Home » Why I haven’t written about the NFL

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Why I haven’t written about the NFL — 92 Comments

  1. The NFL has bungled this pretty badly. Trump trolled them, and Roger Goodell took the bait and the league has literally aligned itself against its own fans. Trump is Brer’ Rabbit on this one.

  2. Anything that causes ordinary Americans to lose interest in the corrupt, thug-worshipping world of “sportsball” is a good thing.

    Read a book, learn a skill, play a sport yourself, get together with friends to discuss issues that matter. Anything is better than living vicariously through the “achievements” of these overpaid crybabies.

  3. From Mark Levin’s Facebook post entitled “The NFL is looking more repulsive every day”: “Billionaires
    and millionaires linking arms in unity for what? The NFL has revealed itself to be a collection of spoiled narcissists where self-aggrandizing groupthink is celebrated.”

  4. I propose a compromise: NFL players don’t have to stand for the National Anthem and I don’t have to watch NFL football games.

  5. This is all so depressing for me but it’s really been building for a few years now. The politicization of everything is so tiring.

    Football has been a part of my life for as long as I can remember. As a wee tot of 7 years old I was at the Seattle Seahawks first game with my dad in 1976 and we had season tickets for the next 25 years after that. Sports was THE thing that connected my dad and I and even as I became an adult we kept on going to the games until his health no longer made it possible. When the Seahawks finally won the Super Bowl I’m not to proud to say that I cried. Not just because they won but also for my dad who was no longer living by then.

    But the non stop politicizing (the Seahawks are rife with this) has just sucked the fun right out of it for me. I watched the other day but it wasn’t the same and the ties are loosening for me. Sad.

  6. lets disrespect all of the heroes in our history who had sacrificed their lives or well being for our liberty and freedoms just because Trump says we need to respect them, how freaking more childish can they get? My only regret is in his speech the President didn’t tell the liberals not to punch themselves in the face or not to give 99% of their net worth to charity.

  7. JFM Says:
    “I propose a compromise: NFL players don’t have to stand for the National Anthem and I don’t have to watch NFL football games.”

    Amend this to say “And the millionaire players and billion-dollar teams are ineligible for any government subsidies, including stadiums”, and I’ll enthusiastically agree.

    Or perhaps “In government-financed arenas and stadiums, players and performers are required to respect the American flag and the Constitution of the United States.”

  8. As Tucker Carlson said last night, the televised game (I think it was the Seahawks) on Sunday got the lowest viewership in years. If attendance and viewership keep dropping, the owners will enforce their own rule. (It’s a mystery to me that the owners and coaches who are supporting the kneeling players don’t know who their audience is.) And if the owners do enforce the rule, and the players quit, well, there are about 26,000 Division I and II players who would love to get the chance to play in the NFL.

  9. Perceiving it to have become a semi-rigged game by the officials in the playoffs, I stopped watching professional football many years ago.

    But this is much bigger than many may imagine. Non-political Americans who still love this country have now reached a tipping point because for many the turning of the escape valve of sports into political theater is a “bridge too far”.

    I highly recommend this video by a black police officer on this subject: “Now I have had enough – Why The Flag Means So Much To Americans”

    In this article by Dennis Prager he gets to the heart of the issue. “WHO’S DIVISIVE — THE PRESIDENT OR THE PLAYERS?”

    How the Left has twisted the NFL kneeling controversy.

    While this article by Daniel Greenfield is both incisive and informative: “BREAK UP THE NFL’S CORRUPT DEM MONOPOLY”

    Why it’s high time for the NFL to take a knee.

  10. Yancy Ward: “Trump is Brer’ Rabbit on this one.”

    Oh, so you think Trump, in being un-presidential again, has somehow come out ahead in prompting an explosion of divisive politicization where the original act by one player was dying out.
    Oh yeah, genius move.

  11. My best guess is that a small group of people will be so put off by the demonstrations that they’ll quit watching, and ratings will go down. But there are many more people, with greatly diminished enthusiasm, who’ll slowly drift away from the sport.

    In ten years or so, NFL TV ratings will have tanked. Like ESPN, they’ll blame everything but their left-wing politicization.

    As a side note, I wish that Trump would have kept his attention on more important things, and I still dislike him, but I’m surprised at how often I agree with him. I grew up playing football and basketball, but wasn’t good enough to play beyond high school. Since then, I’ve been a sporadic TV spectator. After all this nonsense, I’ll probably wait for the playoffs to see whether there’s a game I might care about. What would spark my interest again? Well, fire a few hundred of the SOBs, and I’d get curious again real fast.

    Until then, I’m taking a knee.

  12. Oh, so you think Trump, in being un-presidential again, has somehow come out ahead in prompting an explosion of divisive politicization where the original act by one player was dying out.
    Oh yeah, genius move.

    Harry the Extermist: I don’t much like Trump or football, but I’ll take Yancy Ward’s side on this and trust Trump’s instincts.

    Trump will pwn the NFL and Democrats on this for the cost of a few tweets.

  13. The NFL et al. may claim they are upholding free expression, but since they regularly block players from conservative expression, it’s just hypocrisy.

    Free expression for only one side is the opposite of free expression.

    (Yes, I understand the First Amendment/workplace distinction.)

  14. huxley, all Trump had done was energize the base on either extreme. Thats it. He did nothing to change any ones minds or move anything forward of any significance. He isnt playing multi-level chess here, he’s just a buffoon who’s dragging conservatism down with him.

  15. Harry the Extremist: But there are more Americans who agree with Trump on this than not.

    And many Americans including myself are downright sick of SJWs politicizing everything and feel it’s about time someone like Trump pushed back hard.

    The NFL is going to lose more customers than they realize. Democrats are going to discover their cause is not popular. Kaepernick is not Rosa Parks by a long mile.

    Hillary lost because she underestimated Trump and his supporters. This looks more self-righteous blindness.

    That’s my sense of it anyway. If it goes that way, Trump wins and the NFL loses.

  16. “all Trump had done was energize the base on either extreme. Thats it. He did nothing to change any ones minds or move anything forward of any significance.” Harry the Extremist

    I predict that events shall prove you to be gravely mistaken. IMO, this is much bigger and significant than you credit. Battle lines are being drawn and those who feel no loyalty to America are exposing themselves. Americans are being polarized and not by Trump but by the Left. As President, Trump is calling out that disloyalty.

    “WHO’S DIVISIVE – THE PRESIDENT OR THE PLAYERS?”

  17. NFL is one thing, but then there are those who “took the knee” to protest free speech issues at Georgetown Univ. law school(?) today when Att. General Sessions came to campus. Loons.

    Professional sports, bleah! and meh. Haven’t paid much attention to them in 30 yrs. An outlier I guess.

  18. The free speech issues were regarding President Trump’s tweets regarding the NFL players. It would seem the law students don’t yet know much about the constitution.

  19. I predict that events shall prove you to be gravely mistaken. IMO, this is much bigger and significant than you credit.

    –GB to HtE

    Count me in. I’m not sure why, since I don’t like Trump or football much, but this business, with all its hypocrisy and bigotry as I see it towards America, has really gotten under my skin.

    I didn’t vote for Trump last year, but I will in 2020 if he manages as well for the rest of his term.

  20. I have not watched professional football since Joe and the Jets surprised everyone. I’m a baseball volleyball fan. But I too think the multimillionaire players and owners have done something very stupid. Waiting to learn if they shoot the other foot.

  21. “Professional sports, bleah! and meh. Haven’t paid much attention to them in 30 yrs. An outlier I guess.” om

    Sometimes being an outlier is just being ahead of the crowd. That appears to be the case on this issue.

    However, IMO this is much bigger than many credit or realize. It’s the perfect vehicle for Trump to beat the Left on the head with their being unAmerican with hate for America being their motivation.

    It’s the perfect vehicle because the Left is exposing itself as an enemy of America. They can’t symbolically spit on the national symbols that represent the lives sacrificed that have been made to give us the right to protest and then expect people to believe they’re protesting to make this a better country.

    That assertion rings too hollow and self-conceited by privileged, game playing millionaires who’ve never sacrificed anything for the country that has rewarded them so generously.

  22. Outstanding links, G.B.

    Prager is spot on.

    These highly paid athletes could make a difference in the issue of blacks getting shot by the police. How? Use their prestige and money to go into black neighborhoods and talk with young kids. Encourage them to stay on the right side of the law. Encourage them to not do stupid things that can get them shot when they come in contact with the police.

    They could meet with police. Learn their side of the story. Act as an intermediary between the police and black neighborhoods. That takes work and laying their reps on the line. There are few who will do it.

    They could get a permit and hold a peaceful protest that doesn’t interfere with other people’s rights and doesn’t offend their fans. The MSM would cover it big time.

    Instead, they take the easy and stupid path of insulting the nation and many of their fans by kneeling during the National Anthem. That solves nothing.

    The owners should tell their players how to make a real difference and forbid their protest during games. But they won’t. Even these billionaire owners are afraid of the MSM. Oh well, they will soon see the effects on their bottom line. Will that change things? We’ll see.

    This saddens me because I’m a big fan of football. I won’t be watching it this year if these protests continue.

  23. It seems strange to me that the NFL kneeling displays playing out currently are being characterised as being all about the players’ rights to free speech. That seems to me not really to be the case.

    To their credit, the great mass of work-a-day Americans on the ground appear to this foreign observer to implicitly accept the right to free speech as a given, however distastefully expressed and shabby the purported justification.

    (As you correctly observe, Neo, we must set apart from any “free speech” debate certain necessarily limited restrictions on the type of opinions one may hold and the way they may be expressed such as apply in any free society such as:(1) freely bargained-for contractual limitations such as are routine in commercial contracts like “public decorum” and “morals” clausesl, as well as: (2) the restrictions society as a whole rightly imposes on certain expressions of thought through its obscenity and public safety laws that protect the state’s rightful interests).

    What is really in play here, although it’s not often expressed outright, is the crucial distinction between, on the one hand, respecting another’s right to hold and express an opinion, and the often-claimed but non-existent right to demand that the said expressed opinion, itself, be respected and valued -whatever its merits, or lack of same.

    The former is what the right to free speech truly represents and is uncontroversial and is not, it seems to me, really disputed even by the vast majority of Americans who deplore these player displays; the latter is what the players and their supporters seem to be claiming and this “right” does not and will never exist outside of cloud cuckoo land.

    I hear these two different “rights” conflated a lot – and I don’t like it. I constantly hear not just the unobjectionable assertion:” I have the right to my opinion so here it is”, but the utterly repugnant and just plain silly view:”this is my opinion so you have to respect it”.

    It seems to me that what needs to be injected overtly into the debate is an assertion of the central reality that whilst any fool has the right to hold and voice an opinion in a free society no-one is ever under any obligation, legal or moral, to respect or value that opinion in and of itself.

    Afterall, a fool’s opinion is only and ultimately just that – a fool’s opinion. Part of being a fool is that his or her opinions are usually foolish and of no value to me at all, no?.

    The fools that I have met over the course of my life, and there have been many, all shared one chief characteristic in common:-their opinions were never supported by any reasoned analysis, evidence, study or authority.

    Surely you and your readers, Neo, are just as familiar as I with the refrain by fools when their opinions are challenged and laid bare: “Yeah, well that’s my opinion”.

    The fool recognises no need to advance an argument to support a contention. For the fool, the holding of the opinion itself is its own justification and the mere uttering of his or her claim, (or any other overt expression of it such as by taking a knee), is the whole winning argument itself.

    I feel that I know of what I speak when it comes to fools and their opinions. I took little away from the almost 2 years I took out of private legal practice to work at a free community legal centre save for the certain knowledge that it is the unwavering practice of fools to define right and wrong strictly according to whatever course served their own selfish interests, be it their wallets, their appetites, their egos or their indolence.

    I met numerous clients who really believed it was legally defensible to break a wife’s jaw because she didn’t have dinner on the table at the right time or because she forgot to buy his favorite desert that night; or that it was legally proper to set fire to a neighbor’s car because it was parked too closely to their own; or that the police had erred legally by charging them when they had lifted up and carried away someone’s property from a door step because they wanted it and it shouldn’t have been left out anyway.

    Such people do exist and they certainly have the right to hold and voice an opinion. They do not, however, have the right to demand that I respect their views or values or even that I hang about and listen to or watch them express it.

    Such people have nothing at all to offer me and they have no rightful claim upon my time and attention.

    Yet this is where the west seems headed: that all values and opinions, however ignorant and toxic are equally valuable and I reject it.

    The appropriate response to such people as these NFL players in their fashionable and ill-informed posturing and preening is to tacitly acknowledge their right to posture and preen but to pay them and their displays no heed at all. A fool’s opinion is simply that: a fool’s opinion and need not be respected or dignified.

    South Park captured it well a few months ago when they portrayed a panel of court-side commentators at a school basketball game of 6 year olds all waiting breathlessly to see which children would take a knee and reacting as though it was important when they did. The opinions of fools and children should mean nothing to a thinking person.

  24. The sports I have personally enjoyed are skiing (in most forms) kayaking, cycling, hiking, running, and windsurfing. So I’m with Neo’s proclivities sportswise. Although I do like to watch a good volleyball game, and I used to watch the superbowl.

    People may be making a small mistake in assuming that when viewership declines, these issues will self-correct. The problem is that big team sports is not a very free marketplace. The reason is that cable TV is an oligopoly or local monopoly.

    In my locale, I can either subscribe to Comcast or put up an antenna and get FreeTV or Dish or DirectTV. If I subscribe to any of the pay TV options, I automatically have to pay for ESPN and perhaps a few other “sports” channels. So over my considerable lifetime I have spent thousands of dollars supporting Big Sports TV while I have not spent 5 minutes watching any of these networks.

    What does Bob Eiger, CEO of Disney/ESPN, care if I turn on his channels? I have to pay for them anyway.

    On the other hand, advertisers, and ticket sales DO care about actual eyeballs, and bums in seats.

  25. A lone Pittsburgh Steeler stood with his hand over his heart during the anthem. The coach castigated him for not showing unity with the team waitnng in the tunnel and he responded with a press conference apologizing to his team. So much for HIS right to free speech in honoring the anthem.

    Free speech is great as long as everyone says the same thing.

  26. Blm is demanding special treatments not equality they are demanding more leeways for laws that none of the other races of people have problems obeying. What they are saying is when the laws are written colourblind they can’t stop committing disproportionate number of crimes relative to everyone else so they need to have laws rewritten to their favor just to level the playing ground a bit. Racial profiling is bad only for the people who commits disproportionate amount of crimes. Racial profiling wouldn’t have any effects on blacks if blacks didn’t commit so much crimes compared to everyone else, so who’s at fault here, racial profiling or black youth collectively not behaving?

  27. How odd that this is cast as a free speech issue. Has anyone been legally challenged for their actions? It is simply an case of one group showing lack of respect for symbols that others hold Dear. The latter are outraged, justifiably in my opinion; and do have some financial recourse.

    Since this is all occurring in a venue that is supposed to be entertaining, the people who ultimately pay the tab will have a vote. The intermediaries, who also benefit greatly; e.g., the owners, certainly have a vote. We will see how it plays out.

    As for Trump, one could argue that the President is, to a certain extent, the moral protector of these symbols. He cannot do so with legal action, but, can rightly do so rhetorically.

    I quit the NFL when Kaepernick first started this disgusting business, and the League did not stand up. That was actually kind of the last straw in a process that has been developing.

  28. Many good points here. One thing not discussed is that by making these and other similar comments, Trump is starting a preference cascade. For a long time people who are conservative, either by temperament or dislike of conflict, would not speak up when confronted by the left. They demonstrate their disaproval by other means.

    Looking back, the first major example was Ronald Reagan’s funeral, or as the press smirked, the funeral of that doddering fool who had Alzheimer’s, told jokes, and ate jelley beans. But when he lay in state in the capitol, people started coming, and coming, and coming to pay their respect from all over the US. Then when the official mourning period was over and the body flown to California for burial, it had to be done all over again because so many people who couldn’t come east wanted to pay their respect. But the MSM and all the better people couldn’t and still don’t understand why it happened.

    A more recent example is the Chick-Fil-A owners telling the gay marriage crowd to drop dead. To the consternation of the left, the chain had enourmous crowds supporting them by lining up to buy food.

    What Trump is doing is giving people an example and permission to talk back to the left loudly and in no uncertain terms, instead of feeling restricted to these quiet ways of showing their disagreement. I’m going to predict that the first place this will be seen sometime in the coming year will be on college campuses where students who are sick of the political commisars on campus will act up in a big way.

  29. A lot of publicity has been given about Colin Kaepernick’s not standing for the National Anthem and for wearing “police=pigs” socks. Not as much publicity has been given to what he thinks of Hillary Clinton.
    For those Colin Kaepernick Says Hillary Clinton Should Be in Jail.

    “I mean, you have Hillary who’s called black teens or black kids super-predators.

    You have Donald Trump who’s openly racist.

    I mean, we have a presidential candidate (Hillary) who’s deleted emails and done things illegally and is a presidential candidate. That doesn’t make sense to me, because if that was any other person, you’d be in prison.

    So what is this country really standing for?”

    Why has there been so little publicity about his opinion of Hillary Clinton?

  30. Consequences? No to be immediately felt perhaps but…

    ” A big and obvious “NFL LOGO” was slapped on many different items in the beverage aisle. At the time this particular Cosmodemonic Globalist Beverage Behemoth paid big bucks to the NFL, the NFL logo was supposed to signal manliness, winning, sports as a pure pastime, and good solid American values. The NFL logo was, at great expense, meant to communicate to the American consumer that the product it was on respected the solid American values.

    My thought as I glanced across these items sporting the NFL logo today was, “Not one red cent am I spending on any product that sports (so to speak) that logo. No. Just no.”

    It was a pure spontaneous thought in that I did not think to think it. It just appeared in my mind. Adamantine.

    And I moved on down the aisle and bought some beer, mixers, and soda that did not have the NFL logos.

    “Take that!,” right? Yeah, sure. My own little private boycott started spontaneously in my own little skull. So what?”

    In my little one-man world I can’t spend all that much on beverages. Even at the height of summer I doubt if I spend $20 a month on beverages from the store. It’s just me, see.

    But then I remember the multiplication tables and the fact that yesterday some 63 million Americans said “Fuck the NFL.”

    Hummm…..

    63,000,000
    X
    $20
    ____________
    $1,260,000,000
    Per Month

    http://americandigest.org/wp/thoughts-beverage-aisle/

  31. You make a good point, Paul in Boston.

    I am reminded of the observation by one of your very greatest Presidents, TR, that the presidency is “a bully pulpit”.

    Aside from his power to nominate proposed appointees and the veto, this is really all the power that Trump has: the presidency-as-pulpit, since he really has no party organisation behind him.

    I normally detest nepotism and its beneficiaries but give Ivanka a break on this for the above reason – Pres Trump has to have someone in the White House in whom he can place total trust and who has his back.

  32. So lemme see if I’m getting all this right:

    The confederate flag must be shunned because it represents to many people the institution of slavery, and many black people were enslaved in the confederacy [also in some union states, but never mind].

    The union flag — actually, its predecessor, to be precise — represents, in the context of the war between the states, the fight *against* slavery. But the (modern) union flag is to be disrespected as well.

    Okay. Carry on.

  33. Gringo,

    You have to parse Kaepernick’s statement.

    “I mean, you have Hillary who’s called black teens or black kids super-predators.”

    The majority ARE either super-predators or condone the predators. But Hillary saying that is WHY Kaepernick wants her in jail. NOT because she broke the law. He makes excuses for black kids who break the law, so the rule of law for Kaepernick means nothing beyond tribal protection.

    “You have Donald Trump who’s openly racist.”

    Many Mexican illegals are criminals and they’ve ALL broken the law and are in continual violation of the law as long as they remain in the US. All Muslims are not terrorists but 98% of terrorists are Muslim. Stating the truth is not racist. But it is in Kaepernick’s universe because he’s demonstrated his racism by willfully ignoring the massive amount of evidence that argues otherwise.

    “I mean, we have a presidential candidate (Hillary) who’s deleted emails and done things illegally and is a presidential candidate. That doesn’t make sense to me, because if that was any other person, you’d be in prison.”

    Again, if Hillary hadn’t foolishly told the truth about black urban youth Kaepernick would be OK with Hillary’s criminality because it supports his victim group.

    “So what is this country really standing for?”

    Another useful idiot opens his pie hole and reveals his ignorance.

    “Why has there been so little publicity about his opinion of Hillary Clinton?”

    Yes, why hasn’t the MSM published his negative opinion of Hillary? I mean if we didn’t know better we’d swear the MSM is on Hillary’s side…

  34. Paul in Boston: “What Trump is doing is giving people an example and permission to talk back to the left loudly and in no uncertain terms, instead of feeling restricted to these quiet ways of showing their disagreement.”

    Ben Shapiro does the same thing but does so by dismantling the left’s arguments, not by exhorting populist red meat slogans aimed for the sole purpose of riling people up. Shapiro makes the left explode too, but with actual arguments that are likely to make people question themselves and not readily dismiss him as some sort of clown as it is so easy to do with Trump.
    I want my side to actually win this game in the end, not score some minor points with die-hard fanatics. This is an important fight we got going here. I’m really wishing we had some actual leadership here. We just don’t.

  35. Paul in Boston.
    Chik Fil A didn’t tell the gay marriage crowd to get lost. The owner told a religious journal that he sent money to a group which supported traditional marriage. Much less confrontational.
    Yes, the buycott was spectacular.

    Trump has the left arguing against the Anthem, in effect. That’s good for him and his supporters.

  36. Me in 2003: What is this Super big Bowl people talk about all the time, it is like I just returned from meditating under the waterfall for a few decades that seemed as days.

  37. Shapiro makes the left explode too, but with actual arguments that are likely to make people question themselves and not readily dismiss him as some sort of clown as it is so easy to do with Trump.

    Which is why Shapiro is not of the Alt Right. The Alt Right prefers Leftist Alinsky style freezing, ridicule, and propaganda manipulation.

    That is why Trum is a good fit for the Alt Right or vice a versa.

  38. Many people, conservative Americans who feel betrayed in their patriotism, don’t want the “Left to explode”. They just say that. What they really want is Victory, with the big V sign. Victory at any cost, increasingly, as their desperation and panic stricken attitudes become a fear monger’s dream.

  39. Trum does things to test the waters. He did it this time to see if the Alt Right will back him. And as it so happens, the ALt Right’s propaganda was quite ready to back him on the NFL attack op.

    What that will come out as, will probably be “Sad Puppies” and “Gamergate” combined, except NFL is larger than both.

  40. I’ve read the post and the comments thread and it seems almost complete unanimity against the players and pro Trump’s stance. I’d like to offer a counter-opinion.

    Firstly, yes – it is not a first amendment issue when an employer places reasonable demands on its employee’s regarding their conduct and speech on the job (or even off the job in many cases).

    It’s a free country. We have the right to say and do what we want under the law and to take the consequences of said actions.

    That being said: the President of the United States represents our government. Our President is actively putting massive economic pressure on a private business in an effort to get said business to enforce patriotic expression from its employees.

    For an example that I think is applicable (and I think is along the same lines) – it’s like the President of the United states calling for economic consequences to be enforced against cake bakers who don’t want to bake cakes for gay weddings.

    You may not understand why a black athlete wants to call attention to racism and police brutality by kneeling during the national anthem. You may think it’s ineffective or that it’s infuriating or that they are lying about their reasons or that you don’t like them injecting politics into an entertainment venue. All those are understandable stances. And you are – of course – free to boycott the NFL to apply pressure to stop the practice.

    Or you could just ignore the players kneeling, which a whole lot of people were doing before Trump made this National Priority #1.

    I also think if you’re going to insist that the protest isn’t to raise awareness to police brutality against black people but is rather “disrespecting those who have served” – I would ask that you spend time listening to a black friend. They may agree with you. But they may not. Are you willing to listen?

    For my part – I don’t want people forced to bake cakes against their conscience. I don’t want people forced to stand for the flag when they would rather sit. This is America. We’re a free people. We have freedom of conscience. We have the right to raise awareness to issues we think important (and, yes, take the consequences). When our President says “jump” or “fire the sons of bitches” we don’t have to ask “how high” or say “yes sir”.

    And if you’re on fire about this issue but you don’t stand for the national anthem when you’re watching a game from home, why don’t you?

  41. It would be hilarious if they dragged out couches for the players to slump in during the anthem.

    I don’t watch sports, but I have stood, alone in my living room with my hand on my heart, for the anthem on tv.

  42. I don’t stand at home when I hear the anthem. To me, that’s a bit silly. I do at events out of mutual respect for my fellow Americans, which I believe to be the point.

  43. I will now quote a beloved cousin, posting on FB last night, on the subject at hand:

    A pig flew over my house tonight. Nobody in my family watched Monday night football…

    She had over 30 likes of various emoties on that little post. And a half dozen favorable comments mentioning, basically, “us too”.

    …I know that family very well. I was a bit stunned. No Monday night football?!? At the Deans?!?

    OMG.

    A little added reflection was all I needed to confirm that, yeah, a pig flew.

    And …that ….

    Out here in the hustings, it appears the natives are not happy.

    The NFL should be afraid. Very. Afraid.

  44. Bill,

    First of all, the disrespectful kneeling was growing before Trump spoke out. As President it was incumbent upon him to do so and the egregiousness of the offense demanded a forceful response in the strongest of terms.

    We are far past the time for diplomacy and civility as our country, culture, dignity and reputations are attacked in the most deceitful and vicious of ways. I will no longer respond politely to being called a Nazi and a racist.

    Secondly, ignoring the NFL’s level of offense is condoning it.

    Harry,

    I stand at events when the national anthem is played but not out of respect for my fellow citizens. I do it out of respect for the ideals this country was founded upon and out of respect for the lives given and service rendered to keep us all free.

  45. GB, your excellent points are supported by Prof VDH in one of his several seminars addressing the reason/s behind Trump’s victory of November 2016.

    I can’t recall which one it was so can’t give you the citation but all his Youtube videos repay watching.

    In the one I am thinking of, VDH looks back at the candidacies of McCain and Romney and opines that both held back at key tipping points in their respective campaigns when they were attacked out of nothing more than a misplaced desire to lose honorably than to be seen to win ugly.

    With McCain it was going “hands off” on Jeremiah Wright while with Romney it was doing the same with the woman Candy Crowley when she interjected herself into a debate as an advocate for Obama.

    The forgotten people were watching and they noticed that the republicans were not interested in going “all in” for them when they needed it.

    VDH rightly observes that the election of Trump was the sign that the middle and working classes in the US now believe that it is now past the point where for most of them losing honorably or at all is an option they can still afford.

    He says words or to the effect: “when you have been out of work for years or you need medical treatment you can’t afford or your teeth are broken and you can’t afford to have them fixed then losing just isn’t an option. Such people just can’t afford to lose nice anymore. They need to win. It’s not a choice, it’s survival”.

    It is quite extraordinary just how far the authoritarian leftist agenda has come in the last few years. Trump’s enemies appear to have moved way beyond mere lecturing and propagandizing towards an agenda of reform.

    With the bold-faced rejection of the legitimacy of Trump’s very election represented by the resistance and the “not my president” movements, the demands to destroy your country’s statues and historical monuments, their “you didn’t build that” hectoring, these people are on the verge of succeeding in recasting the whole narrative and ethos and founding myths of your country.

    Now they openly disrespect what are any nation’s two most fundamental and, by tradition, most sacrosanct symbols: the flag and the anthem.

    This is surely deadly serious stuff. The left knows this – which is why they are doing it.

  46. GB: “We are far past the time for diplomacy and civility as our country, culture, dignity and reputations are attacked in the most deceitful and vicious of ways.”

    I appreciate your passion. But we’re talking about guys kneeling rather than standing for the national anthem. Is it viscous to kneel?

    Also – my question again. How is making people stand for the anthem different than making them bake a cake for a gay wedding? Maybe there’s a difference. I don’t know what it is.

    Stephen: He says words or to the effect: “when you have been out of work for years or you need medical treatment you can’t afford or your teeth are broken and you can’t afford to have them fixed then losing just isn’t an option. Such people just can’t afford to lose nice anymore. They need to win. It’s not a choice, it’s survival”

    Can you see how an African American citizen might feel similarly, mired in poverty and with what certainly appears to them to be increasing incidents of targeted police brutality? Now I know the NFL players are rich, but many came from poor backgrounds. Can we extend a benefit of the doubt that they are genuinely concerned about these issues? They feel like African Americans in this country have survival issues before them as well.

    Does the fact of an American President telling their “owners” to force them to stand for the anthem or lose their livelihoods bring any pause?

    I don’t think Trump is a good president. But he is a master at media and buzz. We have a humanitarian crisis in Puerto Rico, we’re as close to war with NK as we’ve been in 60 years, no repeal and replace, no wall. And he has everyone at each other’s throats talking about the NFL.

    The man is very, very good at this.

  47. To the left Ben sharpio is alt right. Democrats embrace their radical elements like antifa while republicans alienate their radical elements the the alt right is the the reason why democrats always win while republicans always lose. I blame the right for all of our problems today because where the heck were you in the 50s or 60s when the liberals started penetrating academia and Hollywood, why didn’t you people push back back then?

  48. Good debaters can never help you win a culture war, you need good propaganda, why not promote togetherness to combat the left’ diversity. Start showing the pictures of beautiful 80s to give a visual to people how great America once was but no more, compare the beautiful Detroit in the past with the picture of the ruins of together, promote assimilation is a elegant way with well thought out propaganda instead of telling immigrants with a stern voice like an old nun.

  49. G Britain said: “We are far past the time for diplomacy and civility as our country, culture, dignity and reputations are attacked in the most deceitful and vicious of ways. I will no longer respond politely to being called a Nazi and a racist.”

    ~~
    Indeed. I much prefer logic and rational arguments to persuade people. However, in the last 5-10 years, I’ve come to admit that I was wrong. Logic can’t get someone out of a position that logic didn’t get them into.

    Not saying that it doesn’t have a place. Once the emotions have changed, logic and rational arguments help bolster the new position.

    Personal history – I was adamantly pro-choice for most of my adult life. I was looking through a graphic pro-life site. I had no worries going in because my position was quite firm. I knew all the arguments, so was innoculated. I was looking for more points to refute.

    I was on the site for a long time, absolutely horrified. The emotional impact of the images shook me in ways I had not believed possible. I didn’t experience a complete change immediately, but opened up to the idea that I was completely wrong, and started looking into the pro-life points with more openness and respect. Over time, my opinions flipped 100%.

  50. either you apologize to the left for the few white supremacists on your side and fall on deaf ear while being used as an admission that the right are white supremacists, or embrace the situation and blame the left’s attacks and persecution on white male created the rise of white supremacy. You know why the repeal and replace bill never got past, it was because there was zero promotion and zero explanation provided to explain to anyone the logical reasoning because the bill and how it is better obamacare. No ads on tv, no flyers, no websites set up, zero foot print on social media, how do you expect people to support it?

    The side with the better Rhetoric wins, as demonstrated by Reagan & Trump, unless the right begins to realize that debates mean nothing unless you have good rhetoric like “make america great again” to bring audience to listen to your debate the war has already been lost.

    Why not use this slogan “no social problem has ever been solved by rhetoric” to render all left rhetoric useless once and for all.

  51. Bill,

    “I appreciate your passion. But we’re talking about guys kneeling rather than standing for the national anthem. Is it viscous to kneel?”

    It’s ‘vicious’ to kneel during the national anthem because it disrespects the sacrifices made to give us our freedoms.

    “Also — my question again. How is making people stand for the anthem different than making them bake a cake for a gay wedding? Maybe there’s a difference. I don’t know what it is.”

    I didn’t answer your question because I never advocated making them stand. Coercion is coercion regardless of which side engages in it.

    I am NOT in favor of coercion. I AM in favor of consequence. BOYCOTT the NFL until they’re out of business. I will not EVER support an organization or individual that spits upon those who sacrificed their very lives to give them the ‘right’ to spit upon men far better than themselves.

    And in kneeling, they ARE spitting upon those sacrifices. They believe the Left’s lies that America is a racist society. To do so, they have to engage in willful blindness. Not only ignoring the massive amount of factual evidence that disproves the lie but discounting their own personal circumstances that put the lie to the left’s bile. Willful blindness equates to complicity in the LIE and that is why they deserve ostracizing in the harshest of terms.

  52. “Such people just can’t afford to lose nice anymore. They need to win. It’s not a choice, it’s survival”

    “Can you see how an African American citizen might feel similarly, mired in poverty and with what certainly appears to them to be increasing incidents of targeted police brutality?” Bill

    Of course they feel similarly. It’s flawed human nature to play the victim, rather than look in the mirror. In the aggregate, they reject education as “acting whitey”, claim that working hard at a job is playing the fool, deny personal responsibility for the choices they make, reject parental responsibility for their offspring and laugh at delaying gratification. Those are the overwhelming reasons WHY blacks reside at the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder. It’s not the color of the skin, it’s the key cultural values they reject.

    As for police brutality targeting blacks, that’s a bunch of hooey. The FACTS do NOT back up the LIE that police brutality is institutionalized racism targeting blacks. Again, this is a case of a minority playing the victim, rather than looking in the mirror. Young black crime rates are astronomical. Asian crime rates are infinitesimal. Racist systems are NOT ‘selective’ in their racism.

    In addition, it’s not surprising that black people think the police are killing young black people in droves. The MSM drives that message home. Most liberals—blacks AND whites—believe it.

  53. GB – the idea that kneeling during the anthem is spitting on veterans is an interpretation made in the worst possible light related to the stated reason (raising awareness about police brutality)

    People say abortion protesters want a Handmaid’s Tale in America. Is that what they want? I don’t think so, but propaganda works.

    Have you discussed this anthem issue with any black friends to see what they think? Maybe they agree with you. I don’t know.

    Do kneeling pro athletes hate veterans? Is that why they are kneeling? Because they don’t like the military? Are they protesting the military or something else

    Do you stand for the anthem when you watch a game at home?

    Boycotts generally don’t work, but this one has the President of the United States behind it so who knows?

    It’s not the government restricting speech, but it’s approaching the line. Imagine a sports team asking its players to wear the LGBT rainbow on their uniforms.(already seen this in women’s soccer) Some players decline and a future president holds a rally and tells the owners to “fire the sons of bitches”. Support? Or a high school coach being fired for leading his team in prayer. Support? It offends some people.

    What Trump is doing isn’t conservatism. It’s Nationalism with more than a hint of Authoritarianism. But the culture war is way easier to fight than pushing through needed legislation.

  54. By the way, regarding yournother point, I know a decent number of young black students pursuing college degrees

  55. Geoffrey Britain:

    I have no idea where you’re getting your ideas about what black people “in the aggregate” (your words) believe.

    You don’t cite any polls. You don’t cite any statistics at all to back up your claim that black people “in the aggregate” reject education, don’t work hard at their jobs, and all the rest of the things on your list. It is my very strong impression that the majority of black people understand the value of education, work hard at jobs, etc. etc..

    There is indeed a subset of black people who meet your description. I very much doubt it’s the majority, but it’s a significant enough number to be a significant factor in helping a minority of black people to be on the lower rungs of society.

    However, I am under the distinct impression that the majority of black people have much the same values as everyone else, valuing education and work and raising their children in normative ways.

    If you want to see statistics, here’s an example of one relevant statistic. It’s not the only one, of course. It compares school dropout rates for various races. Blacks drop out at a somewhat higher rate than whites, to be sure, but the vast majority of blacks do not drop out.

  56. Well ….

    I don’t think that there should be national anthems before sporting events. Especially commercial ones.

    Personally I just don’t like being called upon to publicly profess national allegiance with a mob of salivating saps just because I have paid for a seat in a stadium to watch a bunch of low IQ acrobats have at each other. And I don’t see why I should.

    Of course, once you do provide such an occasion there will be those who use it or twist it for this or that ulterior motive, as is inevitably the case. ‘Look at me … I’m patriotic and part of the herd.’ Or, ‘Look at me … I stand for feelings and caring against the establishment …’

    I did read the Greenfield article too. It was good.

    Now, before anyone bothers to accuse me of pissing on the notion of social solidarity and community feeling, let me head them off at the pass by freely admitting to doing just that …and further for having a contempt for the “seductive power of crowds” … contempt, in a moral sense, at least. In another sense you have to respect a flock that is quite capable of tearing you to shreds, like some frenzied maenads feasting on a man who climbed the mountain to spy on their rites.

    But there are folks who have a huge hunger for such collective involvement, and to whom such experiences are important and valuable.

    So, I guess they are going to have to work it out for themselves while I shrug and ask “So what?”

  57. Bill:

    The argument is that making people bake a cake for a gay wedding who claim religious objections to gay marriage violates their freedom of religion. That’s what the court cases are all about—the claim of violating their religious rights.

    Making someone stand for an anthem doesn’t violate their religious rights at all—or their free speech rights, if it’s only at work. No one makes them stand for the anthem when they are spectators at a game, for example. Also, when they signed up for the NFL, they knew that standing for anthems was part of the job. No one has turned the tables on them.

    That’s two differences right there. There are probably others.

  58. “Indeed. I much prefer logic and rational arguments to persuade people. However, in the last 5-10 years, I’ve come to admit that I was wrong. Logic can’t get someone out of a position that logic didn’t get them into.

    Not saying that it doesn’t have a place. Once the emotions have changed, logic and rational arguments help bolster the new position.”

    That is an interesting point, and it gets to the issue of the question of “What is logic for?”

    And the answer is that it is used for a number of different purposes, but the primary sociopolitical purpose did not originate with an intention by some persons to construct irrefutable and convincing arguments they could direct at others, but as a means which some could use in order to determine if the conclusion of the argument others were leveling at them, even followed from its ostensible premisses or foundations.

    It is probably the success of mathematics which has caused people to imagine that “logic”, which can be used in a mechanical like way to sort out pathways to goals, could also be used for the purpose of moral suasion … which actually depends on a sense of moral community (the category necessary in order to construct the major premise in a moral argument) in the first place.

    That is why progressives don’t even bother with moral argument as such, and just go straight to emotional identification and never beyond.

  59. Bill,
    “raising awareness about police brutality” is the claim, which is based on the premise that blacks are being targeted by a white racist police and justice system. That in turn posits that the lives sacrificed for the country of which that anthem represents are today being sacrificed for a white racist supremacist society. If that doesn’t qualify on your moral calculus as ‘spitting on the flag’ then IMO, you too are engaged in your own willful blindness.

    It doesn’t matter whether blacks agree with me or not. The objective truth of an issue does not depend upon consensual agreement.

    “Do you stand for the anthem when you watch a game at home?”

    Silly attempts at rebuttal betray an inability to respond.

    Boycotting the NFL will work. Viewership is critical to its survival.

    In positing that America practices institutionalized racism, kneeling pro athletes are engaged in hate for America. That most haven’t thought deeply about their actions is obvious, which does not excuse those actions.

    No one here is suggesting the restriction of speech. Many here are suggesting that actions have consequences. I will not pay, however indirectly or support in any manner, individuals and organizations disrespecting the anthem because in disrespecting the anthem, they are disrespecting what it stands for…

    “the culture war is way easier to fight than pushing through needed legislation.”

    You have the cart before the horse. Needed legislation cannot be passed until the culture war is won.

  60. Neo – thanks for answering that question. You do make a good point. I believe, however, that both fall within the area of violating one’s conscience. There could be non-religious reasons for not wanting to bake a cake. For example, I don’t think we would be in favor (oft used example) of forcing a black baker to bake a cake or otherwise cater an event for David Duke.

    I realize there are fine lines, etc. On a larger point, when the President of the United States asks for economic punishment against people who aren’t showing proper devotion to the flag, all the alarm bells start ringing.

    Every act creates a precedent. Once Trump is done (and we’ve worked our way through the successive administrations of Pence, Ivanka, Donald Jr and Eric, I suppose) people might get a President they don’t like and get back some of this good and hard.

  61. “Making someone stand for an anthem doesn’t violate their religious rights at all–or their free speech rights, if it’s only at work. No one makes them stand for the anthem when they are spectators at a game, for example. Also, when they signed up for the NFL, they knew that standing for anthems was part of the job. No one has turned the tables on them.”

    That is a good point, and touches on the real issue as opposed to the comment I made.

  62. “Boycotting the NFL will work. Viewership is critical to its survival.”

    One would hope so.

    However I am not convinced that the reasons people watch NFL football are all that straightforward.

    I liked playing football as a kid, and watching it when of college age age.

    But the average middle-aged NFL fan is obviously into something I cannot quite appreciate, as professional football has evolved in the last couple of decades.

    Sports betting pools, emotional release … who knows why they watch.

  63. BTW – I don’t think the players who sit should be punished. They have a right to their opinions and the right to express them. Let them sit. I want to know who the scum and vermin are. That’s me exercising my right to express my opinion.

  64. GB,

    What I don’t understand is your contention that a) there is no police brutality issue today with black people. What do you base that on? Do you have statistics (from reliable sources) to back that up that don’t ignore the fact that blacks are only 15% of the pop?

    Again, have you spent any time talking to black people about this? I have done a bit of that. It’s interesting to compare notes with a black person in my generation who matches my college education. He’s been pulled over a lot more than I have. Why?

    This is a way more complicated subject and dismissing people who don’t buy into your view as “willfully blind” is a huge over simplification.

    Regardless. Maybe everyone else is wrong and you’re right. People protesting a specific issue (even if they are wrong) doesn’t equate to them spitting on our entire system. That is a great leap beyond what they mean. Have you researched why Kaepernick switched from sitting to kneeling, for example?

    We’re not a perfect union, yet. And getting more divided all the time. This issue won’t go away. I’d prefer we work on it. It’s not just black people who have things to fear from an increasingly militarized police force, for example.

    You’re right. The boycott might work. I’m not sure forcing patriotic expression at the risk of losing your job is “America”.

    Protest is something very American, isn’t it? So they march in the streets to protest police brutality. They get called thugs. They kneel quietly before a game. Stop it!

    What do you want them to do? I think the answer is “shut up”.

  65. neo,

    I’m getting my ideas about what black people “in the aggregate” believe, based in their actions. It is their failure ‘in the aggregate’ to confront their own minority’s internal cultural flaws, their silence which implies condoning and culpability.

    When black individuals do speak out, instead of a ground swell of support, a vocal minority condemns them as “race traitors” and “uncle toms” and… the majority remain silent in the face of that condemnation.

    Instead of confronting the high crime rate among young blacks, the majority support the democrat’s lie that they’re victims of a racist society. Of course there are individual exceptions but their voting in 90+% for democrats reveals what the majority think and accept.

    I don’t need “polls” to confirm what is right in front of us. It is common among young urban blacks to condemn education as “acting white”.

    70% of black births are out of wedlock with absent fathers. That is a rejection of both personal and parental responsibility. Young black women repeatedly get pregnant when free contraception is easily available, which is an abdication of both personal and parental responsibility.

    As for delayed gratification, if the majority of blacks were practicing it, Walter Williams prescription for escaping poverty would be the norm;

    “Complete high school; get a job, any kind of a job; get married before having children; and be a law-abiding citizen. Among both black and white Americans so described, the poverty rate is in the single digits.”

    But it’s not the norm is it?

    What percentage of young blacks are working two jobs and going to night school? If the percentage was beyond minimal, the media would be trumpeting it to the skies. When you’re behind the eight ball, mired in poverty, you do what it takes to get ahead, just as generations of immigrants have done. It’s a well established path to success.

    “I am under the distinct impression that the majority of black people have much the same values as everyone else, valuing education and work and raising their children in normative ways.”

    With all due respect, observed reality does not support your distinct impression.70+% fatherless black households disprove that impression. I suspect your personal impression is based in how things were when we were growing up in the 50s and 60s when black families did respect these values with racism much more prevalent preventing equal opportunity.

    School dropout rates for various races are somewhat deceptive. Staying in school and ‘graduating’ through being “pushed through” is not the same as getting B’s and A’s demonstrating mastery of the information. How many black youth graduating from high school go on to trade schools? How many have the grade average to get into college, rather than through racial quotas?

    The wonderful comments by an articulate black policeman linked above demonstrate that blacks can compete and do well if they have the right attitude. But without that attitude which is key, its all a waste.

  66. The NFL seems to be seriously lacking in female players. I wonder why. If anyone in the NFL tells us why women are not represented equally in football, would they be fired for ‘hate speech’ like Damore?

    That may appear to be unrelated, moving the goalpost, and ‘whattaboutism.’ But we now know, from the work of modern, progressive intersectionalist scholars, that all oppression is equal and related.

    Focusing on only one oppression and ignoring others, such as sexism, the Middle East, the cultural theft of international cuisine served in cafeterias and microaggressions like hair styles and hoop earrings, is exclusionary and oppressive.

  67. “Maybe everyone else is wrong and you’re right.”–Bill. Who exactly is this “everyone” to whom you refer? I concur with just about everything GB posts in the comments. He does such a good job, I don’t even bother adding my 2 cents because I could just write, “what GB wrote”. And frankly I disagree with so much of what you post (with all due respect). Your point of view often seems in sync with those I consider my political opponents. You and my progressive family members would likely have a very civil discussion about so many issues, parting amiably, no doubt. Similar statements have been noted, Sowell saying it best,“It is usually futile to try to talk facts and analysis to people who are enjoying a sense of moral superiority in their ignorance.” And at the end of the day, those of us who disagree with the progressives will watch as actions which have served to unify our nation (public respect for the flag and anthem) are undermined, forced to share our public toilets with (fill in the blank), forced to promote abortion at our privately-funded pregnancy counseling clinics, etc, etc etc. Everything going along right on schedule per the Black Panthers, Weather Underground, BLM and their ilk.

  68. Sharon

    By ‘everyone” I didn’t mean everyone. I realize that millions upon millions of people disagree with me. Perhaps I should have worded that better.

    It may be hard to believe, but I am a conservative. I’m an evangelical Christian and I’m pro-life.

    So I would probably disagree quite a bit with your progressive family members.

    But I’ve become, over the past few years, far more interested in racial reconciliation and it’s frustrating to see the President doing all he can to divide. I think Obama did the same, but Trump is taking it to Trumpian levels.

    And there’s where I depart the GOP. I don’t believe it is any longer conservative, but rather nationalist. And increasingly authoritarian and utilitarian (i.e,, whatever works, even fighting like the left does).

  69. Bill I’ve had problems with the GOP for many years and agree with Neo that it has been some time since it could be described as “conservative”. But at least its platform to date continues to embrace the idea of “the rule of law” and recognition of a Creator. The same CANNOT be said of the Democratic party. The public square is all about “nationalist”. Conservatism is something that is manifest in the individual–or not.

  70. One thing I believe in is government staying out of my grill 🙂

    The government (in this case Trump) is turbo-charging a boycott of an entire industry in order to force patriotic expression. Also putting out a decent amount of propaganda regarding why the protesters are protesting.

    I love America. I stand for the anthem. But freedom is wonderful – I’d like to stand for the anthem because I’m free to do so, and respect other’s rights not to stand if they don’t want to. And then play ball. This is hard?

    Our country isn’t more or less great because people don’t stand. It is less great when people are forced to stand. This boycott is being pushed by our government in the person of Trump and rides a dangerous line. From my point of view at least.

  71. Bill,

    “What I don’t understand is your contention that a) there is no police brutality issue today with black people. What do you base that on?”

    Of course there are isolated instances of police brutality toward criminals. The higher percentage of whom are black. A respectful black who follows directions is highly unlikely to be brutalized by a police officer. Does some racism exist? Of course. BUT… is police brutality an institutionalized factor in America? No. And THAT is what they ARE alleging.

    “Do you have statistics (from reliable sources) to back that up that don’t ignore the fact that blacks are only 15% of the pop?”

    I’ve often cited black crime statistics from the FBI and NYC police department here. FBI statistics show that, “In the year 2008, black youths, who make up 16% of the youth population, accounted for 52% of juvenile violent crime arrests, including 58% for homicide and 67% for robbery.”

    By contrast, the only categories where white youths surpassed blacks were in liquor law violations and driving under the influence.”

    To posit those statistics to be proof of racism is to ignore Asian arrest and incarceration rates, which alone disprove that assertion. An actual racist white system would also arrest and incarcerate Asians at higher levels than their % of pop. but it does not. “Driving while Asian” is a nonsequitur.

    Since the majority of blacks accept the lie that America is racist, their personal perceptions are by definition biased. Telling them to look in the mirror is a waste of breath and an invitation to violence.

    That’s backed up by a Rasmussen poll that revealed that, “Among black Americans, 31% think most blacks are racist, while 24% consider most whites racist and 15% view most Hispanics that way.”

    I don’t base my perception of “willful blindness” on whether people buy into my view. I base it on their ignoring fact and common sense without bothering to rationally dispute the facts I cite and arguments I make. Note that I haven’t accused neo of willful blindness because while we may disagree, she does respond in a relevant manner.

    Everyone else is wrong and I’m right? You’re assuming that most agree with you… Rasmussen: “49% of Republicans see most black Americans as racist, along with 36% of unaffiliated adults and [even!] 29% of Democrats.”

    It DOES equate to them spitting on our entire system because the anthem and the flag are representative symbols of everything for which we stand as a nation.

    Since it’s based on a willfully blind premise, it doesn’t matter why Kaepernick switched from sitting to kneeling.

    We’re getting more divided all the time because of the Left’s cultural and political inroads into furthering its march into tyranny. And, that’s WHY it won’t go away. You can’t work on something that is non-negotiable; our surrender to tyranny.

    Yes, an increasingly militarized police force is a concern because the Left wishes to use it to enforce the gradual imposition of tyranny. I’d remind you that militarization greatly accelerated under Obama not Bush.

    Actions have consequences, no one here is suggesting that anyone be forced to demonstrate patriotic expressions. We are suggesting that unpatriotic expressions will have appropriate consequences. The NFL can continue to protest and I can refuse to watch it or support it. The Bible’s Book of Hosea applies; “Those who sow the wind, shall reap the whirlwind”

    Though I profoundly disagree with their premises, I fully support the right of NFL personnel to peacefully march in the streets to protest imagined institutionalized police brutality. That is an appropriate venue and manner of protest. Were they doing something like that, I would NOT be Boycotting the NFL.

    So I do NOT want them to “shut up”, I simply will not support spitting on what our anthem represents based on a demonstrable LIE.

  72. GB: “I don’t base my perception of “willful blindness” on whether people buy into my view. I base it on their ignoring fact and common sense without bothering to rationally dispute the facts I cite and arguments I make.”

    Well, I’ll try to do better. I do try to debate respectfully on this forum (especially since I’m not winning any popularity contest here in the first place).

    I will admit a little frustration (and I can’t remember your stance on this one, so not directed toward you). If we were talking about respect for the Confederate flag, I’d be making the argument that that flag stands against what our flag represents, and the people who wielded it weren’t just spitting on our country but were actively trying to kill our citizens and, if they could, destroy it. They certainly didn’t like our constitution and crafted their own.

    And, again, I’d be in the minority here.

  73. “But freedom is wonderful — I’d like to stand for the anthem because I’m free to do so, and respect other’s rights not to stand if they don’t want to. And then play ball. This is hard?”–Bill. How is this about you? This is about players undermining a system written into their code, initiated by a player that wore socks w/pigs on them. Aggravated by an organization that has disallowed respectful recognition (honor the dead police in Dallas) while looking the other way at blatant disrespect of the symbols that stand for our historical and cultural framework. I stopped watching pro-sports years ago, because of the rampant drug use that affects the outcome of games. Not interested. But I was already aggravated by the infiltration of PC thought in sports “reporting”. Already owned Hollywood. Where to go? That’s really what is so upsetting about all this. Leftist politics infecting every area of our lives and culture. I have 2 conservative adult sons who played sports. They don’t follow it anymore for this very reason. Such a sad state of affairs.

  74. Bill,

    “it’s frustrating to see the President doing all he can to divide. I think Obama did the same, but Trump is taking it to Trumpian levels.”

    An American President calling out implicit hate for America is NOT seeking to divide. It’s doing his job. Your problem is denial of the threat because going along to get along is more important to you than liberty.

    “And there’s where I depart the GOP. I don’t believe it is any longer conservative, but rather nationalist. And increasingly authoritarian and utilitarian (i.e,, whatever works, even fighting like the left does).”

    First of all, the GOPe hasn’t been conservative since at least Goldwater and probably since FDR. Where has your head been that you haven’t previously realized it?

    Conservatism, despite its rightness has utterly failed to stop the left’s “March Through the Institutions” and has utterly failed to even stop, much less rollback the Left’s cultural and political inroads into dissolving America.

    Nationalism is the ONLY thing left that can stop the Left because the principles upon which this country was founded are rational and thus defensible.

    In the main, the majority of people are NOT intellectually inclined, upon which conservatism rests for its justification. Nationalism transcends that barrier because it appeals to the emotion of loyally belonging to a group worth defending. At base, nationalism rests upon family and tribe. Embracing America’s “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” is the entrance fee to our tribe.

    In serious disputes, fighting fire with fire is the ONLY way to win when an enemy refuses to honor an agreed upon set of rules for conflict.

    It is an excuse for the surrender to appeasement to posit that fighting fire with fire is “lowering yourself to their level” and that therefore there is then no difference between the two sides. We fought the Nazis with every method, no matter how dirty. The difference was that we were fighting for the freedom of individual self-determination and for the premise that all of mankind are children of God. The Nazis fought for the opposite and THAT made all the difference. Not HOW we fought.

  75. Geoffrey Britain:

    There are tons—TONS—of black people who “confront their own minority’s internal cultural flaws.” What do you want, millions and millions of people getting up on soapboxes on streetcorners so that you can hear them? That doesn’t mean they are remaining silent.

    Most people, black and white, are busy working, raising children, and engaging with friends. I contend that most people are interested in doing those things rather than going around shouting about values so that the Geoffrey Britains of the world can hear them. People live their lives, and most are not political activists. What you see and hear is a minority.

    The majority of black people have been married in their lives. A large percentage of black teens (88%) regard marriage as important. However, the marriage rates among blacks have been declining, due in large part to the high crime rate, low earning power, and high dropout rate among young black males (plus there has been a generalized marriage decline in recent years, particularly for the less-educated of all races):

    One reason for women’s lower marriage rates, as postulated by (blackdemographics.com), is connected to the earnings potential among African American men. With greater college graduation rates among the African American women, the median income fell to 12 percent for Black men and rose to 75percent for the women (from 1974 to 2004). A high-earning woman has hardly an incentive to marry a man with low-earning…

    There is no question that there is plenty of social disruption in the black community. It seems to be present in black men in particular. But there are also loads of organizations of black people trying to change things. There’s an enormous number of black professional organizations and black pro-educational associations that mentor and encourage people in education and a host of professions. The are pro-family groups, church groups, groups such as this one and this one. From the latter’s webiste:

    The National Black Church Initiative (NBCI), a coalition of 34,000 churches, is committed to strengthening the African American family by repairing the damage created by unmarried parents, weak moral standards, and years of neglecting to address this truly pressing societal issue. The family unit is an essential component in the fabric of American life and the success of the Black community depends on the Church’s vigorous defense of the traditional family. Studies have shown that children thrive on the love and support of two parents — it is this basic fact that propels NBCI to take action to protect the family by safeguarding and promoting marriage between a man and a woman, educating African Americans on the importance of health and financial responsibility, involving therapy to repair at-risk relationships, preventing violence, and creating new standards for families nationwide. It is time to stand up for the family and create a better future for our children.

    That’s just the tip of a big iceberg. Plenty of people are doing plenty to stem the tide, whether they are successful at it or not. I doubt you’re aware of most of it, but just because you’re not aware of it doesn’t mean it’s not happening.

  76. Douglas Purdie:

    I don’t think they should be punished, either. That’s up to the NFL. And the NFL will bear the consequences if attendance declines enough.

  77. Bill:

    Other differences–

    A cake baker is a sole proprietor, not a member of a team where he signed on to certain rules when he took the job. I personally think a cake baker should be allowed to refuse to bake a cake for anyone for any reason other than those prohibited by law (such as race, for example). But forcing a person to violate his or her religious beliefs (in the gay marriage issue) is quite different from saying they must violate their political beliefs (serving David Duke). Political beliefs don’t have the same clout and protections as religious beliefs.

    And if a baker refuses too many people, or refuses them too capriciously or nastily, he or she would probably face organized opposition and negative economic consequences. Bakers are in business, after all, to bake cakes for as many customers as possible.

    And remember that no bakers refused to bake cakes for gay people, just for gay weddings. That was what the issue was.

  78. Bill,

    “If we were talking about respect for the Confederate flag, I’d be making the argument that that flag stands against what our flag represents, and the people who wielded it weren’t just spitting on our country but were actively trying to kill our citizens and, if they could, destroy it. They certainly didn’t like our constitution and crafted their own.”

    That is NOT an accurate appraisal of the South and I say that as a partisan for the North.

    The Confederate flag, in its support for slavery was antithetical toward what the American flag aspired to but racism was alive and well in the North as well, it just was more ‘polite’.

    The people who wielded the Confederate flag were NOT “spitting on our country”. They were defending what they believed to be their State’s right to secede* and actively fought for secession when northern soldiers invaded their State to compel them to remain in a compact that the South with some justification argued had been broken by the North.

    The South had NO interest in destroying the North or the America that remained and it is a slur to suggest that they did wish to destroy a Union that in their view, the North had already dissolved. History demonstrates that the North attempted to strangle the spread of slavery, which while morally justifiable, also violated the compact between the States that created the Union.

    In addition, my impression is that the Southern Constitution closely mimicked the original U.S. Constitution, especially as regarded States rights and legal institutionalized slavery.

    * I disagree that the South had the right to unilaterally secede. As the Constitution’s Article 1 forbids it without a Constitutional amendment.

    That said, the South ONLY wanted to end their participation in the Union and the North used armed coercion to deny that separation.

  79. Bill:
    Can you see how an African American citizen might feel similarly, mired in poverty and with what certainly appears to them to be increasing incidents of targeted police brutality?

    I can see how selective ignoring of the facts also increases feelings of “increased police brutality.” For example, consider this from the WaPo in 2015, figures which BLM people seldom cite: Are black or white offenders more likely to kill police?

    There were 511 officers killed in felonious incidents and 540 offenders from 2004 to 2013, according to FBI reports. Among the total offenders, 52 percent were white, and 43 percent were black.

    The FBI provided The Fact Checker a detailed database of victim officers and offenders in felonious incidents, accidental deaths and assaults with injury, from the early 1980s.

    From 1980 to 2013, there were 2,269 officers killed in felonious incidents, and 2,896 offenders. The racial breakdown of offenders over the 33-year period was on par with the 10-year period: 52 percent were white, and 41 percent were black.

    Regarding police ambushes, there is even more disproportion.

    There were 304 officers killed in ambush attacks from 1980 to 2013, with 371 offenders involved in those deaths. The percentage of black and white offenders in ambushes were about the same: 44 percent were white, and 43 percent were black.

    Figures cited for proportion of blacks in fatal police shootings are in the 22-25% area. From another WaPo article on “Fatal Shootings”:

    And police have continued to shoot and kill a disproportionately large number of black males, who account for nearly a quarter of the deaths, yet are only 6 percent of the nation’s population.

    Blacks are responsible for 41% of police killed, but constitute 22-25% of those that police killed- I fail to see the outrage.
    In addition, the article has something to say about “increasing incidents of targeted police brutality.”

    “These numbers show us that officer-involved shootings are constant over time,” said Geoffrey Alpert, a criminologist at the University of South Carolina who has studied police use of force. “Some places go up, some go down, but it’s averaging out. This is our society in the 21st century.”…
    This year, fatal shootings of unarmed people have declined, continuing a trend over the past two years.

    When blacks and progs are all up in arms, my conclusion is that they are either poorly informed or know the facts and are deliberately lying. Fool or knave- where have we heard that before?

    https://tinyurl.com/WaPo-Fatal-Shootings

  80. Bill — your reasoning is impossible to follow. On the one hand, you say we should not respect the Confederate flag because “that flag stands against what our flag represents, and the people who wielded it weren’t just spitting on our country but were actively trying to kill our citizens and, if they could, destroy it,” with which I heartily agree, being a Republican and all. But at the same time you are saying that not respecting the US flag and anthem is not saying the US flag represents people who are are “actively trying to kill our citizens, and if they could, destroy” the country. Which is it?

    Notice that the players (and coaches, and owners) are not staging demonstrations at police stations, or turning their backs on the policemen at the game, but on the flag and the national anthem. How else can we interpret their act but as disrespect for the country?

  81. GB: “The people who wielded the Confederate flag were NOT “spitting on our country”. They were defending what they believed to be their State’s right to secede* and actively fought for secession when northern soldiers invaded their State to compel them to remain in a compact that the South with some justification argued had been broken by the North.”

    I think we’ll have to agree to disagree here. They were at open war, shooting war, killing people war, with the North. They didn’t want to be part of America anymore. Yet we defend their monuments while disparaging the people they enslaved for protesting.

    We can parse whether what the south did rises to the level of “spitting on” – I’d say it passes it at the speed of light and hits moon-orbit altitude. But you can disagree.

  82. Better fix this: “Yet we defend their monuments while disparaging the *descendents of* people they enslaved for protesting.

  83. neo,

    “There are tons–TONS–of black people who “confront their own minority’s internal cultural flaws.” What do you want, millions and millions of people getting up on soapboxes on streetcorners so that you can hear them? That doesn’t mean they are remaining silent.”

    There are tens of thousands of blacks getting up on soapboxes to decry “white racism” and the rebuke from other blacks is minimal at best. Silence is consent.

    Yes, most people are busy living their lives. That we only hear one side crying “white racism” speaks volumes. It doesn’t take political activism to say, ‘wait a minute, that’s not so’.

    The article you cite arguments are specious. More importantly, the staistics they cite are siusopect and disputed by official statstics. Sopecifically; “Only 45 percent of African-American households have a married couple”.

    According to the 2013 Census Bureau American Community Survey; “51% of black males have never been married and 32% of blacks are married.”

    Your assertion that, “the marriage rates among blacks have been declining, due in large part to the high crime rate, low earning power, and high dropout rate among young black males” supports my contention that blacks raised after the 60s have increasingly rejected the key cultural values I describe.

    The low earnings potential among African American men is due to their rejecting educational goals, reflected in their lower college graduation rates than black women.

    I agree that “there are also loads of organizations of black people trying to change things”. But in the main, they are trying to change things while ignoring the cultural source if their difficulties.

    “The National Black Church Initiative (NBCI), a coalition of 34,000 churches, is committed to strengthening the African American family by repairing the damage created by unmarried parents, weak moral standards, and years of neglecting to address this truly pressing societal issue.”

    I have no doubt as to their sincerity. But “the damage created by unmarried parents, weak moral standards, and years of neglect” will not be countered by appeals to embrace religion as a curative in a secular environment. It can only be countered by looking in the mirror, which is indeed a difficult thing to do. It’s tough love the black community needs, not appeals to get religion. And the family unit has arguably been destroyed in the black community. At the least it is on life support.

    “Plenty of people are doing plenty to stem the tide… but just because you’re not aware of it doesn’t mean it’s not happening.”

    That’s certainly possible and I will be delighted to be proven wrong. That black policeman gives reason for optimism, provided his attitude is adopted by the majority of blacks. I wonder what he’d say about this conversation?

  84. Geoffrey Britain:

    You want hordes of black people shouting down speakers who talk about white racism? Is that what would convince you? (And by the way, white racism exists.) There are plenty of people working for the things I mentioned, and living their own lives with the sorts of values you say they don’t have. Not everyone is going to be an activist, whether black or white or any other race.

    What is this “silence” you’re talking about? There are plenty of black people speaking out—for example, YouTube is positively loaded with them.

    Silence is not consent, either. Most people are silent on most issues—maybe not in the privacy of their own homes, or with their loved ones—but silent in the sense that Geoffrey Britain doesn’t hear them and is unaware of them. That doesn’t mean they consent. You are being unreasonable.

    And I gave you a statistic that had to do with how many black people have even been married, not the rate of intact marriages. If you read the article I linked, there is no contradiction. I gave the rate of how many black people have ever been married because it represents how many black people believed in marriage as an institution enough to be married at least once.

    And the fact that the efforts of the black church organizations haven’t eradicated the problems of the black community is completely irrelevant to your argument. No one said, or expected, that they could do that, although it would be nice. Your point was that people aren’t speaking out, are silent. My point is that they are not.

  85. For years I admired Thomas Sowell’s courageous and brilliantly expressed views on racial issues as well as economics and national security. Now, I am admiring Jason Riley and Shelby Steele, etc. The worst thing about Colin Kaepernick’s performance was that it promoted the BLM message. BLM is a terrible influence on young blacks, and all susceptible minds. Last year, after 35 years as a devoted 49er fan, I watched their games with great interest and cheered against them. I was not disappointed; they lost 14 of 16 games. I realized that I also enjoyed their fans’ disappointment; they were too accepting of Kaeernick’s protest. This season I don’t feel motivated to watch, but I do enjoy the news that they have not won a game yet. This week the Raiders all kneeled, so now I will be hoping they lose also.

  86. neoneocon
    And the fact that the efforts of the black church organizations haven’t eradicated the problems of the black community is completely irrelevant to your argument.

    I substituted several years and taught for a year at a black/hispanic school. I acquired a very positive impression of the efforts black churches were making.

  87. Gringo – yes. It is a good thing to actually be in the community. Thank you for doing that difficult work.

    The problems mentioned here are generational and won’t be solved easily or quickly. But, as you point out, good people are working toward solutions.

    Richard – let me explain the flags issue. It’s confusing because you are, I think, treating the two flags as analogous. But in my argument what I’m saying is this. Both pro-atheletes and the confederate flag are seen as disrespecting our flag. Pro athletes are seen that way when they kneel (regardless of whether their aim is to disrespect the flag, thats what the Presidents propaganda is). The confederate flag was in active aggression against the American flag.

    So pro-atheletes can be looked at as analogous to the confederate flag.

    So why do many celebrate the confederate flag yet disparage the pro athletes?

    Are you following my reasoning?

    Finally: my guess is most of the kneelers think of that act as far more respectful and dignified versus, to your suggestion, turning their backs on stadium cops.

    Kaepernick quit sitting and began kneeling because he was told that kneeling during the anthem is an appropriate position. Less disrespectful and sitting but still noticeable enough to get his point across.

    He has been punished.

  88. Bill — The Confederate flag does not disrespect our flag, flying it does. I haven’t heard anyone, or seen any post of anyone, who thinks it’s okay to fly the Confederate flag, but condemns the kneeling. Maybe there are some, but I haven’t seen any — I know I’m not one. Protesting police brutality doesn’t disrespect our country, but kneeling, refusing to come out on the field or stretching during the national anthem does.

    It’s not the President’s propaganda that makes the kneeling a show of disrespect for the flag and the county, it’s their own words. Per Colin Kaepernick, ““I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses Black people and people of color.”

  89. neo,

    No need for “hordes of black people shouting down speakers who talk about white racism” just a small chorus (;-) would be sufficient.

    What would convince me that I am in error would be a strong, positive response by the black community to that black policeman’s rant. It will be interesting to see what the reaction to it is and, silence would be a negative response.

    When have I EVER even insinuated that white racism doesn’t exist?

    I don’t dispute that, “There are plenty of people working for the things I mentioned, and living their own lives with the sorts of values you say they don’t have.”

    I do find a 70% out of wedlock birth rate to be indicative of the label “in the aggregate”.

    “There are plenty of black people speaking out–for example, YouTube is positively loaded with them.”

    Out of 12 million, a THOUSAND voices speaking out is a minuscule percentage of 0.00008%…

    “Silence is not consent, either.”

    In the case of a reaction to the incessant assertion that America is a racist society that practices institutionalized racism that targets blacks… silence is indeed consent. Just as it is with the Muslim community.

    “You are being unreasonable.”

    Perhaps but I think not. On this large an issue that strikes at the very heart of our society, silence is not an option. I will not hold black folk to a lesser standard than I expect of whites. This is a perfect example of Burke’s famous dictum;

    “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”

    And in this case, silence is doing nothing. As, the Left screams to high heavens when a black person challenges the racial narrative, it strains credulity to entertain the notion that I’ve somehow missed all of those blacks speaking out against the left’s racial narrative.

    “I gave you a statistic that had to do with how many black people have even been married, not the rate of intact marriages.”

    According to the 2013 Census Bureau American Community Survey; “51% of black males have never been married”
    While 70% of black births are out of wedlock. Those statistics support my assertion that in the aggregate, blacks do not accept personal and parental responsibility. They are also evidence in support the contention that in the aggregate, black people no longer believe in marriage as an institution.

    “the fact that the efforts of the black church organizations haven’t eradicated the problems of the black community is completely irrelevant to your argument. No one said, or expected, that they could do that, although it would be nice.”

    That’s correct, no one said it. Including me.

    In fact, I said that I don’t doubt the sincerity of their efforts. I just implied and do so now state my doubt, based on statistical evidence and what we all see but dare not speak (‘Don’t Make the Black Kids Angry’), that the majority of blacks (in the aggregate) do not support the efforts of those black church organizations. They are voices, crying in the wilderness.

    “Your point was that people aren’t speaking out, are silent. My point is that they are not.”

    Clearly we disagree as to percentages. I think it much less, you’re evidently arguing that it’s much greater than I credit. I think you’re looking at this issue through rose colored glasses. But hope that it is I who needs a better ‘prescription’.

  90. Geoffrey Britain:

    There’s more than a small chorus. You’re just not paying attention to it. And I doubt the MSM chooses to highlight it.

    I’ve given you plenty of evidence for it. You ask for the “black community” to speak up, but you define the ‘black community” as you wish. That man IS part of the black community. He’s not alone on YouTube, believe me. There are many moderate and/or conservative voices in the black community. And that church group I gave you the link to is an association of 34,000 black churches supporting the very causes you say have so little support in the black community. That’s a lot of black churches (approximately half, as best I can determine), and the majority of black people are affiliated with churches (see this, for example).

    The people on YouTube are not the only people speaking out, of course. But (and I’m not going to say this again, because this argument is getting exceedingly redundant) just because YOU can’t locate people or hear them does not mean they’re not speaking out, to friends, neighbors, in other social groups, in letters to the editor, and in a vast number of other ways. Take any cause, or any group, and you will find only a small percentage of people will be activist in such a way that the Geoffrey Britains of the world (or any other random person) becomes aware of them.

    As far as your statement “When have I EVER even insinuated that white racism doesn’t exist?,” I was referring to your statement in your comment at 3:29 PM on Sept. 27, where you wrote:

    That we only hear one side crying “white racism” speaks volumes. It doesn’t take political activism to say, ‘wait a minute, that’s not so’.

    “That’s not so” is what you wrote.

    I’m certainly not saying that the black community doesn’t have serious problems. But the way you characterize the entire community is far too skewed to the negative, and you’re ignoring vast numbers of people who are doing things (speaking out, trying to effect change) that you say they’re not doing.

    And I find it truly insulting and condescending that you think I’m basing my point of view on the 50s and 60s. I won’t even dignify that with a response.

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