To a lot of people round these parts, the Confederate flag just means “anti-liberal” or, even less specifically, “fuck you”. But you’d think that people making a big fuss about other folks’ alleged insufficient respect for patriotic symbols would do the basic due diligence about what message their own iconographic choices are sending.
Hence my question. Pence, former governor, used a Peyton Manning event to stage his own political protest at the public’s expense, then he bailed. I don’t think this is expected to warm the hearts of regular people and in most places it wouldn’t; it would anger them.
Our Vice President went to an NFL game yesterday, only to leave immediately when players knelt for the anthem.
Now, this was obviously an orchestrated (if lame) PR stunt. But it is telling.
Pence was there in his officially capacity as Vice President. He was working, you might say.
And he left immediately because he was protesting the players disrespecting the flag.
So, I guess the White House is perfectly OK with a) mixing politics and sports and b) peacefully protesting while at work.
Good to know.
Of course, the NFL players’ protests aren’t funded by tax payer money…
A leader would have stayed and listened to their concerns, instead of spending a quarter million taxpayer bucks to exercise his own First Amendment rights.
He walked out of Hamilton, he walked out of an NFL game, what else has he snowflaked out of rather than engage and lead?
You are 100% right. And to answer your question, I say he doesn’t lead. He follows. He follows drumpfs orders. Go forth to the game and if the players don’t stand than you leave. That will show America who’s in charge!
The current white house residents are they exact description of the term ‘dickwads’. Actually they’re worse, they are ‘effing dickwads’.
They would have been booed. The Cowboys did the opposite of that, kneeling before the anthem, then standing while the flag was presented and the anthem sang, and they were booed by most of the stadium.
It’s been linked before - Kaepernick went to kneeling instead of sitting on the bench after a discussion with a veteran convinced him the act was still respectful of the troops. The subtle and overt racism surrounding the entire topic is disgusting.
49ers’ safety Eric Reid (one of the players who was kneeling during the anthem before the dotard went senile racist on the whole thing) said of Pence’s actions:
“This looks like a PR stunt to me. He knew we had the most players protest. He knew that we were probably going to do it again. And so, this is what systemic oppression looks like. A man with power comes to the game, tweets a couple things out and leaves the game, with an attempt to thwart our efforts.” (Emphasis added)
Apparently it’s a better course of action to shame and force people to worship a symbol, already hijacked politically by one side, than it is to protect things actually in the Constitution like freedom of speech, rights to peaceably assemble, petition for redress of grievances, and equal protection under the law.
NFL gameday tickets can be expensive. Plus drinks and food for all the Secret Service agents needed because there are large black people in attendance.:rolleyes:
Yes, no doubt most such people who display the Confederate flag would be deeply resentful of any suggestion that their action signals ‘race hatred’ to onlookers. But that’s just because they’ve carefully avoided thinking about it (or are incapable of thinking about it).