in the day in 1998 or 9… you read the story about Lee Harvey Oswald being the sole gunman of the president and this magic bullet theory, I remember thinking to myself in the sophomore class, ‘That’s fucking bullshit.’ And that got me into questioning things.” What’s wrong with this, you ask? Well, as I have explained in the documentary, Conspiracy Theorists Lie, and many other places, on many other occasions, there was no, “magic bullet.” This is a phrase and a lie, made up and perpetuated by CTers. Nothing in the Warren Report, or the later Congressional investigation, the HSCA, makes any claim that the bullet was magical. What both the Warren Report and the HSCA found was a straight shot. Only by lying about the position of the car, the position of the men in the car, and the position of Oswald, can CTers claim it was a, “magic bullet.” Then, proving themselves to be shameless liars, they turn around and say, “The official story claimed there was a magic bullet, and that can’t possibly work, so you can’t possibly believe the government.” So long as you only listen to CTers and refuse to look at the real evidence, you can pretend this makes sense.

Now, before you pass this by and overlook the ramifications of this misdirection, consider what this means. Rodgers has had 24 or 25 years to do some actual research, or to simply read and watch some non-CTer, credible sources. It would have been very easy for him to learn the truth, if the truth were his objective. Granted, he is not alone in this; millions of others have done the same thing, including myself for many years. But willful ignorance, be it practiced by one or a hundred million, isn’t a valid excuse for anything. People stay locked into the CTer Worldview because it makes them feel good, not because they care about the truth. Especially today, with the Internet and social media, CTers can wall themselves up in their silos and congratulate one another on how smart they are. How they never believed, “The Government’s ‘magic bullet’ BS,” and they aren’t going to believe anything else, “The Government,” says.

And here in lies that vast gulf between Kaepernick and Rodgers. Like him or hate him. Agree with his peaceful protest or not. Kaepernick is looking at real problems and trying to do something about them; from raising awareness to starting a nonprofit. Rodgers, on the other hand, immerses himself in phony problems and spreads paranoia, at best. You need not praise Kaepernick as a hero, but you should have the decency to admit that he is not a villain. You should also have the decency to rebuke Rodgers, his buddy Joe Rogan, Roger Stone, Oliver Stone, Jesse Ventura, Alex Jones, Donald Trump, RFK, Jr., and all the rest of the Clown Crew. But, who said people are decent?