Twenty-nine-year-old Andrew Luck retires as quarterback of the Indianapolis Colts because of injuries, and sportswriters once again push Colin Kaepernick as his replacement, or at least a backup to his replacement.

Nobody wants Kaepernick.  Nobody likes Kaepernick.  Kaepernick stirs up trouble and won't leave well enough alone.  He has cost many people a lot of money.  He has made teams that were doing fine suddenly become tense.

It isn't racial.  It's this: everyone has to take Kaepernick's side or be branded racist.  That's not right.  Not everyone is comfortable being forced to publicly take a side one way or another, and they're not all racists.  They're just private about such things as they're private about their religious beliefs or their personal lives.

It remains true that nobody owes Colin Kaepernick another shot at the NFL.  He made his choice, and now he gets to live with it — as we all get to live with the consequences of our choices.

Kaepernick has already lived the dream that so many men have had: to play a professional sport at the highest level.  He did that and made millions.  Many of us would give years off our lives to have played a pro sport, to get paid to play a game we love.

We didn't get to.  Colin Kaepernick did.  Then he bit the hand that fed him.  Agree or disagree with his politics, the man has no right to play in the NFL.  The fact is that he had it great, and he messed it up all on his own.

Right or wrong, you don't talk bad about or show up the boss if you want to keep your job.  This is the same lesson Madeleine Westerhout learned the hard way.  She doesn't get to work at the White House anymore, and Colin Kaepernick doesn't get to work for an NFL team.

There aren't many who feel any sympathy for him.

Image: Kate via Flickr.