Colin Kaepernick’s national anthem protest.

The USA spends $700 billion a year on its military, 58% of its discretionary budget, more than the rest of the world combined, and that doesn't include the trillions of off-budget emergency dollars it spends on the wars it is always engaged in, either overtly or covertly, that are always somebody else's fault. The USA also sells more weapons than any other country and of course debates endlessly in its political discourse and TV and Hollywood movies who to bomb, kill, or invade.

To run a war machine on a scale this large, you need a public who think that war and flag and country and the military are the most important things in the whole world. Someone is out to get you. Communists. They want to take your money and give it to the government and take your guns away and tell you what to do. Freedom! Mine!

I'm surprised the Star Spangled Banner isn't playing all the time everywhere. Thankfully it is only at sports events, which if you watch them on TV, you can mute.