Opinion articles provide independent perspectives on key community issues, separate from our newsroom reporting.

Letters to the Editor

Letter: NFL players should protest on their own time

Gotta love the NFL! Despite the fact that it’s become nothing but WWF with a ball, it’s unnerving that the owners allow players to disrespect our country while on the clock.

The players may have a legitimate gripe against the police, although I would tend to differ with them. But they have no gripe against their flag or anthem. Neither are a cause of their perceived problems, but as most protesters do, they look for a visible symbol to use to radically exploit their agenda instead of looking for the root cause and fixing it.

This time they chose one of the most sacred symbols of our freedom to exploit — bad choice, at least from my standpoint. I wholly support their right to protest, but I do not support their misguided choice to protest by showing disrespect for our flag at any time and especially while performing what should be a non-political job. I agree with Trump: There should be no tolerance for this in the workplace, period — You’re fired!

Go to work, do your job and protest the heck out of whatever you want on your own time and on your own dime. Pretty simple!

Bruce Stemp, Kennewick

This story was originally published September 28, 2017 at 3:23 PM with the headline "Letter: NFL players should protest on their own time."

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