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Watch: Son of 2 Boston Cops Teaches NFL Players What To Do When the Anthem Plays

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Remember when the newsworthy stuff during an NFL game used to happen after the national anthem was played? Yeah, me neither.

Even when Whitney Houston nailed “The Star-Spangled Banner” before Super Bowl XXV, Scott Norwood’s dodgy kicking managed to upstage (or downstage, depending on whether you’re a Bills fan) what was arguably the finest rendition of the anthem ever performed at a football game.

But, no, it’s yet another NFL season where what happens on the field is going to take a back seat to whether some Noam Chomsky in shoulder pads decides that he’s going to turn the national anthem into his personal platform to make a statement.

What kind of statement? Well, uh, racial injustice. Donald Trump is bad. Something something privilege, blah blah blah, and therefore, America was never great.

Well, whatever. Thankfully, there are still people out there who know what the national anthem means to patriotic Americans, particularly those who have served. And some of them are barely even out of diapers.

Take this video of Garrett, who’s the son of two Boston police officers. He was at a Patriots game recently — and, unlike a lot of the other players, he knew how to properly honor the flag and the anthem:

“Little Garrett may have what it takes for a call to back up in Cop-Pool Karaoke!” the tweet from the Boston Police Department read.

And, as Independent Journal Review pointed out, Garrett had a lot of fans:

https://twitter.com/md_steeler_fan/status/1030957423908020227

Heck, even I like this kid, and he’s a Patriots fan. (I won’t say who I root for outright, but I’ll just point out that I made the Norwood reference and my wife had to talk me out of getting a personalized license plate that read “18-1.”)

Do you think that NFL players should stand for the anthem?

Of course, this is the kind of thing we should be talking about these days — cute kids singing the anthem, and not in politicized terms.

We should be talking about great players making great plays, not their political opinions.

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We should be talking about sports uniting us, not being used as a platform for formless political ideas.

We should be talking about amazing moments like this (if the video doesn’t start, click on the YouTube link):

https://youtu.be/U10h0YTmxjQ

Wait, what? How did that get in there? Talk about lax editorial control…

Alas, that was a simpler time — a time when we just talked about a guy making an amazing catch to win the Super Bowl. (And then later talked about him shooting himself in the leg in a nightclub, but hey.)

Now, we talk about the anthem. Not the play on the field, just the mere fact of asking rich athletes to give some love to the country that’s made them so rich. At least this kid knows how to pay proper respect to his country.

The good thing is that there are plenty more like him.

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C. Douglas Golden is a writer who splits his time between the United States and Southeast Asia. Specializing in political commentary and world affairs, he's written for Conservative Tribune and The Western Journal since 2014.
C. Douglas Golden is a writer who splits his time between the United States and Southeast Asia. Specializing in political commentary and world affairs, he's written for Conservative Tribune and The Western Journal since 2014. Aside from politics, he enjoys spending time with his wife, literature (especially British comic novels and modern Japanese lit), indie rock, coffee, Formula One and football (of both American and world varieties).
Birthplace
Morristown, New Jersey
Education
Catholic University of America
Languages Spoken
English, Spanish
Topics of Expertise
American Politics, World Politics, Culture




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