Stand or be confined to the locker room

Question: What exactly is the "job" of a football player? Is it just playing the game as well as possible, or is there more to it? Are pre-game and post-secondary niceties part of the contract? Is there a "good behaviour" clause? Because there are football players that have engaged in spousal abuse, rape, dogfighting... And for the most part it didn't cause their teams to be penalized or their careers to suffer.

Enlighten me then.
How do the mojo rituals make the player's muscles work better?
Is there a receptor protein in the muscle fiber where the bullshit goes in?
Can you show me a peer reviewed paper on this?

You may think that sounds intelligent but black people are incarcerated at a far higher level than anyone else in America and it isn't even close.

As for the kneeling, it was disrupting business, the owners of the business decided to correct that. As a business owner myself I support that. From what I know of the constitution the 1st amendment protects you from the government, not private businesses.

However, saying that, I can't help but notice the irony here:




Prediction though - when players don't come out during the anthem this season, Trump will whine like a bitch about it and the NFL will be back at square one and have to come up with yet another policy.

I'm not sure how I'm supposed to respond to that. You're certainly welcome to your opinion and to express it.

Perhaps it should, although I wouldn't favor punishing the organization for what a player does in his off hours (unless the organization were somehow abetting or enabling it).

I wouldn't object to players being disciplined/fired for crimes or severe behavioral problems. They're the public face of an organization, after all.

That was Major League Baseball, not the NFL.

And I'm not sure the intent was to have her do it badly, though I question the wisdom of anyone who thought she'd do it well.

Blacks should be incarcerated at a higher rate as they have a higher % of criminals. I'm speaking with regard to the left's point of view.

I actually stand for the anthem on Sundays. Even at home.

I agree that the NFL, ahem, dropped the ball here. They should suspend players for each incident, not simply fine them. The issue would resolve itself instantly.

Oh, shit, that's right.
Janet Jackson's titty was NFL though, right?

The NFL would never condone anything that exploits others.

Yes but kneeling is inherently offensive, whereas rape is just merely a crime. Conservatives are OK with crimes, as long as their jingoistic safe space bubble isn't disturbed.

Indeed. Harrumphing is for public use only.

You're absolutely correct on the 1st Amendment protecting one from government actions, not private business actions. Anyone arguing that the 1st Amendment is applicable here is misguided. Arguably, one could make a case that because the NFL receives military funding for these large national anthem displays, that makes the NFL an agent of the government...but that's not a strong argument to be making.

And ordinarily, yes, a business owner should be able to control what occurs within the confines of his or her business.

But the NFL is no ordinary business. NFL owners don't have absolute power over these players. Instead, the NFL and its owners have agreed to place limits on their powers and impose duties upon themselves by contract (i.e. the NFL collective bargaining agreement). Contracts are fundamental to our system of government and laws and predate things like the 1st Amendment. These owners are not abiding by the contract when they make such unilateral changes without consulting the players' union. They have contracted away their right to have sole discretion over running the business. While their wishes should be given significant weight, and while they do still retain significant authority, they do not have absolute power to dictate what players can and cannot do without the players' input. It's not a one-way road.

You would be referring to business ethics. I'm not sure that's something the United States believes in any longer. I know our President doesn't.

So, question here, does the NFL or other sports organizations have the right to mandate and impose the observation of the anthem on its players and spectators?

a protest designed to raise awareness of a concern conducted where no one can see it - brilliant!

acting under the color of government authority?

literally white in front of him!

Yeah, but these are the same people who love to pray in public, so the hypocrisy is lost on them.

And the league would fine them under the CBA for a uniform violation.

So basically it gives the offended party a veto on the behavior of those who offend?

Isn't that exactly the "PC bullshit" model that the right constantly insists is only found on the left?

unless they paid money to watch you listen to a song, they don't have a complaint. There spending was to watch a football game - if a football game happens, they got their product.

It wasn't all that long ago that none of this jingoistic rah-rah happened at ANY game - and football fans did not suffer in patriotic anguish.

Probably. I'm just saying that wouldn't bother me.

The players are there to play and to entertain the fans. They're not there to have a venue for their personal political agendas. That's the thing about politics: any demonstration is bound to piss off a large segment of the fans.

Not sure it's the same thing--just about all of us work in places where our freedom to protest faces severe limits.

But, if you see it that way, then maybe you can appreciate how irritating a lot of the PC bullshit is.

....really?
We're going all the way back to "shut up and sing"?
How very 00's.
What next?
Truck nuts? Man bangs? Crocks?

Shut up and sing/act/play ball!!
....unless you're Ted Nugent, Dave Mustaine, Chuck Norris, Kevin Sorbo, the Duck Dynasty family, Tim Tebow, Dennis Miller, David Zucker.....

More from my friend's Facebook:

BTW, he's a 60-something year old white guy.

As already noted, if they in fact play a football game, then the audience got precisely what it paid for.
The very nature of protests is that the annoy, inconvenience, and disturb the target audience.

A protest that does none of this is no protest at all because it provokes no notice.

Not sure it's the same thing--just about all of us work in places where our freedom to protest faces severe limits.

But, if you see it that way, then maybe you can appreciate how irritating a lot of the PC bullshit is.[/quote]

I'm not debating whether or not the NFL CAN, as employers, limit the protests - sure they can. The conversation is SHOULD they, or conversely should the players voluntarily abandon it?


As for "PC bullshit" - I don't object to it (or rather the things thus derisively described) because the vast majority of it serves a needed point. I'm saying that almost everyone who bitches about "PC" insists on ignoring that the right has just as stringent (perhaps more so) code of what is and is not acceptable expression as the left does. The same Ben Shapiros and Milos that cry havock about limitations on ideas being expressed on campus, to the point of arguing actual Nazis should be free to speak - are the EXACT same folks who insist these players be silenced. And can't be bothered to notice that by their own definition of "PC" - they are enforcing their own system of PC.

Yep, at a Padres game.

The principle still stands, however. So many people who called Roseanne Barr a dykish cow twenty years ago now see her as the Beyoncé of the MAGA culture. It’s....very interesting.