did anyone see ryan martin at the baseball game?

[RipEmUpShox]

boy i sure am famous on here.
hahahahaha.

[ShockerFever]

I'm not sure 'famous' is the right word.

Dubious maybe?

[RipEmUpShox]

either way i laugh at it.

[SubGod22]

You pretty much implied anyone who had issues with it must have something against Jewish people. I read it a few times before responding and did again and still can't seem to interpret it any differently. But I guess you're saying that you understand that people have a beef with it without being antisemitic, but you don't understand how someone could be against it unless they were? Maybe I'm just too beat right now to fully comprehend what you've meant?

You also said "I think the problem was that it wasn't a USA flag". I think that would have made the responses back then even worse had it been and the majority of those who had issues looked at it like that. It would be disrespectful to do that with the American flag, and to do it to the flag of such a great ally was in very poor taste.

I wasn't calling you ignorant, but the comment that you quoted I felt was. There's a difference there. You've proven in your time on SN to not be ignorant, but that doesn't prevent you, myself or anyone else from making an ignorant comment from time to time. None of us are immune to that.

I definitely didn't and don't want to start any kind of war of words. But the way your first comment read, at least to me, I felt someone had to respond to it and I had some free time to spare.

Personally, I thought the flag thing was disrespectful and in poor taste and was something I'd never in a million years consider doing. But I definitely wasn't one of the ones who was as passionate about the whole debate when it first came up. I respect the hell out of Israel and everything it has to put up with on a daily basis. Of which most of us never will be able to fully comprehend.

It doesn't really matter whether this issue is based upon the premise of upholding patriotism via respecting established symbols and tenets or whether it is simply nationalism in disguise. What matters is that it was meant as a show of support for a team member. It may be considered flag defacement, but the intent was, at base, good - and that is why I assert the notion that some of the negative responses could be rooted in bigotry. I don't consider this ignorant; I consider it plausible and relevant.

I'm not accusing those individuals who were upset about the gesture, of anti-semitism. I am offering the notion, amid the uncertainty of why this has been made such a big deal, that these tendencies could be present. It's not an indictment, it's an idea. It's not a conviction, it's merely a possibility. It's the only logical reason that I (I'm not speaking for anyone else) could connect with the notion of the gesture being"disrespectful".

Fair enough.