Lil Wayne's Flag-Stomping Causes Unnecessary Freak Out

While filming a music video for his newest single, "God Bless America," rapper Lil Wayne stepped on a few toes and ruffled a few feathers by doing something entirely-legal-so-calm-the-fuck-down: stepping on the American flag. The horror, the horror!

Only, not really because, you know: freedom. Freedom of speech, I've heard, is a real thing. I know! Crazy, right? (But how else do you think Fox and Friends gets away with anything?) Apparently, America is a land where you can say whatever you want, as afforded by our very fancy and very old piece of paper, the Constitution. Even if it's critical of this country, we're allowed to say it! By George, that shit is bananagrams!

The whole faux-controversy is so dumb it feels hardly worth wasting anyone's time to regale the extremists with a little "Hey, just a friendly reminder that the First Amendment is a real thing. Also, flag-stomping is probably an unavoidable consequence of having an American flag fall down behind you while you film a music video." If anything, I'm not surprised more people aren't freaking out about the lyrics, which are far more incendiary and — again! — protected under the First Amendment. "Yeah, my country tis of thee / Sweet land of kill 'em all and let 'em die / God bless America, uh / This so Godless America / Heard tomorrow ain't promised today / The end of time is like a hour away."

Hey, America: can we stop being such over-hyped reactionaries? Also, maybe listening to criticisms of our country's far-from-perfect ways might, you know, help. Watch the video below and see for yourself.