While the conversation and debate around the NFL players centers on what is "respectful" protest or "disrespectful" to our flag, I find a greater undercurrent of concern. For the second time in as many weeks, this administration has called on private businesses or privately held corporations to fire employees based on what it sees as disrespectful or inappropriate behavior by their employees toward the administration or the country.
In the first instance, Sarah Huckabee Sanders stated that ESPN's Jemele Hill should be fired for voicing an opinion regarding Trump. In the second, you have Trump saying NFL players should be fired for kneeling during the playing of the national anthem. This, to me, is a scary and slippery slope. Yes, Harris is black, as are the majority of NFL players taking a knee. But the race issue aside, we have an administration saying a private citizen should be dismissed from employment for "disrespectful" statements about the president or "disrespecting" the flag. That is one step closer to totalitarianism.
When our government calls for dismantling the livelihoods of private citizens because the government disagrees with them, our Constitution has lost all meaning.
ERIKA CHRISTENSEN, Lake Elmo
