Trump and NFL boycott

[BrooklynBaby]

The NFLPA should grow a pair and go on strike until the owners stop hassling them about disrespecting the flag. There will be little demand for them to ever end the strike, but they should stand up -- or kneel -- for their beliefs.

 

[Ziggurat]

I don't think taxpayers who object to their tax money being spent on inflammatory demagoguery feel constrained to look at it from a "budgetary perspective."

Plenty of people don't view things logically. This is not an argument for viewing things illogically.

 

[Meadmaker]

I can't help but think of the Pence stunt as a tale of two protests. You had the kneelers, and then the Mike Pence counterprotest.

Now, in each case, what was being protested? Pence was protesting "disrespecting the flag", although it's not really clear to me how kneeling or locking arms is actually disrespect, but people seem to think it is, so we'll go with that.

The players were protesting people getting shot.

It seems to me that people getting shot is a bigger story than kneeling while a song is playing. It seems like this whole shooting thing is worth protesting, while this whole kneeling thing is really no big deal.

There's a separate issue about whether the shooting protestors really have a legitimate beef. Maybe all those people deserved to be shot, or perhaps they didn't really deserve it, but it was an honest mistake. Regardless, that isn't the point. The point is that people being shot is something worth protesting. Right? That's a big deal, what with the whole loss of life thing. That matters right? I think somebody even named a group based entirely on that concept.

As for the counterprotestor (Pence), he was protesting....what exactly? People kneeling? Is that really a big deal? People kneeling during a specific song? I'm still not following. People bringing politics to a football game? You can't really have the counterprotest over that, can you? Maybe Pence was protesting about people protesting? But then that would mean that people shouldn't protest people getting shot. That seems a bit absurd.

When I'm all done with this, it seems that he is saying that people are doing something wrong if they make a protest about people dying. Moreover, it is not simply that the people are incorrect about what is happening, but that they are somehow acting immorally when they complain about it.

I'm trying to wrap my head around just who is doing something awful that needs to be protested, and I'm trying to understand the motivation behind Pence's counterprotest, and I can't come up with anything that doesn't make Pence seem like a real jerk.

 

[Foolmewunz]

Donnie's always had a special relationship with the flag.
Not dissimilar to how he handles his daughter,
you'll note.

 

[LSSBB]

Not all opinions are equal, are they? All have equal rights to express their opinions, but Trump clearly made a choice when he stressed that there are fine people marching with nazis, and he made another choice when he decided to trash African-American role models for protesting practical racism.

Again, the message is crystal clear: In the President of the USA's mind, nazi sympathising white racists need to be encouraged, blacks discouraged to make their opinions known.

Even further and more direct:

He and Pence criticize the African-American protest method as disrespectful

He And Pence do not criticize the display of statues and flags honoring those who attacked The US of A and it's flag, in a cause based on preservation of slavery of the ancestors of those same African-Americans.

 

[johnny karate]

Yeah, no. Still not oppression.

Yes, it is. The executive branch of the U.S. government literally attempted to punish its citizens for exercising their right to free speech.

Furthermore, I recall a bunch of Trump's critics getting upset recently because he DIDN'T attack a different group of American citizens for daring to exercise free expression.

You might a find an outlier or two that that offered that sentiment. But most of those critics were looking for the president to maybe not call a members of a violent hate group "very fine people".

 

[johnny karate]

Not what I said.

I don't care to quibble with you over semantics, but your attempt to downplay the significance of official presidential statements as "mere tweets" is obvious.

You aren't doing much to prove me wrong.

So in your mind it's insane to be critical of a president who uses the power of his office to suppress free speech?

 

[applecorped]

Watch it burn

 

[Minoosh]

It's directed at stuff like claiming that Pence walking out of a baseball game is an act of oppression.

That would have been a hoot if he had actually walked out of a baseball game.

CNN is saying the NLF issue is a win for Trump, which may actually be untrue, given how wrong they seem to be in other circumstances. Pence walked out because Trump asked him to ahead of time. He missed the halftime induction of Peyton Magging (a Hoosier) into the Football Hall of Fame. He kind of spit in the faces of Colts fans who did *not* walk out, and wouldn't walk out if their own team had all stood for the anthem.

I wonder why military brass don't have to put their hands on their hearts. Mysteries of protocol.

 

[Meadmaker]

I wonder why military brass don't have to put their hands on their hearts. Mysteries of protocol.

It is probably because, being military, they actually understand the protocol.

Putting your hand over your heart during the national anthem is a misapplication of protocol. It's an imitation of putting your hand over your heart during the Pledge of Allegiance. You put your hand over your heart during the Pledge of Allegiance because it's a pledge, an oath. Your hand on your heart is representative of the ancient association of the heart with oaths, as in "cross my heart" to emphasize that you really mean something and are not making it up.

The national anthem is not a pledge, so there's no hand over your heart. However, a lot of people never understood the custom or why they put their hand over their heart anyway. They did it because their teacher told them to. However, they never knew why. They just associated putting their hand over their heart with participating in a short patriotic ritual, so they started doing it during the national anthem. Seeing some people do it during the national anthem made other people figure they should be doing it as well, and before you knew it, a lot of people thought that was actually part of the ritual. In fact, it wasn't. It's people stumbling though thinking they were supposed to be doing it because they confused one set of rules with another.

 

[Andy_Ross]

Why shouldn't the players treat the flag any way they want? It's their flag after all.

 

[Spindrift]

Good to know our president is spending his time on the really important stuff.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-searched-nfl-rule-book-144049125.html

President Donald Trump told Dallas Cowboys general manager Jerry Jones he’d found a policy from the NFL that dictates players must stand for the national anthem, according to reports.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

No, I think this is uncharitable. What's happening is that some folks think that the flag is an important symbol, one that should be respected according to the conventions that the nation has chosen to respect it. And the protestors are obviously not acting according to those principles.

Now, some (maybe most?) of those who oppose kneeling don't give much care to the issue at hand, police violence directed at African-Americans. But I'd just as soon take them at their word about respect for the flag, and counter-argue that in fact, as protests go, this is about as respectful as it bloody well gets. If they want to make it about respect, let's take them at that word.

Curiously, a man stopped me in the convenience store today to ask if I am a veteran (I'm not, I just have reached the age that crappy haircuts seem easier). His reason for asking was to point out that he served in Vietnam and these kneeling protestors bothered him considerably. To be honest, I wasn't keen on having this conversation with a stranger who just happened to guess (badly) that I was a veteran. But I believed him. I think that failure to stand for the flag he (metaphorically, to be sure) fought for bothered him.

Different folks, different values.

The question is, though, would many of these offended people be offended if someone hadn't suggested they should be?

It's not like the players burned the thing.

 

[Mumbles]

If anything Trump is displaying far more contempt and hostility towards the black people protesting during the national anthem than he did towards the neo-nazis rallying in support for racism and slavery.

It really shows whose side he's on.

As if anyone who was paying the slightest attention didn't already know that he's a white supremacist. I'm still vastly more concerned with, say, his tacit endorsement of police brutality towards black and brown people, or his "I'm the victim" goofiness in response to Puerto Rico's near-destruction, than I am of this PR stunt. This is actually the most benign thing he's done towards black Americans to date.

 

[johnny karate]

Good to know our president is spending his time on the really important stuff.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-searched-nfl-rule-book-144049125.html

I have it on good authority that it’s a display of insanity to be concerned about the President of the United States interfering in the private lives of American citizens who exercise their right to free speech in ways he finds objectionable.

 

[dudalb]

Donnie's always had a special relationship with the flag.
Not dissimilar to how he handles his daughter,
you'll note.

[qimg]http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/imagehosting/thum_11085574a6107e04f9.jpg[/qimg]

Samuel Johnson's statement about what is the last refuge of a scoundrel comes to mind.

 

[dudalb]

As if anyone who was paying the slightest attention didn't already know that he's a white supremacist. I'm still vastly more concerned with, say, his tacit endorsement of police brutality towards black and brown people, or his "I'm the victim" goofiness in response to Puerto Rico's near-destruction, than I am of this PR stunt. This is actually the most benign thing he's done towards black Americans to date.

I can't read minds, so I don't know if Trump is a bigot or not. But I do know he is using bigotry as a political weapon,so from a practical view point it does make any difference if he is or not.

 

[dudalb]

I can't help but think of the Pence stunt as a tale of two protests. You had the kneelers, and then the Mike Pence counterprotest.

Now, in each case, what was being protested? Pence was protesting "disrespecting the flag", although it's not really clear to me how kneeling or locking arms is actually disrespect, but people seem to think it is, so we'll go with that.

The players were protesting people getting shot.

It seems to me that people getting shot is a bigger story than kneeling while a song is playing. It seems like this whole shooting thing is worth protesting, while this whole kneeling thing is really no big deal.

There's a separate issue about whether the shooting protestors really have a legitimate beef. Maybe all those people deserved to be shot, or perhaps they didn't really deserve it, but it was an honest mistake. Regardless, that isn't the point. The point is that people being shot is something worth protesting. Right? That's a big deal, what with the whole loss of life thing. That matters right? I think somebody even named a group based entirely on that concept.

As for the counterprotestor (Pence), he was protesting....what exactly? People kneeling? Is that really a big deal? People kneeling during a specific song? I'm still not following. People bringing politics to a football game? You can't really have the counterprotest over that, can you? Maybe Pence was protesting about people protesting? But then that would mean that people shouldn't protest people getting shot. That seems a bit absurd.

When I'm all done with this, it seems that he is saying that people are doing something wrong if they make a protest about people dying. Moreover, it is not simply that the people are incorrect about what is happening, but that they are somehow acting immorally when they complain about it.

I'm trying to wrap my head around just who is doing something awful that needs to be protested, and I'm trying to understand the motivation behind Pence's counterprotest, and I can't come up with anything that doesn't make Pence seem like a real jerk.

Pence was a jerk.
To be frank, I don't mind him attending a game using a official plane..the Potus and the VEEP cannot fly commercial for obvious reasons,and I am sure every president and Veep have traveled to personal events this way.it Pence's walking out I object to.

 

[TragicMonkey]

Pence was a jerk.
To be frank, I don't mind him attending a game using a official plane..the Potus and the VEEP cannot fly commercial for obvious reasons,and I am sure every president and Veep have traveled to personal events this way.it Pence's walking out I object to.

He didn't "walk out"; he was whisked to a safe space after being triggered.

 

[tyr_13]

Yes, it's clear that criticizing a deranged man for his embarrassing rants as president of the United States is much more regrettable than pretending that it is more or less normal. I mean, he's only the President, right? Let him blow off some steam.

Bob Corker is just a *****.

ETA: Can I just point out that it's charming to blame the Democrats on Trump, rather than those who voted for him (and, well, Trump). What the hell are you trying to say here? That the Dems are smarter than you and should have saved you for this stupid vote? (Not directed to Zig personally, since of course I have no idea who he voted for.)

The 'party of personal responsibility' is only talking about other people being responisible for their choices, not Republicans or conservatives.

"Look what you made me do!"

The issue is that people are focusing on the wrong thing. For Republicans and hard conservatives, they don't care that Trump is an idiot. All they are about is that 'leftists' and Democrats are upset by it. It's not about the person. It's about winning.

They care more about 'proving' they're not 'as bad as liberals', or that 'liberals aren't better than them', even when their* own reasoning shows they think liberals hold to standards more laudable than their own.

(For certain quantities of 'them', around %80, but there actually are a non-trivial number of Republicans and conservatives who not only don't think this way, but are actively and repeatedly calling out the rest for it. Mad props to them for that.)

It was suggested to Collin by a veteran and team mate as a more respectful way to bring attention to police brutality. But your opinion is good, too.

Yes, it's funny that the more respectful option suggested by a vet has drawn more ire than the previous protest. (It's also meta-funny that an accusation of a DOK position lacked salient knowledge on the topic.)