We celebrate Mets first baseman Carlos Delgado’s decision not to perform for “God Bless America” ​​because we haven’t stood for the National Anthem in years. for good reasons

First of all, Star Spangled Banner is, hands down, the most unsingable, hummable, worst song ever written. Worse than any song by Paul MaCartney. Why Congress didn’t scrap it years ago and replace it with Britney Spears’ “Toxic” is beyond us.

Second, we remain seated as a lesson to all fascists in the making; the lesson is that the foundation of this Republic is twofold: equal opportunity and free speech (ie, the First Amendment). If we want to sit through the national anthem, dammit, then we have the right to sit. Everyone seems to forget that the First Amendment protects unpopular speech and expression, including Nazis marching through Skokie (a Jewish neighborhood near Chicago), artists painting the Virgin Mary with cow dung, homosexuals they kiss tongues in public, the television show Friends, and Carlos Delgado showing his opposition to the war in Iraq by not supporting God Bless America.

From an article by Karl Taro Greenfield in this week’s Sports Illustrated:

Delgado says his refusal to stand to sing God Bless America in 2004 and 2005 to protest the Iraq war was simply a logical extension of the values ​​he and his family had long held. “I think it’s the stupidest war in history,” he told The Toronto Star in 2004. “Who are you fighting? Now they’re just ambushing you.”

Since then, big surprise, Delgado has been booed by legions of airheads (Yankee fans) who don’t volunteer to fight in Iraq any more than we would ever teach in high school again.

Finally, a public figure with drawers, like his hero Roberto Clemente.

Let them boo, Carlos, let them boo.