It’s football season, so Colin Kaepernick is in the news again. This time, as the face of Nike’s 30th anniversary “Just Do It” campaign. Some facets of life I can do without; I’ve been doing without football since 2005 because, in the face of actual warfare, violence and crime I couldn’t sustain a passion for manufactured conflict for six months each year. But if I hadn’t given up on football then, I would have by now. In the light of Nike’s announcement, I thought, naturally, of Benito Mussolini who, when describing the ideal of fascism, explained that fascism was, “Everything within the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state.” Il Duce might as well have been talking about the incessant bleed of social justice into every pore of society. Chick-fil-A, Mozilla, Catholic theology, Google, the NFL, movies, music, we can’t escape the Puritanical fervor of social justice warriors (in SJWs’ defense, it doesn’t help to have a President who needlessly trolls them, either, but that’s a different article).
The skirmish lines of the Kaepernick drama are well established. Both perpetually outraged SJWs and cowering corporatists commend the “courage” that has rendered Kaepernick toxic to NFL team owners. Rational classical liberals defend Kaepernick’s right to protest during the national anthem. And those dosing a stronger brand of nationalism can’t move past the supposed sanctity of the national anthem and the offensive timing of Kaepernick’s protest. They are all correct.
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