Just got an item off a news feed which said the straw that broke Colin’s back and made him decide to file was when Brandon Weedon was signed a few weeks ago.
The man has a point there: Weedon suuuuuuucks. Hard to argue that K doesn’t belong in the same league as Weedon.
If everyone independently reached the conclusion that Kaepernick is a weenie that would poison your locker room, its not collusion, it probably just means you’re a weenie.
This is a non-problem. I’m sure the NFL carries collusion insurance.
Even if Kaepernick wins his lawsuit, what can a judge possibly do? Order all 32 NFL teams to hire Kaep? Only one team can have him on their roster at a time. If the judge selected a team at random - say, the Vikings - and said, “You, sign Kaep now!” the Vikings would say, “Why us? There are 31 other teams that could.” And in the end no team would sign him.
I don’t see how a pro-Kaep judgement could possibly be enforced; you cannot coerce an NFL team into signing a player it doesn’t want to. Or - if you could - then the legal ramifications/precedent would be quite disturbing.
I happen to agree 100%, but Kaepernick isn’t the only guy in that boat. Employers consider more than just raw talent, there’s also how well you mesh with the rest of the team and if you fit their corporate culture.
That being said, if I’m an owner I figure i can probably sign him for a bargain basement price.
Inevitably by not far into page 1 most of the posts are about the merits of Kaepernick’s issue which isn’t really the point, whatever you think of them.
I have to comment on ‘harming a few dogs’ though since my dog is a ‘pit bull’ survivor of cruel alleged fighting breeder treatment. She’s a very nice creature I hasten to add, though looks very ferocious. 
Not funny how she was treated though (even as far as visible scars).
That said, while there was actually a small movement at first to say it was ‘racist’ to complain about Vick since ‘white people hunt’ (the famous knucklehead on the NY Knicks, Stephon Marbury, a deservedly less famous basketball player, said this I recall), in the end Vick admitted he’d committed a serious wrong, showed remorse and ‘paid his debt to society’. Now, if no team had wanted him even after that I don’t see how he could have called that ‘collusion’ without, you know, actual collusion. Everyone agreeing independently you’re not worth the trouble of hiring is not ‘collusion’.
Maybe CK has proof of collusion. I very much doubt it. Much more likely he thinks or some lawyer has convinced him he can somehow win the point by redefining ‘collusion’ as ‘everyone comes to the same conclusion independently, but it’s a perceived unfair conclusion’. But those aren’t the same at all, and it would be a very bad decision by whatever legal or other body went along with it. Again a bad decision even if you think the apparently independently reached consensus among team front offices is unfair.
It would be a monetary judgment, for lost income or similar.
Okay, this is just ridiculous. The right to not like your country and protest it is a fundamental concept of democracy. It is in fact why we broke off from England in the first place. It cannot ever be wrong to hate one’s country.
On the other hand, we have a guy who hurt innocent beings for money. Innocent animals died, not for food, but for the pleasure of those who enjoy seeing innocent animals hurt one another. You have to lack basic empathy to even enjoy these sorts of things.
There is one thing that is actually harmful and violates actual ethical concepts. There is another thing that hurts absolutely no one. There can be no argument that not standing for the national anthem is worse than dog fighting. To make that argument is to pretend that white is black and black is white. It is literally reversing the concepts of good and evil.
That’s why I push so freaking hard to acknowledge good and bad as actual things, and not these things that people randomly decide. You wind up with these ridiculous arguments that somehow something that harms no one is worse than something that harms innocent animals for fun.
Not being allowed to voice you dislike of a country is what happens in an authoritarian state. It is part of what makes authoritarianism evil. A democracy requires being able to say "My country is doing wrong. It should stop."And democracy is, as created by our Founding Fathers, an actual moral argument that they happened to win a war to establish.
The rights to criticize your government is an inalienable right.
There is so much wrong here I can’t begin to challenge all of it. I’m not altogether sure that we broke off from England so that we could protest our dislike of Great Britain, but, OK.
The last time I checked, the FBI wasn’t locking up NFL players who took a knee. That’s the agreement that Constitution has with the American people - one between the state and the people.
Other Americans can voice their displeasure at the the actions of the plays, and vent that displeasure by protests of their own, pressuring the NFL, pressuring other financial supporters of the NFL. That is their right.
So is the right of a private organization to fire you, or not hire you, if you say so in public.
It also requires being able to say “You’re fired, you pompous putz.”
Regards,
Shodan
The CBA allows for remedies, including compensatory & non-compensatory (i.e. punitive) damages. See Article 17, Section 9, if collusion is proved to have occurred. The NFL owners are as bound by the CBA as any other business that signed a contract with a union, so it’s 100% enforceable. The ramifications and precedent have been in place for a long time, and are quite routine now.
Because the flag and anthem are not about the parts of the system that he dislikes. They stand for the country as a whole. So by saying he can’t respect them, he’s saying he can’t respect the country as a whole, and that in his mind it’s a net negative.
It’s not just me who looks at it this way. That’s what Kaepernick himself said, as I quoted above. “I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color”. And I agree with him that this is what he’s conveying with his actions.
It’s as if you have a guy who has done a lot for you and yours, and who you expect and demand that he keep on doing these things, but you publically refuse to shake his hand as an expression of your refusal to show any respect for him due to disagreement with other things he does. That means you think he’s net-net very much a negative and whatever you’re taking from him is against your will. Otherwise you’re an ingrate and a jerk, and the guy should cut off ties with you and let you find someone else you like better.
Speech like that is an example of “1st Amendment Extremism” and should not be protected. Off to re-education camp!
I’m not a football fan, but even I know that Kaepernick couldn’t hack it as a player. That’s why he’s best known for his kneeling stunt.
So you’re going to change his argument to fit YOUR perception. He said according to your quote that he is not going to respect the flag. Even if we expand that to the anthem then you’re still mischaracterizing his position. The flag is a piece of cloth and the anthem is just a song. It is not the same as the USA or the military.
“With 32 teams in the league, if he is one of the top 64 QBs then he should be employed. I think most football types think that he is, therefore he should be at least a backup somewhere. I think that makes a good case for collusion.”
Again the point is IMO that even if Kaepernick is among the top 64 (or fewer) QB’s, the fact he doesn’t have a job is not ‘a good case for collusion’.
Perhaps several NFL front offices disagree with you and quietly believe Kaepernick is better than their back up, compatible enough with their ‘system’ etc, but still don’t hire him because afraid of backlash from fans or ‘the right wing hate machine’, or the owner simply has a strong distaste for the protest*. That might be perceived by proud ‘lib dems’ as unfair and wrong. But it is not collusion. Collusion is where those potential landing places called each other up and said ‘hey we won’t hire CK if you don’t’. I believe the chance of that is extremely remote. And the fact CK doesn’t have a job is itself basically zero evidence that happened.
*especially as promoted by CK himself, which included statements and symbols contradicting the people explaining CK’s protest for him in more soothing and uplifting terms.
I’m a bit unclear about that myself (which is why I’ve been using both terms in various posts). Kaepernick said “flag” but it was in the context of explaining why he sat for the anthem. So he’s apparently using them interchangeably. But it makes no difference in any event. The same thing applies to both.
This is just stupid. These things are symbols which stand for things. And nobody appreciates that better than Kaepernick himself - otherwise his protest would be completely pointless.
This is beyond obvious, and I don’t anticipate responding to further idiocy along these lines.
Here in my office, I’m surprised how many people think if there is a reason that owners don’t want to hire Kaepernick that are external to the playing field than that’s collusion. But that’s not the case.
Miami needed a quarterback recently, and Kaepernick was in the discussion. But his pro-Castro stance made that impossible from a PR standpoint. That might have been the sole reason for not hiring the guy, but it was enough. That’s not collusion of course, but some think it is.
So using your slippery-slope and all-or-none logic can we assume your condemnation of CK means you support oppressing black people and people of color, or at least you support a country that oppresses black people and people of color?
Why not go all the way and say it proves that I personally oppress black people and people of color?
Quite possibly I throw them into a pit with Michael Vick’s dogs.