How are the two statements meaningfully different in this situation?
The symbols are not the meaning. The flag is neither the country nor its ideals.
It isn’t about Kaepernick anyway. That’s all diversionary. It’s about police racism, and our failure to address it effectively. Let’s stay focused.
Sure, but the guy kneeled during the National Anthem! KNEELED! That’s way more important than the police shooting unarmed black people.
I know right! Imagine what sort of country we’d live in if people felt that that could protest with impunity against state-sponsored social injustice.
Coercion into mass acts of submission to symbols is not a characteristic of true patriotism, is it? That’s how other forms of government have operated - governments we have professed to repudiate and have fought to overthrow.
Probably end up with a bunch of hippies destroying the country forever. Gay marriage, women’s rights, it’s a fast highway to anarchy!
You left out the coloreds thinking they’re as good as us. Seems kinda relevant here.
What moron goes looking for a job with “pissing off customers” on his resume?
The person who screwed Kaepernick was and is Kaepernick.
I have no idea what point you’re trying to make.
…they are literally different statements.
They literally mean two different things.
That objectively makes the two statements meaningfully different.
You asked about a comment made 18 months ago. At the time, Kaepernick had just optioned out of his contract - free agency was barely a week old, and before virtually everything you talked about. Do you think maybe the things said before all of that might have changed in the interim?
consequence for Kaepernick: people will remember his name for something.
This aside, and I don’t even necessarily disagree with you, do you understand why Elway’s pre-protest offer is irrelevant to the issue at hand? Do you also understand that Elway’s offer suggests that Kaep’s lack of followup offers is directly related to the protest, and not his ability to play?
In terms of the accusation of collusion, it becomes easier to prove because the “he isn’t good enough to sign” defense is off the table. Personally, I don’t think they colluded, but if Elway and another GM discussed not hiring Kaep over the protest, I might be persuaded that they deserve a monetary slap on the wrist for being stupid.
Wasn’t Kaepernick offered a contract by the Ravens fairly recently? Only to have it withdrawn his girlfriend put up an ill-advised tweet?
The only source I found was a Ray Lewis interview for that, though.
Hmm…
…contract-employee publicly avows that he doesn’t share the values that his prospective employers tout as part of their marketing/branding strategies and campaigns; then publicly refuses to follow the corporate line wrt said marketing/branding; and then has a hard time finding gainful employment within said organization(s)…
…nah, nothing to see here. :rolleyes:
Coach John Harbaugh and team president Dick Cass confirmed they had been in contact with Kaepernick, but the stuff about the deal blowing up because of the girlfriend’s tweet comes from Ray Lewis. That was almost exactly a year ago.
Now I’m just not sure what your timeline is. Trump was doing his asshole tweet thing DURING THE ELECTION, well over 18 months ago, now.
Just going to throw this out as a data point.
I saw a billboard today that said, “Believe in something, even if it means sacrificing everything.” over a picture Pat Tillman.
Apparently the creator of the billboard couldn’t be bothered with respecting the explicitly expressed wishes of Pat Tillman’s widow for assholes to stop using Tillman’s image for purposes of political polarization and condemning free expression:
Also, you’d think that by now conservatives and war hawks would be a bit embarrassed to keep reminding people of Pat Tillman, who was not only killed by his fellow US soldiers in a catastrophic “friendly fire” mishap that the Army subsequently tried to cover up, but who had by that time developed some strongly negative views of the war effort and the Bush administration.