{"id":1529,"date":"2017-09-25T20:22:08","date_gmt":"2017-09-26T00:22:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/our-hope.org\/blog\/?p=1529"},"modified":"2017-09-25T20:22:52","modified_gmt":"2017-09-26T00:22:52","slug":"the-nfl-and-the-star-spangled-banner-and-the-desire-for-freedom-from-criticism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/our-hope.org\/blog\/2017\/09\/the-nfl-and-the-star-spangled-banner-and-the-desire-for-freedom-from-criticism\/","title":{"rendered":"The NFL and the Star-Spangled Banner and the Desire for Freedom from Criticism"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Like most of you, I have been somewhat riveted by the debate of recent times spawned by the refusal of some NFL players to stand and show respect for the US Flag during the national anthem before games. \u00a0The President waded into that debate over the last weekend, perhaps unwisely, but time will tell. \u00a0What I want to concentrate on here is tangent to the debate, but still important. \u00a0Jim Harbaugh, the Michigan football coach, responded by telling the President to read the Constitution. \u00a0If I understand his statement correctly, he was suggesting that the President was violating the free speech rights of the NFL players given in the First Amendment. \u00a0But this is patently untrue. \u00a0It is a fallacy we all fall into sometimes. \u00a0When we are debating someone else, especially if that someone else is a good debater, we resort to a false challenge. \u00a0This happens a lot from those on the Left side of the political spectrum but they are not by themselves. \u00a0What they are really arguing for is “freedom from criticism.” \u00a0The First Amendment does not say we have freedom from criticism. \u00a0NFL players who are unhappy with America have the right to criticize by kneeling down during the national anthem. \u00a0Others have the right to criticize those players if they disagree. \u00a0Even Presidents have freedom of speech, although we can criticize them and even vote them out of office. \u00a0As a Pastor and Seminary prof, I received plenty of criticism. \u00a0If we are supposed to be free from criticism, I want to pass the offering plate again. \u00a0Somebody out there owes me something!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Like most of you, I have been somewhat riveted by the debate of recent times spawned by the refusal of some NFL players to stand and show respect for the US Flag during the national anthem before games. \u00a0The President waded into that debate over the last weekend, perhaps unwisely, but time will tell. \u00a0What […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[41,26],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/our-hope.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1529"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/our-hope.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/our-hope.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/our-hope.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/our-hope.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1529"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/our-hope.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1529\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1532,"href":"https:\/\/our-hope.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1529\/revisions\/1532"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/our-hope.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1529"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/our-hope.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1529"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/our-hope.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1529"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}