XPost: alt.tv.pol-incorrect, alt.fan.rush-limbaugh, alt.politics.usa
XPost: talk.politics.usa

The first disappointment to come from the Gwen Berry saga this week is
the revelation that the Olympic “hammer throw” is not an event where
athletes grab hammers out of toolboxes and throw them at one another.
The Olympics are even more boring than I thought.



The second is that yet another athlete who could not achieve the
attention they desired through their performance on the field has
managed to attract it through half-baked political protests. I realize
that I only contribute to this problem by talking about her, but then
again, an American Olympian who publicly reveals her hatred for our
country deserves to be named and shamed. It would be best if we could
simply toss her from the team, and maybe exile her to a desert island somewhere, but neither of those measures are likely to be taken. We are
left only to condemn what are certainly condemnable actions.


After turning her back on the flag and pouting as the Anthem played, it
took Berry a few days to come up with some kind of semi-intelligible
reason for her antics. She offered her official excuse on Wednesday,
claiming that the Anthem is racist because it references African slaves
having their blood “slain and piltered all over the floor.” One can
immediately detect a problem with this rationalization, which is that “piltered” is not a word. Admittedly, piltered kind of sounds like it
could be a word, the sort of faux-word you might throw down in Scrabble
and hope that no one challenges it.


In this case, I am challenging it. And we need only check the stanza
she’s referencing to see the truth:


A home and a Country should leave us no more?
Their blood has wash’d out their foul footstep’s pollution.
No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave,
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.


Nothing about blood being piltered, or even filtered or pilfered. And
the mention of “slaves'' here has nothing to do with African slaves at
all. Contrary to popular belief, African slavery in America was not the
only kind of slavery to ever exist. Indeed, slavery was being practiced
in the Middle East a good 8,000 years before white Americans partook in
it. And after Americans abolished it (which they did only 90 years
after the country was established), slavery was still practiced all
across the non-western world. Here’s a fact you probably didn’t hear in
school: slavery was still legal in one African country as recently as
1980.


The point here is that not every reference to slavery is a reference to
the only kind of slavery that anyone in this country cares about or
talks about. There were other forms. In this case, the verse is meant
to be a dismissive reference to the British army, which consisted of mercenaries (hirelings) and those impressed into service against their
will (slaves). Whether the blood of these poor saps was “piltered all
over the floor” is a question for another time.


So, what is Berry’s real complaint? Answer: she doesn’t have one. This
country has been good to her. Just by virtue of living here, she is
already freer and richer than the vast majority of people who have ever
lived on the planet. I say that without knowing a single thing about
her finances or background because I don’t need that information in
order to make such a statement. Now this country sends her to the
Olympics and doesn’t even punish her for using it as a platform for
childish political statements. She certainly leads a better and more
successful life here than she would anywhere else, which is why she is
here and not anywhere else. You will notice that about every American
who hates America: they remain Americans.

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XPost: alt.tv.pol-incorrect, alt.fan.rush-limbaugh, alt.politics.usa
XPost: talk.politics.usa

In article <F2.19.47321.4A05FD06@bb.mta1vrest.cc.prd.sparkpost>,
"Matt Walsh" <matt.walsh@mail.dailywire.com> wrote:

an American Olympian who publicly reveals her hatred for our
country deserves to be named

How do you feel about americans who reveal their hatred for our
country when they revile the Declaration of Independence, the
14th amendment, and the 15th amendment?

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