It’s remarkable how quickly we’ve moved from a situation in which people wanted to punish athletes for kneeling before a game to one in which other people want to punish athletes for not kneeling before a game. But there is at least a consistency of principle, one articulated by T. H. White in The Once and Future King: "The fortress was entered by tunnels in the rock, and, over the entrance to each tunnel, there was a notice which said: EVERYTHING NOT FORBIDDEN IS COMPULSORY."