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Dave Rubin often gets it, but being the dedicated – if reasonable and honest – liberal that he is sometimes has his blind spots.

Everything you said, I generally agree with. However, I think you missed something. The sacred. It’s an aspect that appears to be a blind spot of yours, and per Haidt, is a common blind spot among those who self-describe as liberal.

If they were JUST protesting police brutality, and systemic racism, say by making comments on TV interviews, etc. or wearing badges, or helmet stickers, or such, most who are upset about this would think they’re silly but it would not be such a big deal.

But what they did isn’t just about kneeling or taking some action in the name of the false narrative of systemic white racism that explains all injustice against blacks all the time (you really should get Colin Flaherty on your show) despite the tight correlation between arrest demographics and the demographics of criminals reported to the FBI by crime victims – disproportionately black ones – in a country that eliminated slavery (which still exists in the world) and has poured trillions into helping them.

It’s about when they explicitly chose to do it.

If we are indeed a nation unified in a culture, willing to be americans first, under a civic national perspective, rather than “blood and soil”, then showing our priorities by the respect we accord our symbols matter.They may “just” be protesting whatever, but they are doing it by showing disrespect to something the rest of us – those they wish to convince – value.

I am unsure if they are blind to the significance of this, as Haidt’s research implies, or if it was done with malice aforethought. I’m sure they realized it would be shocking but I’m also moderately sure at least some were honest in believing that they meant no disrespect.

One of Jordan Peterson’s first podcasts goes into how blind modern, especially liberal, society is to the sacred.

Nevertheless, if we are all americans because we share common values, and common culture, what they just did demonstrates that they do not value our unity and culture under which they have gained much that is not available to them and those they protest for anywhere else, or a willingness to stand shoulder to shoulder with the people they are trying to convince into the future.

If we are kept together by symbols and values and ideas, tearing down those we rally around is dangerous.

Insisting that those who remained standing are standing with white supremacists, like the huffpost did, further gives the lie to “but we meant no disrespect to America.”

Another comment there:

The whole taking the knee thing never made any sense to me. The optics are bad and it makes no sense symbolically. Kneeling is an almost universal sign of submission to a higher power. That’s why we kneel at church but stand for the national anthem. We had to kneel for the kings and nobility when we were a colony, but as a free republic, we get to stand on our own two feet.

Also, taking a knee has a very specific meaning in football. I’ve always hated football and never watch it, but even I know that. IIRC It means, there’s an overwhelming number of opposition players headed for me and I don’t want to get hit, so I’m giving up. I’ll stop play right where I am. At best if I’m in the end zone I’ll take the absolute minimum yardage allowed in the rules, all the way back at the wrong side of the field without even trying to make progress for my team.