Montini: Good plan, President Trump, stifle NFL players but not neo-Nazis

National Football Players need to stand up and shut up during the playing of the national anthem because they are disrespecting the flag.

We are told this by President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence. And by Trump’s cabinet members. And by his supporters, from whom I hear it every single day.

They really like Trump's tough talk.

The president actually has suggested that Congress change tax laws to punish the NFL should the league continue to allow its players to silently take a knee during the national anthem.

The NFL is contemplating rules to stop player protests.

As if Americans don’t have a right to speak their minds.

And we do.

Some of us, anyway. We must, because President Trump has never advocated stifling neo-Nazis and white nationalists.

For example, the gathering of white nationalists celebrating Trump’s election and featuring white supremacist Richard Spencer, president of the National Policy Institute, who led the crowd in a chant of “Hail Trump! Hail our people!” and then, “Hail victory!”

German translation? “Sieg Heil!”

There were American flags at that event.

I don’t recall Trump saying they were being disrespected. Or that the hotel renting space to the group should be hit with special taxes. Or boycotted.

Likewise, I don’t recall the president saying anything about the ugly, disrespectful video featuring Milo Yiannopolous, a former editor at Breitbart, which is run by Trump’s former adviser Steve Bannon. In the video, Milo sings America the Beautiful while young men in the room, including Richard Spencer, raise Nazi salutes.

Did Trump call that disrespecting America or our soldiers or the flag?

Not that I heard.

Did the president seek to impose a special tax on the karaoke bar where the performance took place?

Nope.

By the way, Yiannopoulos left Breitbart after making – seriously -- pro-pedophilia comments. But he might go back. He calls Bannon “Uncle Steve.”

There have been many instances of free speech that seems disrespectful to the American ideal but that Trump didn’t go out of his way to condemn.

Did the white nationalists at Charlottesville, the ones carrying Nazi symbols and Confederate flags disrespect the stars and stripes?

I’d say so.

But I haven’t heard the president say that people expressing such views should be silenced.

And that is because, in America, they shouldn’t.

No one in America should be silenced.

No one should be threatened with loss of employment, or special taxes,  if they happen to say something with which the president (or anyone else) disagrees.

Having a president who suggests such a thing is itself disrespecting everything the flag stands for.

Either we believe in free speech, in the right to publicly state diverse beliefs, or we don’t.

In fact, I’d love to see a meeting of the minds on this flag controversy.

We could, for example, invite Richard Spencer, Milo Yiannopolous and some of their neo-Nazi pals to an NFL football game. During the playing of the national anthem the white supremacists could wave their Confederate and Nazi flags, give the Nazi salute and shout “Seig Heil!” right in front of the protesting football players.

I’d love to see how that goes.