The politicization of everything. When the personal becomes political, when you can’t watch sportsball without politics being interjected, you are well down the road of totalitarianism. I have a crazy idea: I don’t have to choose sides. The protesting players are terrible, and Trump is terrible.
One other point: I see a lot of nonsense on Twitter and in other places that they are just “standing up for their First Amendment rights.” I find this kind of ignorance infuriating. As I tweeted repeatedly over the weekend, this has absolutely nothing to do with the First Amendment, or the Constitution at all. The First Amendment says that “Congress shall make no law.” Congress has made no law. The fact that Trump was Trump doesn’t change that, even though a president who understands the role of the president wouldn’t have stuck his oar in.
They have a right to protest, but they don’t have a right to make millions throwing and catching footballs. The NFL has a right to fine them, and owners have a right to can them. Freedom of expression doesn’t mean freedom from consequences for it. I’ve personally paid a heavy financial price for expressing my opinions publicly, in that I’ve essentially been blackballed by the main cost-plus space industry. I accept that as the price I have to pay for protesting the continuous waste of taxpayer funds and the continuing crippling of our space capabilities. I have no sympathy for second-rate washed-up spoiled children like Colin Kaepernick and his ilk. But I’m sure that I’ll be called a racist for that.
[Noon update]
They have a right to protest. Owners have a right to fine or fire. Trump has a right to be a derriere fedora, and he exercises it w/gusto. https://t.co/J7v2neY361
— Rand Simberg (@Rand_Simberg) September 25, 2017
[Update a few minutes later]
In Trump versus the NFL, we’re all losers:
Everything about the political dynamic suggests that we could be heading toward an escalation where the NFL protests now become more broadly about Trump. And, as I said up top, there’s no obvious off-ramp here. If you’re a player kneeling because the justice system is screwed up, when do you stop kneeling? Because it’s going to be screwed up for a long time. And if you’re kneeling because Trump is president, that’s got a ways to go, too.
In a perfect world, a presidential response would be something like:
The players can do what they like. We should all want the justice system to work as well as possible. We should understand that it will never be perfect, but will not wave away its failings as inconsequential. We’re all God’s children and I invite you to consider that standing during our national anthem is a symbol of how we remain united in pursuit of ever-greater liberty.
But Trump doesn’t do presidential, at least not often, and never off the cuff.
[Tuesday-morning update]
Red Team, Blue Team? Start your own team:
I’m not on the Blue Team. I’m not on the Red Team. I’m on my team.
Occasionally, I’ll exploit the Reds or Blues to advance my aims in, well, making America great again. But I refuse to surrender my individuality to be an extra in someone else’s movie. As the decades of DC failure have shown us time and again, none of these politicians consider themselves to be on my team. I’m just returning the favor.
Republican leaders will like me if I vote for them. Celebrities will like me if I buy tickets. But neither views me as an equal, just a pawn from which they extract money and power. Those days are long gone.
I look at it this way, in sports and in life: When I see the two teams battling on a football field, I’m not going to passively cheer them from the stands. Instead, I’ll head over to the basketball court to see if I can start my own game. And, to be honest, once the hoops scene gets too crowded, I’ll walk down to the baseball field and try starting a game there.
Politicians are just temp employees we hire to do our bidding. If they suck, we fire them. They aren’t gods we bow to or team owners issuing orders. We’re Americans, dammit.
Celebrities are court jesters we pay to amuse us. When they get too mouthy, we kick them out of the dining hall. That’s the beauty of capitalism.
So, if any of our so-called elites want me to join their team, no thanks. I simply have better things to do.
So do I. Yes, I blew up in comments last night. And I’ll happily do it again any time someone demands that I have to blindly support an anal orifice, whether it’s the one in the White House, or the rich BLM knee takers on the football fields.
Do you think his continued free-agency is a result of his national anthem protests, the quality of his play, or a combination of the two?
Probably a combination. He’d probably find some team desperate enough to put up with the bad publicity if he was a better QB.
I think the activism itself is a response to the consequences of the poor quality of his play. Why own up to having been wildly overrated if you can blame your radioactive situation on h8rs?
Didn’t he turn down an job? I don’t think he wants to play.
Wodun, that’s possible – I’ll admit I’m naive on the subject and I really only started following since it came to a head this weekend.
McG, I wasn’t aware (again, naive) that he had been blaming the situation on other people. I thought it was more of a martyr situation, where he was using his celebrity to further a cause he felt strongly about, knowing that it might come at some career/financial cost. But I think I have some more catching up to do on the situation.
Apropos Rand’s update, I also see escalation in the future. There’s lots more weeks of football ahead.
“The protesting players are terrible, and Trump is terrible.”
Rand, did I actually read you assign equal blame to both sides of this?
One side, for whatever logic and whatever reason is not-using-a-symbol-with-historical-meaning. One side started this and you are assigning equal blame to a counter-protest?
Not-using-this-symbol is hateful to veterans and Gold Star families. Not-using-this-symbol is making me, a son of refugee-immigrant parents, not feel welcome in the country I was born in.
Not-using-this-symbol is making me feel increasingly unsafe in my home. As a nation we are conducting a further social experiment in government-supported housing where the disadvantaged and the poor are more widely dispersed among the privileged such as me and my neighbors. This is in place of concentrating persons receiving such support with the attendant social ills.
Madison, Wisconsin is doing its part in that experiment and our very low number of shootings and murders and revenge shootings and murders are increasing — at least they are on the local TV news and not ignored and at least Mayor Paul Soglin, the famously liberal Mayor Soglin from the ’70’s, Police Chief Koval and his predecessor Chief Wray, are doing everything in their power through a combination of proactive policing and working with the community maintain order, to not give the streets over to lawlessness as they do in Chicago and other places and preserve our community experiment in serving the larger social and national good.
The flag protests are hateful towards the police and those of us protected by the police. Rand, you want to see me burnt out of home? Your comments equating two sides in this are offensive . . .
Rand, did I actually read you assign equal blame to both sides of this?
No, I just said that the protesting players are terrible, and Trump is terrible. Because those are both true. And it’s perpetually true about Trump.
Has Trump no weights on the others side of the scale Rand? I think the answer is obvious so focusing a bit tighter: which side of the scale has more on it in your opinion (thus sidestepping the one sided point that Trump is JUST terrible.)
Because that could be the interpretation even though you are not explicitly saying that.
What part of both sides are terrible do you not understand?
OK, I get that you have no answer to that question. And that I am not allowed to not take a side against two terrible sides. Nazis are terrible. KKK are terrible. White supremacists are terrible.
And TRUMP IS TERRIBLE. ALL OF THESE THINGS ARE TRUE, AND ALL OF THESE THINGS HAVE ALWAYS BEEN TRUE, AND THERE IS NO CONTRADICTION BETWEEN THEM. AND I JUST LOST MY BEST CAT EVER.
EFF YOU ALL WHO INSIST THAT I MUST CHOOSE BETWEEN THEM. EFF YOU ALL.
OK, now which next asshole wants to tell me that I must choose between assholes? That I have no other choice?
Sincerely sorry for your loss Rand.
I ALREADY TOLD YOU WHAT THE GREAT AND HOLY TRUMP COULD HAVE DONE. BUT INSTEAD HE CALLED FOOTBALL PLAYER SOBS, BECAUSE THAT’S HOW YOUR GOD-KING ROLLS IN FRONT OF HIS ADULATING WORSHIPERS, LIKE YOU.
I really, really tire, of demands that I defend assholes on either side of the aisle, particular when your god-king is a life-long Democrat.
EFF YOU ALL.
That confirms it, Rand has been replaced by a replicant.
No Trump is more terrible than the players . Trump is violating a law with trying to influence someone employment.
The players aren’t violating any law or rule of there employer as far as we know (there some stuff on the NFL requires players to be on the field for the anthem but I am seeing stuff both ways and no owners have come forth strictly forbidding them though I am guess Houston’s and Dallas have) , other than Alejandro Villanueva who was insubordinate to his bosses decision. The players are violating good taste and angering paying customers (who just happen to boo and shout during the anthem they hold in such high regard).
The owners need to be aware of Fan satisfaction and best keep them happy and respond accordingly . Which at this time was to do nothing and hope it died out. Which for the most part was working until our Private citizen in Chief decided to stab his thumb in the wound for some cheap applause since he can’t point to a wall(or is it Fence now?) or getting rid Obama care and he can’t even remember the name of his candidate he was stumping for just like a Kennedy.
Ken he can’t claim he a private citizen right now he ran for a job that requires him to fulfill his duty 24 *7*365*4 until his term is up. If that was too unreasonable he should of never ran for it , and resign.
Fans, especially non-liberal fans, stopping their support of the NFL, calling for firings of players who wont respect cherished belirfs, is a delicious way to hold up a mirror to how the liberal corporate entities like Google or Facebook enforce a liberal/democrat orthodoxy within those companies. NFL owners who wish to do so, could fire players who don’t uphold the values held dear to the owner. This is just what google did to James Damore.
Engineer, with respect he did not violate that law (thanks for including the link) because it says “solely on the basis of partisan political affiliation” which is clearly not the case here.
Even Trump supporters wish he didn’t involve himself in some of these issues, but he’s disapproving of disrespect for the country and decent hard working men and woman which a president is ntirely entitled to do. Some would even say he would be derelict if he didn’t.
Not that it matters, but the protest itself is based on lies. Where’s the media on that which is supposed to be their primary job: Informing the public.
By now everyone should understand that Trump is both president and private citizen. He often chooses to express himself as private citizen as he’s done here.
I’m in an unusual position myself because I respect both the country and its flag but can not pledge allegiance to it based on the principle to give caesar’s things to caesar and god’s things to god.
However, their protest (based on a provably false premise) is complete disrespect of a country, its law enforcement, its president and just about everything else except their paycheck.
The president isn’t firing anybody; just expressing his same right to speech.
It is infuriating that the media can’t get it right that the constitution is a restriction on govt. They’re the ones that should be fired.
They do have the right to protest peacefully. We have the right to change the channel, decline to buy tickets or sports merchandise, and have our own opinion on their actions. To a greater extent than most businesses, pro sports teams’ products are the players. This can make the owners and management hesitant to put a stop to the protests. However, should their TV ratings continue to decline, should ticket sales decline, and should other revenues (e.g. jersey and memorabilia sales) decline, then the owners will crack down.
Professional sports, maybe just because of its visibility, seems like *the* profession where management/ownership don’t hesitate to can you if you’re not performing. None of this “3 consecutive performance review periods to improve” nonsense…if we don’t like where your performance is taking the team, you’re gone (there’s of course contract buyouts and things, but you get the idea).
So to pampered gridiron idols I say
Indulge your childish vainglory
Your moment in the spotlight’s glare
Won’t be a footnote to that flag’s story.
Police harassment of the poor and minorities is a thing. But, high crime amongst the poor and minorities also is a thing. These millionaires who have attained status naturally do not want to be harassed. But, by discouraging policing of high crime demographics, they also are encouraging crime against their own.
Its a very tangled and knotty problem. Both sides have a point, and there is no good outcome one way or the other. That is when society gets into its worst convulsions, when the only solution is to achieve a dynamic equilibrium in which neither side is satisfied, but the overall deleterious impact is (hopefully) minimized.
Bart:
I address my response to you because Rand doesn’t appear to be listening. I express it because it is very concrete and personal in its immediate effect on how I live, and if Rand bans me from his fine Web site, I guess that is his sovereign choice.
I have lived in the same house for 26 years now, longer than any other dwelling or community I have lived. I am within easy walking distance of Section 8 public housing, which was developed over the time I have lived here. I enjoy taking walks in my neighborhood for the exercise and the fresh air and getting outside the four walls of this house, and I would like to maintain this state of affairs
I would like to see this experiment in diversity and integration and Social Justice succeed that the races and the social strata can live in harmony. For it to succeed, we can’t let the police precinct in which I reside go the way of the Chicago neighborhoods. If it fails, people like me — college professors — will end up living in an armed enclave just like the South Side University of Chicago. Or like my liberal college professor relative who lives in a guarded and gated enclave in Greater Miami, FL.
You think of Madison, WI as having a hippie Mayor and a hippie Chief-of-Police and marijuana smoke wafts through the neighborhoods. You are thinking of a couple Chiefs ago. One Chief ago, Nobel Wray who took what he did very seriously. The sense I got about he being black is that he especially had a personal stake in our experiment in living together working out.
One of his white officers shot dead a drunken white man. This officer came about two men grappling and fighting each other — the drunken man and the other man who had called the police for the drunk guy entering his home scaring the complaining man’s wife. The officer ordered both men “Get down on the ground!”, which the guy who called the cops did immediately in response to this lawful police order. Drunk guy did not comply, instead charged the officer and was shot dead.
There was the predictable hand-wringing, “Why did the officer have to shoot dead this guy drunk out-of-his-skull-couldn’t-he-just-have-drawn-his-Taser.” My reaction was, “This is bad enough, wait until a black suspect happens to get shot.” Chief Wray thought the same thing, retiring from his post soon after. My reaction to that was, “Oh, no!”
Some time later a white officer shot dead a black citizen under Chief Michael Koval who is white. There was a hue and cry, but we didn’t burn the place down and our black District Attorney Ismail Ozanne investigated and didn’t find evidence of the officer committing a crime or violating the regs, people harrumphed and virtue-signaled with their BLM yard signs and life went on.
Since then, shooting incidents not involving the police resulting in wounding and death are occurring with increased frequency. One fatal shooting took place at the nearest major crossroads to where I live in front of a burger-and-beer restaurant otherwise catering to the privileged class. Chief Koval was “spitting pins” on TV about this incident, especially for the lack of “cooperation” from community members that he said “know who did this” and “won’t help us put a stop before the next person get’s shot dead in revenge.”
Not saying that Chief Koval has the answer, but he is trying really, really hard that we don’t go down the same slippery slope as Chicago. Even our 70’s hippy and current elder-statesman Mayor Paul Soglin is starting to spit pins in TV interviews for the same reason.
OK, Madison has “good cops” and they are not the “bad, racist cops” in “the neighborhoods” that are the object of the NFL kneeling protests. That is an extremely naïve view. Here in Madison, we are the new neighborhood providing refuge to those escaping the violence-ridden neighborhood, and how long before we come the violence-ridden neighborhood with the cynical, racist Robocops?
Copernicus-the-Quarterback can kneel whenever and wherever he chooses, but I am siding with President Trump in voicing criticism of this. But as the swastika is not just a symbol but it is all of the Hell my parents were witness to and subject to before coming here, disrespecting the flag and the anthem is not just a symbol but it is everything my parents worked so very hard for in their new land that I can enjoy the life that I have, that is, until it all goes downhill out of disrespect for the rule of law and the men and women who carry it out.
If President Trump criticizes those who disrespect our nation’s flag and anthem and customs of honoring same where we come together for sports entertainment, where we consider people from Chicago, Green Bay, WI, Detroit, Minneapolis to be bitter rivals, that is until we come together at the start of each game to salute our common nation, if President Trump chooses to do this, more power to him. If Rand chooses to virtue signal by expressing disapproval of every . . . last . . . thing .. that President Trump does, it is his Web site and he is paying for the bandwidth, and at least for now, he is supplying the bandwidth for my contrary opinion.
There is nothing tangled or knotty about this. If the refuge and the sanctuary becomes the thing from which the people are taking refuge and seeking sanctuary from, where shall they go? If we cannot support law enforcement here in Madison, where will the refuge and sanctuary be?
The flag and anthem are symbols, yes, but symbols of something that I see myself in the middle of. I don’t know where or how others around here live, but those symbols are of immediate and personal importance to me, and I back President Trump in this.
I don’t “choose to virtue signal by expressing disapproval of every . . . last . . . thing .. that President Trump does.” Hyperbolic statements like that make it hard for me to take you seriously.
I feel free to criticize him when he needlessly makes the story about himself by being using foul language at an ugly campaign rally. All he does is exacerbate the situation (and of course, distract from other issues, which I’m sure is part of his point). Jonathan Last described how he should have handled it, but that would be from a president who knew what “presidential” means.
So you don’t take me seriously? Have you ever sat through a Faculty Senate meeting at a major public university?
So you are saying, or at least agreeing with the sentiment, that Mr. Trump cannot or will not act presidential? You mean by that, act like the University Chancellor presiding at Faculty Senate? We had one Chancellor an Electrical Engineer. He didn’t act like Mr. Trump, but he couldn’t stop himself from rolling his eyes at regular intervals throughout Senate meetings.
The people are sick of Faculty Senate and what it is doing to our society and our culture. Mr. Trump is President because he is not the former Deputy Secretary of Commerce from the Obama Administration who is most adroit and skilled at speaking the way you recommend — much, much better than Mr. Trump or the former Secretary of State and Senator from New York.
Trump could attempt to refrain from using foul language, and insulting someone’s mother by calling her the B word, in front of children. But he can only attempt it, he can’t actually do it.
“All he does is exacerbate the situation (and of course, distract from other issues, which I’m sure is part of his point).”
That’s what the beautiful people have said about his stance vis a vis North Korea as well. It’s what they said back in the day about Reagan “needlessly provoking” the Soviet Union.
It is, in truth, an argument for trying to hold on to the status quo as long as possible. But, when the status quo sucks, it’s pretty dumb to try holding onto it in vain. In that case, by all means, exacerbate the situation, so that we can move on to a solution.
Paul – I know where you’re coming from and sympathize. I wish I had a solution.
The flag and anthem are symbols, yes, but symbols of something that I see myself in the middle of.
Much like BLM always chooses criminals to protest for and saying all live matter is racist, using the flag and anthem as a protest platform sends a message other than the one they claim to send. It attacks our country rather than the actions of police officers. I am not sure why Democrat protesters always have to be the most offensive that they can.
It turns people off from their message and actually prevents any widespread sympathy but I also doubt they really care about solving problems.
Tangled but if there was lower crime in the poor parts of towns, there would be far less police interactions for everyone.
The multimillionaire ball players have lead a life of privilege. That isn’t to say they didn’t have to work but that they got a lot of rewards and special treatment off the field thanks to their status of being top athletes. But because they are part of the cultural elite, many of them act like others in the cultural elite and embrace a lifestyle made popular by rap and hip hop.
They perpetuate the problems that lead to police encounters for those with less wealth and privilege than themselves. Rather than change how destructive elite culture is, they blame the cops and our country.
I don’t follow football, but I saw on today’s Yahoo main page some Neanderthal in a football uniform quoted as saying “Trump doesn’t run the country, the people do.” Wonder if this Mensan felt the same way during the Obama Administration? I remember that august political scholar, Chris Rock, saying something to the effect that the country is like a family, and Obama is like the daddy, and “you have to do what daddy says.” As one commenter on one of the pro-freedom blogs (maybe this one) said at the time, “It’s good that Mr. Rock has absorbed the civics lessons of 15th Century Russia.” But I’m sure these freedom fighters in football uniforms were just as dedicated to the spirit of Sam Adams (the libertarian rabble rouser, not the beer) during the reign of Il Dufe.
I would have preferred that Trump not get involved or if he did, to do it the way Obama criticized people in a less direct manner. But Trump is direct and said what a lot of people were thinking. Things are being blown way out of proportion though. The DNC media is making the most out of this.
This isn’t good for Trump but it isn’t good for the NFL or sports in general. Trump doesn’t have to say anything, but he probably will, and the protests will continue. That is just going to piss off more fans the longer it goes on. The players could take their activism outside the office but I doubt they can resist the spectacle any more than Trump.
Big sport has been taken over by SJWs, which is why most of the sports fans I know are now ex-sports-fans: they have no desire to help fund people who despise them. Trump is playing to his base here, unlike every Republican president since Reagan.
He just said what everyone was thinking and this is what drives the Democrats crazy. I doubt the Democrat sports fans like the politicization of sports either. This is why you see most people saying it’s their right rather than saying they agree with the anti-American views.
I don’t think it is their right since the protests are taking place at work and the NFL has has history of preventing political and non-political displays from players.
Don’t be so sure this isn’t good for Trump. The media will certainly howl, but the people understand and agree with the president. As for being vulgar and crude, didn’t Patton say something about a way to effectively get a point across so that it is remembered?
As for being ‘presidential’ that’s a rather recent innovation if you check the history books. Being ‘presidential’ is actually a pretty standard comedic theme of the lying politician (exaggerated of course to make the point obvious.)
I think it hurts Trump a little but the NFL, the players, and the Democrats more.
The Democrats hijacked the kneel away from racist cops and turned it into a demand that every player protest Trump. This makes things explictly politically partisan rather than a racial protest about law enforcement.
Trump is just one guy making the occasional comment. There are a lot more players running their mouths and weekly games for them to show they hate the USA. There are more opportunities for the fans/public to get upset at players/NFL/Democrats. So while it really isn’t good for anyone, the net effect will be worse for the players/NFL/Democrats the longer this goes on.