Not a big fan of the First Amendment, are you? Or do you think that freedom means the freedom to act like YOU want someone to do?
Wow. If that Trump supporter is this upset over a guy choosing to kneel instead of stand when a song is played to a piece of cloth, my opinion would have him petitioning his government to declare war.
Interesting that for a guy who dislikes organized religion as much as you do, that you demand a piece of cloth, or maybe a song, be treated like a holy object.
And, as you well know, “Colin K.” has pretty clearly been blacklisted from employment in the NFL for his failure to genuflect to this supposed holy object to the degree you think appropriate. Is that not good enough for you?
Correct or not, it’s having a Streisand effect on the protest scope. Many players who didn’t believe in the initial cause for protest are now joining it to send the message that Trump can’t influence the protest, or to support a norm in free speech (using the term in a generic, non-constitutional sense).
Care to elaborate? I’m unsure what you mean by non-constitutional sense.
Oh, LOTS of Trumpists are saying they’ll boycott.
You show me 10,000 people who say they’ll stop watching over this, and I’ll show you 9,999 liars.
This year the NFL will make over $13 billion in revenue, by far the most of any professional sports organization in the world. They’ll do it again next year, and the year after, and the year after, and the year after, and in fact the numbers will go up. They will continue being ludicrously successful even if every single player on every team peacefully protests the anthem.
Since the government isn’t restricting speech in this instance (although the President is certainly criticizing some form of speech) there’s no Constitutional conflict. Freedom of speech as written in the first amendment doesn’t come into play.
But in common usage, free speech is often used when there are repercussions for speaking one’s mind from non-governmental agencies, such as NFL teams.
Do please remember that he was about to be cut anyway, with a chronic case of the sucks. But the kneeldown has made him a martyr, even if it’s for a cause I fully agree with.
Woulda been nice if he’d bothered to effin’ vote, at least.
Thanks, that makes sense.
Well, duh. How can you not dislike an institution that claims to revere God but flagrantly insults Him with the disrespectful gesture of kneeling?
On the first point, he isn’t a bad quarterback. But his contract with the 49ers valued him as a top tier quarterback, so he wasn’t worth the value that the contract required them to pay. But he is better than probably every backup quarterback in the league, and a handful of starting quarterbacks too, even with his drop off in performance.
There is no question whatsoever that he isn’t playing today because of his protest.
And yeah, his inability to vote makes him look like a total idiot.
At this point, I finally agree. Through most of the off- and pre-season, I was still pretty sure his contract demands were probably a large issue. Nobody wants to take a 90% pay cut if they don’t have to. Considering the number of quarterbacks that have gone down, and the shit quality of most backups, having a guy that was a completion away from being a Super Bowl champion sitting at home makes no sense.
He’s no Rodgers, but I’d wager a dozen teams would be instantly upgraded if he came in as a starter, and double that as a backup.
My take on it is that I don’t see kneeling as being inherently disrespectful, if it is that really puts an interesting new perspective on that whole “going to church” thing. And Colin K said he was doing it because he wasn’t proud of his country right now. I don’t see not being proud of something as the equivalent of disrespect- in fact most actions and people in this world fall under the category of " things that I am neither proud of or disrespectful towards". In another thread ( I think) I made the joking suggestion that maybe the players should protest by waving Nazi flags on the field as that seems to be the Trump approved method of protest for fine people.
But what is obvious is that in TrumpWorld, white people are assumed to be good people acting with good intention until they prove that they are bad, while people of color are assumed to be bad people with bad intentions until they prove that they are good. He’s been pulling the crap for years, first with the Central Park 5 then with Obama - Just think of Trumps multi-year quest to make Obama “prove” he wasn’t born in Africa and try telling me with a straight face that he’s not racist.
Fragile? It is to laugh.
I live in the real world, RC, not the liberal utopian dreamworld that thinks behavior like that is acceptable or exemplary. The players’ actions are disgraceful and the owner’s should tell them that as long as they represent the team, they don’t bring disgrace on the team.
What’s to protest? These are grown men getting paid big bucks to play a children’s game and they want to thumb their noses at the country that makes it possible for that to happen?
Can you say hypocrisy?
Says you. I’m a veteran and I disagree. Such protests are in keeping with the highest traditions of American patriotism. People called abolitionists un-American, but they were wrong. Abolitionism was very patriotic, as was the Civil Rights movement, and many more instances that were opposed and criticized by most Americans at the time. Most people in Alabama at the time thought the bus boycotts were inappropriate. They were wrong, and Trump is wrong here, and so are you.
They’re protesting things that are happening in the country, just as many athletes have before them. That’s an honorable and patriotic thing to do if one thinks there is injustice and unfair treatment in America.
In what way is disrespecting the national anthem “making America great”? I’d really like to hear your thought process on this. Why shouldn’t they take it a step further and burn an American flag while the anthem is playing? That might get them even more face time on TV.
The 49ers tried to trade Kaepernick before his protest and got no real interest from anyone. No doubt the protests have an impact, but he was not that well regarded around the league before they happened. Especially considering how much weight he lost from his peak seasons. Despite that, he’s had interest from teams. Seattle brought him out for a visit and ultimately passed on him. They didn’t give a reason, but Pete Carrol talked very highly of Kap so the speculation is that his contract demands were higher than they wanted to pay.
The Ravens were going to sign him until Kap’s girlfriend tweeted out a picture equating Ray Lewis and the Raven’s owner to a slave and master:
Yes, it’s pronounced “Cloth-a-hump.”
I’m surprised you and your ilk here lack the courage to actually say “uppity”, since it’s clearly rattling around in the void between your ears.