Stand or be confined to the locker room

Mike Pence weighs in:

The DoD and the National Guard paid the NFL for the anthem stuff as a recruiting tool. As long as there's public money behind this, this "not on company time" bullshit can suck a dick.

That doesn't change anything. It's still a protest conducted during the national anthem and lots of people are going to have a problem with that.

And in response to the "what's so bad about kneeling" posts above: either you're willfully missing the point, or you don't understand that it's kneeling during the anthem that's the issue. If you don't see/recognize the connection to the anthem, then why do players choose this time to kneel?

Taxpayers who think no public money should be used for sponsoring or advertising at football games should write their Congressperson.

Pence, of course, just ballsed up the NK talks and really should be keeping his yap shut. But even Trump won't stop tweeting about this, having said he thinks those who protest the anthem "maybe shouldn't be in this country".

They REALLY don't get what America is about, do they?

Aww, fuck it, imma have to bust out Cap on yo asses again, ain't I?

And if that doesn't work? Do you have the right to protest in public?

Yes. Yes, you do.

SO. DO. THEY.

And you have the right to disagree. Not force them to stop. Not force them to go protest somewhere else where it doesn't offend you.

Sure they do. But not on company time or at company venues or when acting as representatives of the company.

But anyone who thinks otherwise can take it to court.

I've been to many sporting events where they trot out a veteran, or a wounded veteran, or even a Private First Class and then tell the story of their heroism. Everyone claps, they get escorted off the field, and the next thing you know it's 3rd and 3 from the 40 yard line.

Imagine for a moment that they brought out a victim of police brutality.

"He was standing outside a convenience store with a cell phone and a candy bar when the cops opened fire. He's now paralyzed from the waist down and confined to a wheelchair. He's worked hard in the face of adversity to raise awareness of this issue. Please stand and give him a round of applause."

Yes it's far fetched but could you imagine the outrage on Fox News and every other right wing outlet? It would be wall to wall coverage for weeks. No concern at all for the actual victim, but fake outrage that the police were being smeared. And there we have it, the mentality that law and order can't be questioned and it sure as hell can't be questioned in a public forum.

lmao your brain is so hilariously broken, how do you even wipe your own butt without falling into the toilet?

And what makes the anthem the magic ingredient?
The anthem is a crappy British drinking song with the lyrics futzed with.
This is a true thing, you can look it up.

You don't care about the anthem, I can prove it.
Do you have it on your MP3 player/phone?
No?
All right then.

The NFL doesn't care about the anthem, and I can prove that.
They let Rosanne sing it.
They knew she wasn't a singer.
They knew she was a controversy seeking comedian.
They knew what they were doing.
And they didn't fear a lightning bolt from Jehovah when they did it.

And the fans that THINK they care about the anthem?
They don't care, and I can prove it.
The same exact beer swilling morons that shook their fist at Rosanne's rendition think she's awesome now that she's gone all MAGA.

It's all horseshit.

I’ve noticed that a lot of the ‘employees have to follow the bosses orders on company time’ folks seem to be missing a very important piece of info.

The NFL is not just any business. It could not exist (in anything close to its current form) without the consent of the players. And I don’t mean in the general 'can't have a business without employees' way but that the NFL legally cannot operate without the players consent.

See, the NFL is a cartel. That is not hyperbole. The entire premise of the NFL is built around it. How do you get Any Given Sunday? By the team owners agreeing to salary caps and other roster rules to keep team wages equal (read: low enough that every team can pay it) and helping out struggling teams (draft, restricted free agency, etc) so that every team, no matter the market size or team owners wealth has a fair shot. And what do we call it when almost all* the businesses in a sector work together to set prices? A cartel.

Under American Labor Law this cartel structure would be illegal UNLESS the players (employees) agree to it as part of a labor agreement. Without a working Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) the league would have to either radically alter its business model (no salary caps, no setting wages for different positions, no restricted free agency, etc) OR cease to operate. This is why you have lockouts when a CBA lapses.

So yeah, the NFL owners have made a deal with the devil if you will. They have gotten the players to agree to lower wages and restrictions on movement in return for more control over working conditions. Which is why the whole boss v employee arguments doesn't hold water, the players are basically co-owners when it comes to rules. Which brings us to point number two.

This new rule DOES NOT fine or punish players. It fines teams and then says the teams will then 'handle' it (or not). This is just the NFL's way to signal to the mouth breathers that they are 'doing something' without actually doing anything to the players (which they can't, see point one).

*Collectively the NFL teams control, what 98% of the professional football market?

^Take it to court.

Who should take what to court?

This new rule DOES NOT fine or punish players. It fines teams and then says the teams will then 'handle' it (or not). This is just the NFL's way to signal to the mouth breathers that they are 'doing something' without actually doing anything to the players (which they can't, see point one).

And in fact, the mouth breathers are pissed that the players are given the option to remain behind in the locker room--they think that the players should be forced to stand. This whole thing was starting to dwindle down--it was less and less of an issue as the season continued on. But the NFL decided to make it an issue again, and pissed off both sides with their decision.

I don't know. Trump, Penske, LonelySquire and other idiots are taking a victory lap.

Seems to have worked. Have to see how it plays out this season.

Just to be clear because it really seems people don't seem to understand what happened.

The NFL team owners voted to fine NFL team owners if players don't stand. At the end of the season the fine money will then be split up and sent to..... the NFL team owners.

I don't care. As long as the players aren't being openly disrespectful, I don't care what their opinions are.

Commit a crime, pay a fine to the state, the state provides you with services. Same difference.

No one's going to break even unless all teams draw the same number of times.

For the record, I have no problem with someone staying in the locker room rather than standing. I don't want to compel someone into respect, only to compel them not to be openly disrespectful. There is a difference.

They aren't being openly disrespectful and this isn't going to stop them from continuing their respectful protests.

Others disagree.

LOL. If you think the pocket change difference between team owners at the end of the day is a suitable 'punishment' then good on the NFL, their plan worked, the mouthbreathers are eating it up.

Again, I don't care about any of that. If there's less disrespect during the anthem, that's all I care about it.

Disrespect, disrespect, disrespect, you keep harping on that, but what does it mean?

If I pull a gun on a kid, and blast him in the face, is that respectful?

What if the kid's black?

What if I'm dressed up like a cop?

What if I say the black kid wasn't respecting my authoritah?

Now say I'm dressed up as a member of the national guard, and I roll a tank in to get rednecks to comply with desegregation, and they don't respect my authoritah?

What if I make a subversive leftist magazine, and it grows into a little corporation, and spawns albums, and radio shows, and finally inspires a TV sketch show, and the TV sketch show is on for 43 years, and becomes "a cultural institution", but one shitty president doesn't like it, and tweets his disaproval?
Do you respect the cultural institution, or the president, or do you flip a coin?
Or does your head explode like a villian computer/android in ST:TOS?

Can't respect everyone.
Gotta pick and choose.
How do you choose?

^I'm only talking about not being disrespectful during the playing of the national anthem at a sports event.

Then I refer back to post #100.

There is no disrespect and this policy will not change the respectful protests by players.

Hmmm... Yeah. I still don’t care. Take a knee, sit down, or turn your back and moon the crowd. I don’t care.

My patriotism (or lack thereof) isn’t based on your actions.

Disagree on the former, we'll see on the latter.

Yet another leftist who doesn't understand and probably never played sports. Not surprising, it's competition.