Support the NFL protesters

If you don't live in a log, you have surely heard of the NFL protesters who have been taking a knee during the national anthem before the football game begins.
This started with Colin Kaepernick, who, in 2016, took a knee during the national anthem to protest police violence against blacks.
Kaepernick made it clear what his motives were, he wasn't protesting the military's involvement in the world, the unjust U.S. wars that have killed a few million people the last 16 years.
He wasn't protesting the U.S. Empire.
He was protesting what he saw as injustice.
This to me, seems to be the most noble of protests that an individual could make. Keeping true to one's conscience. Which, according to the Founding Fathers of America, said was key to American Liberty, the Freedom of Conscience.
There are many quotes and writings about the Freedom of Conscience. It is where the 1st amendment stems from, while today it is talked about freedom of religion or speech, it boiled down to one person's conscience.
The Founders held that a man's conscience was the one thing that he must be free to pursue, as he would be and is accountable to God for his actions in regards to his conscience.

Obviously, the Donald Trump's comments disregarding the NFL players freedom to pursue their conscience, or at least suggesting, (I would say demanding) that a player be punished for expressing their conscience, stirred up a huge national debate towards this subject.
It turned into "they don't respect the military, or the flag the "brought them freedom".
It's odd to even say this, if the military, supposedly, fights for the freedom of Americans to express themselves, then the NFL players should be heralded as hero's of the cause.

I personally think, since when does the American flag belong strictly to the military? I thought it represented 'Merica? Since when does a piece of cloth demand so much loyalty?

Most soldiers I know, will tell you, they didn't fight for the ol red, white and blue, they fought for their comrades next to them who just wanted to get home alive.

This stigma towards the flag and anthem, is just nationalism at it's best. Don't you dare question the flag, for to do so, you question the State.
And that is the one thing the State cannot allow.
The State needs, even if it must compel, total loyalty, and consent.

I know it's hard for some dad or uncle who told his son or nephew how proud he was that he was going to war for Uncle Sam, (only to have his son obliterated, or mangled, just to find out the very State he was fighting for had anything in mind but the agenda it sold the young lad,) to admit he was wrong and maybe holds some fault for the outcome of his child, but sometimes the truth sucks.

So, instead of being a dolt and blindly following the State no matter what it tells you, and rather the opposite, support the ones who the State calls enemy, especially when it is your own countrymen.

Here is a link to the good men who stood against the State, even if it was a meager stance, and not totally with all the right intentions.

Stand with these folks, and BUY THEIR JERSY'S. Or any other trinkets that have their jersey numbers on it.

As Jefferson said so well, " the spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions, that I wish it always to be kept alive. It will often be exercised when wrong, but better so than not be exercised at all".

NFL Players who took a stand by taking a knee

I am happy to say, my favorite team, the New England Patriots, had 20 of the 53 man roster kneel.

Part 2: John Locke

Rothbard puts it this way, "If Liberty found its martyr in Algernon Sidney, it found its elaborated systematic defense in the 'Essay concerning Civil Government' of the noted philosopher, John Locke."
He goes on to say, " The Essay, we now know, was written in the early 1680s at about the same time as Sidney's Discourses; it was therefore written when Locke too was a Revolutionary plotter against Stuart Rule, and NOT, as had been assumed, as a conservative ex post facto rationale for the Glorious Revolution."
Locke starts his theory with the state of nature, where each man is able to maintain himself by mixing his labor with his hands. This gave the "mixer" ownership of land that was before unowned or unused. It becomes his private property, which he is able to sell, trade, or use to whatever benefit or detriment he chooses. Basically the fruits of your labor are yours.
The owner also has a Right to defend his property, which is now beyond just his own person, and this was the rationale that Locke used for the purpose of government, that governments are instituted among men to protect property. If the government fails to protect or, even worse, becomes destructive to private property, it is the Right of the people to remove that government, since the only reason men consent to its existence is merely to protect their property.
Locke put it this way, "Whenever the legislators endeavor to take away and destroy the property of the people, or to reduce them to slavery under arbitrary power, they put themselves into a state of war against the people, who are thereupon absolved from any further obedience, and are left to the common refuge which God hath provided for all men against force and violence."
Locke's first Treatise was written to refute Sir Robert Filmer's "Natural Power of Kings" that claimed the absolute Monarch was ordained by God, saying Adam was the first Monarch ordained by God. Locke attacked this theory, and claimed if it were true then Adam's lineage would be the only rightful heirs to any kingdom. Locke also pointed out that God gave Adam dominion over the animals and land, NOT other humans.
We need to remember what was going on here--the King had been deposed, and some folks wanted to reinstate a monarch. Others did not. I think we can see that the ones who wanted to reinstate a monarch were the ones who would directly benefit from having one, a benefit of both finance, position and power. Of course the local serf doesn't benefit from having a monarch; Kings don't normally give land grants and positions of power and wealth to serfs plowing fields or working in textile mills. He gives gifts to his buddies, the ones who either help him into power, or the ones who help keep him in power.
 The revolutionary John Locke, on the other hand, sought to give people power over their own lives, and for them to keep the rewards of their labor, not to have it arbitrarily taken at whatever whim the monarch or his governors might have. He simply stated that men ought to be free, and any government that men agree to, can only exist at the pleasure of the society. And any violation by that government made itself not only useless but criminal.
Locke had a huge influence on Thomas Jefferson's "Declaration of Independence," and some even accused Jefferson of plagiarism. I don't really see it that way myself; nothing is new under the sun. If we can't look to our past great thinkers and expand upon them, what good are they? What good is it for us to discuss and pursue Liberty if our posterity cannot use what we find to progress even further?
Back to the point, and I will try to expand on this later: Revolution was first and had to be first thought of to be a Right of the people before they could actually revolt. Locke showed that this was not a bad thing, and that  people will normally not revolt until the abuses of the government finally become too much to bear. What the 17th century thinkers changed was the actual thought, that the people had not only a Right but a Duty to throw off the chains of oppression brought by any government, even a King that claimed a Divine right to rule. Our American Heritage of Secession and Revolution had to first be justified against thousands of years of thinking to the contrary.  And this thought was simply that the lowly man had just as much Right as the King himself, to be free to do as he pleased.
More from Locke; In all States and Conditions the true remedy of Force without Authority, is to oppose Force to it. The use of force without Authority, always puts him that uses it into a state of War, as the Aggressor, and renders him liable to be treated accordingly.

But if they, who say it lays a foundation for Rebellion, mean that it may occasion Civil Wars, or Intestine Broils, to tell the People they are absolved from Obedience, when illegal attempts are made upon their Liberties or Properties, and may oppose the unlawful violence of those, who were their Magistrates, when they invade their Properties contrary to the trust put in them; and that therefore this Doctrine is not to be allow'd, being so destructive to the Peace of the World. They may as well say upon the same ground, that honest Men may not oppose Robbers or Pirates, because this may occasion disorder or bloodshed. If any mischief come in such Cases, it is not to be charged upon him, who defends his own right, but on him, that invades his Neighbours. If the innocent honest Man must quietly quit all he has for Peace sake, to him who will lay violent hands upon it, I desire it may be consider'd, what a kind of Peace there will be in the World, which consists only in Violence and Rapine; and which is to be maintain'd only for the benefit of Robbers and Oppressors. Who would not think it an admirable Peace betwixt the Mighty and the Mean, when the Lamb, without resistance, yielded his Throat to be torn by the imperious Wolf?

Let your vote always be, "NOT GUILTY"!

New Hampshire actually did something almost completely right. Jury Nullification.
Now people, make a real change and NULLIFY the State.
This is excellent. I hope the folks of New Hampshire jump on their newly found, but always their Right to do, shut down the State.
Good to see most of the comments are positive towards it too.
A reminder, this "law" isn't giving anything to the Jury that they didn't already have, maybe it will just help to wake a few jurors up.
Pay close attention to the one dissenting vote, some commie statist who thinks that the state and its law is god, and of course it is, she is the one who makes "law". "Makes law". Hah. If a man can make law, it's no law you should follow.

New Hampshire Nullification

"We are bound, you, I, and every one to make common cause even with error itself, to maintain the common right of freedom of conscience," Thomas Jefferson to Edward Dowse, 1803

 The great object of my fear is the Federal Judiciary. That body, like gravity, ever acting with noiseless foot and unalarming advance, gaining ground step by step and holding what it gains, is engulfing insidiously the special governments into the jaws of that which feeds them." -- Thomas Jefferson to Spencer Roane, 1821.

"By the bill of rights of England, a subject has a right to a trial by his peers. What is meant by his peers? Those who reside near him, his neighbors, and who are well aquainted with his character and situation in life." Patrick Henry, (Elliont,The Debates in the Several State Conventions on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution, 3:579).

"Why do we love this trial by jury? Because it prevents the hand of oppression from cutting you off...This gives me comfort - that, as long as I have existence, my neighbors will protect me."Patrick Henry (Elliot, 3:545, 546)  

 "Jury lawlessness is the greatest corrective of law in its actual administration. The will of the state at large imposed on a reluctant community, the will of a majority imposed on a vigorous and determined minority, find the same obstacle in the local JURY that formerly confronted kings and ministers."US v. Dougherty