Letter: The right to kneel

In September 2016, a football player felt the need to make a statement about injustice, taking a knee during the national anthem. A year later, as the story petered out, President Donald Trump tweeted it to the front page. There are now calls to boycott the sport, to fire players, to enforce behavior respecting the flag. It leaves me wondering what happened to conventional wisdom, that I may disagree with what you say, but I’ll die for your right to say it. Now, all too many say that we have to agree with the opinions of others. That’ll never happen. There’s no purity test to be an American; we are free to express ourselves. For justification, you don’t have to wander too far into the Bill of Rights to find it; it’s the First Amendment. Let them take a knee, or refuse to hold their hand over their heart, or burn the flag — it happens to be constitutionally protected behavior. If you have a problem with our Constitution, that’s a different discussion. Though I don’t necessarily agree with these players, I spent 10 years active duty in the U.S. Army to defend their constitutional right to take that knee.