I'm so fucking sick of hearing about this so I have to get it out. First some opening points:
- The NFL owners are absolute fucking jackasses for drawing more attention to this controversy, implementing the kneeling rule was the wrong approach
- Colin Kaepernick is not owed a job as a job is not a right, it's a privilege
- Suing a company is a pretty good way to ensure you do not get hired back
- Kneeling for the flag does not make you anti-military or anti-American, hands off your freedom chodes
I'm going to be fairly elitist about this, I can already tell. Make peace with it.
What ... what ... WHAT is so difficult to understand about this whole situation? Players decided to kneel for the anthem in protest of police brutality. The media takes the bait so deep it's danging out of their asses. They stir up both the conservatard flagsterbaters and social justice keyboard warriors because war is good for the economy and what better way to pump up those ad revenue dollars than to piss off the ignorant masses and get hundreds of thousands of clicks, pageviews, and retweets?
I've always felt the situation was stupidly simple. Kaep was under contract with the NFL. Kaep was let go and no teams decided to pick him up. OMG racism, right? Nope. Let's ask ourselves. Why on Earth would a team not want to pickup a quarterback, a player commonly expected to be the leader of the team, who is guaranteed to divide the locker room and take fans out of the stands? I don't get it either man, it's almost like it's a completely fucking awful idea.
Kaep made his bed and had to lay in it. By making his protest, he endangered his future job prospects with the NFL. Now the NFL is not free from scrutiny here. The anthem was never part of something they did until recently (especially after they started getting some of that sweet, sweet department of defense money). It's a propaganda move, clear as day. Stoke the fires of patriotism, gets the fans all jacked up on national pride and let's watch some motherfuckin' football!
But again, I'm left with nothing but confusion. If the owners want to enforce this admittedly stupid policy that will only lead to more creative protests and not reduce them, then they can. The NFL is not a public institution, it's a business. It's allowed to make and enforce behavioral policies. If they expect players to stand for the anthem or hide in the locker room, I expect players to protest while standing and then BOOM we get to hear about this shit for another year minimum.
Lastly, the flagsterbaters need to calm the fuck down before they perforate their colons with all their flag ridin'. You live in a country that is built on the foundation of many freedoms that are not guaranteed to all civilized societies. If someone protesting the national anthem gets you all hot and bothered, that's fine, you're allowed to feel that way. It is, as we say, a free country after all. But how that magically makes them anti-military is beyond me. The US is not defined by its military. The flag DOES NOT stand for the military, it stands for the country and its people. For a group that tends to mock the left quite frequently for being soft or easily offended, this select group of conservatives is very, very easy to trigger and not quick to consider their positions. Snowflakes melt at the same temperature regardless of political affiliation.
My conspiracy is this: The NFL is still very afraid of CTE and other trauma related to head injuries. They don't really want to do anything about it and they want people to just forget about it. What works better than pissing on the anthem anthill again? Nothing! You can tell they're not happy about some slight dips in revenue, but for the most part this strategy is succeeding. Media attention is pulled away head trauma in favor of something people are way more likely to get blindly angry about.
My solution is simple: no anthem on TV. Figure out something else to 'honor America' and move on.
- The NFL owners are absolute fucking jackasses for drawing more attention to this controversy, implementing the kneeling rule was the wrong approach
- Colin Kaepernick is not owed a job as a job is not a right, it's a privilege
- Suing a company is a pretty good way to ensure you do not get hired back
- Kneeling for the flag does not make you anti-military or anti-American, hands off your freedom chodes
I'm going to be fairly elitist about this, I can already tell. Make peace with it.
What ... what ... WHAT is so difficult to understand about this whole situation? Players decided to kneel for the anthem in protest of police brutality. The media takes the bait so deep it's danging out of their asses. They stir up both the conservatard flagsterbaters and social justice keyboard warriors because war is good for the economy and what better way to pump up those ad revenue dollars than to piss off the ignorant masses and get hundreds of thousands of clicks, pageviews, and retweets?
I've always felt the situation was stupidly simple. Kaep was under contract with the NFL. Kaep was let go and no teams decided to pick him up. OMG racism, right? Nope. Let's ask ourselves. Why on Earth would a team not want to pickup a quarterback, a player commonly expected to be the leader of the team, who is guaranteed to divide the locker room and take fans out of the stands? I don't get it either man, it's almost like it's a completely fucking awful idea.
Kaep made his bed and had to lay in it. By making his protest, he endangered his future job prospects with the NFL. Now the NFL is not free from scrutiny here. The anthem was never part of something they did until recently (especially after they started getting some of that sweet, sweet department of defense money). It's a propaganda move, clear as day. Stoke the fires of patriotism, gets the fans all jacked up on national pride and let's watch some motherfuckin' football!
But again, I'm left with nothing but confusion. If the owners want to enforce this admittedly stupid policy that will only lead to more creative protests and not reduce them, then they can. The NFL is not a public institution, it's a business. It's allowed to make and enforce behavioral policies. If they expect players to stand for the anthem or hide in the locker room, I expect players to protest while standing and then BOOM we get to hear about this shit for another year minimum.
Lastly, the flagsterbaters need to calm the fuck down before they perforate their colons with all their flag ridin'. You live in a country that is built on the foundation of many freedoms that are not guaranteed to all civilized societies. If someone protesting the national anthem gets you all hot and bothered, that's fine, you're allowed to feel that way. It is, as we say, a free country after all. But how that magically makes them anti-military is beyond me. The US is not defined by its military. The flag DOES NOT stand for the military, it stands for the country and its people. For a group that tends to mock the left quite frequently for being soft or easily offended, this select group of conservatives is very, very easy to trigger and not quick to consider their positions. Snowflakes melt at the same temperature regardless of political affiliation.
My conspiracy is this: The NFL is still very afraid of CTE and other trauma related to head injuries. They don't really want to do anything about it and they want people to just forget about it. What works better than pissing on the anthem anthill again? Nothing! You can tell they're not happy about some slight dips in revenue, but for the most part this strategy is succeeding. Media attention is pulled away head trauma in favor of something people are way more likely to get blindly angry about.
My solution is simple: no anthem on TV. Figure out something else to 'honor America' and move on.
