NFL to start fining teams when their players kneel for anthem
- Thread starter Phil C. McNasty
- Start date
NFL are morons to take this on. There are real issues affecting football and players but the NFL would rather talk about this than concussions and the REAL factors affecting their bottom line.
p.s. game attendance has been pretty much constant and TV viewership has been falling for years.
p.s. game attendance has been pretty much constant and TV viewership has been falling for years.
False equivalence.
Spouting off neo nazi ideology and hatred is not the same as legitimate protesting against government treatment of a target group of people under the rule of law (i.e. to be safe before the law and not to get shot on sight.)
There is a difference between hate speech and offending people. It is your right to to offend. It is not your right to discriminate against a target group of people and to violate their civil rights. Football players kneeling during a national anthem does not violate anyone's civil rights, ergo it must be allowed under the terms of the US constitution. (First Amendment I believe.) At the end of the day, this new policy is strictly being driven by optics. The NFL appeals, or markets itself to a largely "NASCAR" crowd. Apple pie, chevrolet and the American way and such people don't take kindly (or understand for that matter, nor even care to understand) the reasons behind the protest kneel.
On the other hand, the NFL is not FORCING the players to stand, they are giving them the out to stay in the dressing room. I guess their reasoning is that it allows the players who choose to protest not to attend the national anthem and at the same time appeases the NASCAR crowd that will get all bent out of shape watching some players kneel during the national anthem. Only thing is that the easily offended NASCAR crowd will figure out very quickly just which players choose to sit it out in the dressing room and will get just as offended as if they witnessed players taking the knee.
1. Are you implying that because they receive tax subsidies that they should stand for the national anthem? Why? Taxes are paid by the populace and I am sure that a significant portion of the tax paying populace feels that it's fine if the players kneel.
2. The fact that tax payers subsidize NFL teams any way any how is just plain stupid. Tax payer money should never be spent on professional sports teams.
Who's to say that the NFL is losing fans due to the kneeling protest. Maybe people are just tired of the BS that comes with the hype surrounding the NFL. Maybe young people have better things to do than to watch an NFL game or they don't give a fuck.
Maybe a simpler solution is to end the playing of national anthems before sporting games. By your logic....
I don’t know what the law is but it seems reasonable to me that the league should be able to tell players to confine their protests to their own time.
Maybe the players will kneel anyway and face the fines and suspensions...if they do I would support them. Sometimes there’s a cost for standing up for your beliefs.
I also think that though the league, imho, can do this it is not smart for them to do it. It’s like they are drawing a line in the sand and daring the players to cross it. What are they gonna do if the players unite in breaking this rule en masse?
Maybe the players will kneel anyway and face the fines and suspensions...if they do I would support them. Sometimes there’s a cost for standing up for your beliefs.
I also think that though the league, imho, can do this it is not smart for them to do it. It’s like they are drawing a line in the sand and daring the players to cross it. What are they gonna do if the players unite in breaking this rule en masse?
They can hide in the dressing room and have asecret protest? LOL...... I see the players union was not a part of this decision. They were excluded. I will boycott the NFL now.
James, the 1st amendment only allows for protection of free speech from the government, it doesnt say you're allowed to say anything you want on company time without repercussions. It also doesnt say you're allowed to scream "fire" in a crowded movie theatre.
1st amendment was originally created so people could criticize the government without being thrown in jail or killed.
That was unique at the time, because nowhere in the world could you criticize governments or kingdoms without being charged with treason.
My Hitler analogy is perhaps a bit extreme, so how is this scenario: What if a waiter wears a Trump MAGA button on his shirt. And some patrons get offended and leave the restaurant causing the owner to lose business. Does the owner not have the right to enforce a dress code and ask the waiter to remove his Trump button?? I think he does.
If the waiter wants to support Trump let him do that on his own time
Youtube is filled with videos of fans burning their jerseys because of the kneeling. Its safe to say they lost a fair amount of supporters
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gKgfs5kArP0
You don't have freedom of speech while in someone else's employ. That's a slam dunk point of law.
We already have re-education camps, its called "political correctness", and it was started by the Left.
Say something we don't like and we'll boycott you and try to end your career, all the while championing free speech of course
Quite aside from whether I am a Trump "fan", I am unabashedly an NFL fan. As a long time season ticket holding fan, I don't want to see any protests as part of the event, even if the protest was "pro-Trump". I like my sports without a side of politics. I'm not American, so the "disrespect to the flag" is not what riled me up (although I understand why it could). What irritated me was the idea that I didn't pay (more and more each year) to see somebody grandstand their political views, particularly views I don't agree with. I paid to watch football. If the NFL wants to dress the game up in a wrapper of ceremony, I don't mind, as long the ceremony doesn't irritate me. It's bad enough that political correctness is endangering the existence of NFL cheerleaders (already gone from Buffalo). Don't wreck my entertainment with political idiocy!
And lastly, I expect the NFL to listen to people like me - people who are paying the bills - rather than a bunch of whiners who don't attend games and at most only pay attention to Super Bowl commercials and go to Super Bowl parties only to drink wine and eat canapes and couldn't even tell you the score at any time.
Maybe Kaepernick could start up an all protest league where people could dress up as football players, protest for 60 minutes, and only play football during the anthem? I suspect he wants to hang on to his NFL money enough not to try that!
Kind of like the President publicly advocating for the protesting players to be fired then encouraging his dimwitted base to boycott the NFL?
Do you even read what you write, or are you completely blind to irony?
Exactly my point, on the one hand you guys on the Left feel its OK for store owners to be fined who refuse to bake cakes for gays because of their religious beliefs, but when Trump wants to fine players for disrespecting the US flag suddenly you think thats wrong.
Case in point: https://www.statesmanjournal.com/st...akery-owners-gay-wedding-cake-case/985096001/
Hey Mr Slam Buddunk, article on the issue today in that unpatriotic fake news rag, the WaPo.
I haven't read it yet, since it's paywalled. But maybe someone can access it and tell us what it says.
I get your point. You actually write in intelligible sentences in this thread - lol. But I get the feeling that with public events with millions of viewers and celebrity employees, it ain't as simple as the asshole who wears a Hitler t-shirt to his waiter job.
How is that an intelligent analogy, Phil?
In the cake case, the owner was discriminating against gays. In the NFL protest case, it's a free speech argument. Two different sections of the Constitution with different caselaw.
For instance, I am perfectly at liberty to write a learned article criticizing the legal ruling in the gay cake case. I presume that I could even protest the ruling. But I can't openly dsicriminate against gays by refusing to bake the cake - depending on the USSC ruling. Two different things. Free speech does not = no cake.
