A lot of good men and women have died for our flag and the NFL players are more or less burning it on TV as we watch with our popcorn and Pepsi. I say BS !!!!
Matt
If they take a knee in disrespect to our country it will have repercussions . We need to get the crown involved and boo them till they break . Or do not play our Anthem if they drop down , until they get back up. One Time is all it will take if we get the band on board. Showdown time.
By Victor Davis Hanson — September 25, 2017
The problem with the NFL is not just Donald Trump, but the greater dilemma that the league’s reason to be has become predicated on a labyrinth of lies.
The majority of the viewing audience is not young, hip, and loyal as hyped, but, even if fading, still largely reflects the majorities in red-state America that have no patience with gratuitous insults to the National Anthem and flag. The NFL apparently never grasped the political truism that you never insult your base and core supporters; sympathetic CNN talking heads and the solidarity of progressive political activists will not turn around sagging revenues, but will only contribute to them.
Outside the NFL bubble today, most of America, to the extent it still watches, now sees Sunday afternoon pop demonstrations as increasingly a farce, played out among players who appear neither exploited nor as exemplary model sportsmen, but rather as overpaid and pampered. Given the NFL’s enormous overhead, even a 10–20 percent reduction in attendance and viewing could send financial tsunamis throughout the league.
Nor do the protesting players come across as informed, brave social-justice warriors on the barricades of dissent, but as mostly unable to explain to their fans precisely why and how they are mistreated or why America is a flawed society that does not deserve momentary iconic respect each week. If players were concerned about violence and injustice, why not collect a voluntary 10 percent contribution from the league’s multimillionaire players and use it to fund programs that address systematic and lethal violence in inner-city communities such as Baltimore or Chicago? And if ethics and values are the players’ issues, why over the last decade has there been an increase in player off-field violence and arrests, often marked by well-publicized violence against women?
The owners, again fairly or not, are not viewed any longer so much as maverick tycoons and eccentric entrepreneurs or philanthropic regional family dynasties of the past, but rather as billionaire corporate magnates who invest their riches in glitzy cultural trophies and expect the state to subsidize their excesses. They are going down the Google/Apple/Facebook grandee path of losing their cultural appeal and, with it, their brand.
Sports analysts are no longer predictably informative and pleasant or at least humble, but often half-educated former jocks or nerds who imagine themselves pop Socratic philosophers as they so often talk edgy and snarky, and often down to their supposedly politically unaware audiences.
As the size and strength of players radically increased, the nature, rules, and culture of the game ossified — as if linemen were still six feet tall and 200 pounds and contact was the stuff of bruises and bumps. And the result is a growing level of brutal violence and brain injury that is analogous to a Roman gladiatorial arena.
The NFL is said to reflect a progressive 21st-century culture. But if so, it is hardly ethnically and racially diverse. Instead, the league is based on old-fashioned meritocratic criteria, and thus participation is based solely on athletic talent and skill-sets. That admirable trait nonetheless ensures that the NFL is antithetical to the entire progressive dogma of proportional representation and disparate impact that demand even quasi-public entities “look like us.”
And thus, despite the absence of racism or deliberate exclusion, elsewhere non-diverse businesses or government subsidized operations still must make the necessary inclusive efforts to diversify. Surely there are skilled Asian-American and Latino athletes who could be mentored and integrated into a lucrative and prestigious league whose players are about 75 percent African-American — a participation rate over six times disproportionate in terms of demographical realities. Again, these are left-wing mantras that a left-wing NFL apparently feels do not apply to itself.
The fan and viewer may not express such blanket disdain, but they sense all these contradictions and are well past exasperated.
And Donald Trump?
He no more created these crises in the NFL than he did the North Korean thermonuclear capability. If it is certainly long-term and strategically unwise for a busy chief executive and commander in chief, facing a host of inherited existential crises, to wade into a lose-lose NFL quagmire, he nonetheless may see it for a day or two as short-term and tactically advantageous. And he may be right.
HA/KS's Link
"Just a day after only 19 Broncos players stood for the national anthem to protest controversial messages by President Donald Trump, some of the team's leaders are already seeing consequences.
Star outside linebacker Von Miller was one of the Broncos who took a knee, and Phil Long Ford dealership took issue with that. They said they dropped their one-time spokesperson on Monday morning.
The move was in line with Pres. Trump's calls to fire any player who takes a knee during the anthem."
Let me make sure I understand what you're saying...when you suppress people's first amendment rights because they are doing something that offends you, you are traveling down a slippery slope.
Irony much?
Ane no one's saying these scumbags don't have a right to take a knee or stick their thumb up their a**. They do......ON THEIR OWN TIME. If their employer allows this show of disrespect to the country then we can only assume that the NFL agrees witIh them as well as the sponsors who pay for these dickheads to take a knee to dishonor the one's who took a bullet. I then a MY right to not watch or FUND it. It's called FREEDOM. You know, that concept that doesn't exist in Muslim countries.
A public display of disrespecting the flag or National Anthem, on purpose, on national TV, in front of millions, is the precursor to insurrection. Oh yeah, barry o. did that a time or two...
The Rock
Fulldraw1972's Link
Not standing is one thing, not standing on national TV because of your "principles" is another. It is a direct slap in the face to the fans that it bothers. When you're a public figure representing a sport AND franchise, you don't get to profess your ideology.
That's just how it is. Sometimes you have to forego a few pleasures with fame...
Is it to much to ask?
Taya Kyle, the widow of legendary Navy SEAL sniper Chris Kyle, issued a bold challenge to the NFL via Facebook on Tuesday in response to the national anthem protests sweeping the league.
Like many other NFL fans, she is tired of seeing the sport focus on “division and anger” instead of the message of unity that it once represented. She is now calling on the NFL to make a real difference in America and urging its players to “get off your knees” to get it done.
We are presenting Kyle's entire letter to the NFL without commentary. We recommend reading every word:
Dear NFL,
You were doing your part to bring people together and heal the world. That's really how healing works. We heal by loving each other and leading by example; showing people what is possible when we love each other just as we are and not only recognize our differences but celebrate them and look at how we can use them together to make us jointly better than our separate parts. You were doing your part celebrating each other based on skills, talent and a joint vision without regard to color and religion.
You were doing your part and we were doing ours. We showed up cheering and groaning together to [sic] as one. We talked in the concession lines and commiserated and celebrated our team together. Did it ever occur to you that you and we were already a mix of backgrounds, races and religions? We were already living the dream you want, right in front of you.
Your desire to focus on division and anger has shattered what many people loved most about the sport. Football was really a metaphor for our ideal world –different backgrounds, talents, and histories actually made us one big team with one big goal - to do well, to win, TOGETHER.
You are asking us to abandon what we loved about togetherness and make choices of division. Will we stand with you? Will we stand with our flag? What does it mean? What does it mean if we buy a ticket or NFL gear? What does it mean if we don't? It is the polar opposite of the easy togetherness we once loved in football.
It was simple – we loved you and you loved us – with all of our races, religions and different backgrounds. Simplicity in a crazy world was pretty awesome.
You dear NFL, have taken that. You have lost me here.
If you ever want to get off your knees and get to work on building bridges, let me know. I have found screaming about the problems in service marriages or even standing in silence in front of them, hasn't healed even one of them. On the other hand, funding the Chris Kyle Frog Foundation, building a team and rolling up my sleeves to get in the trenches during my “off time” -volunteering there outside of my paying jobs - has proven to make real change.
You have a lot of strong guys, I am sure in the off season a lot of them could build some pretty big bridges if they care enough to do the hard work. That would involve getting off their knees and getting to work though. I can do it while I raise two kids as their only parent and work through the greatest pain of my life, let's see if they can do it for the issues they say they care so much about.
Go Longhorns and Sic 'Em …
Sincerely, ?
Taya
Chris Kyle and his friend, Chad Littlefield, were fatally shot and killed in 2013. Taya Kyle now raises their two children as a single parent.
To say she understands the incredible sacrifice America's service members make when they put on the uniform would be an understatement.
slade's Link
Written by our friend, lovely, this is an expression of what we all feel about the situation of the NFL players disrespecting our country and its flag. She has, as she usually does, expressed herself with deep feeling and eloquence. As friend Menagerie said, It is the best commentary I’ve seen on the flag situation with the pro teams, and believe me, I’ve waded through tons of it all weekend.
Dear Mike Tomlin, James Harrison, Ben Roethlisberger and another Steeler who feels a need to criticize Bronze Star recipient Alejandro Villanueva for honoring the flag that his brothers came home under, you can all go to hell.
On Sunday your team had 3 options, stand and support America, sit/kneel and disrespect America or 3 take the coward’s way out and abstain, vote present, hide in the tunnel because you were too afraid to be seen as pro-American or Anti-American. What a vile low candy-ass choice you made.
“I was looking for 100 percent participation, we were gonna be respectful of our football team.” Tomlin told reporters.
Your team does not come before America.
Why should anyone be forced to act in a way that is against their moral code ? The poor boys millionaire club could not all agree on whether or not to disrespect America so you hid. We Americans understand. Trust me.
Let the kneelers kneel, the sitters sit, the patriots stand, own your beliefs. Own your side. Everyone with a working knowledge of the contract law knows that the players disrespecting America could have been fined in accordance with their contract.
Remember Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf? He was fined $30,000 after disrespecting the flag and choosing to sit on his butt during the anthem. Once he was fined he worked out a compromise and stood, he recited Islamic prayers under his breath but he did not disgrace his team by disrespecting the American flag, the anthem, America herself.
The administrative branch of the NFL is tax exempt. I hope that exemption is revoked. The entire league is subsidized with billions of tax payers dollars, for what, so you can spit in the faces of the people who support you. No more.
You have backed the wrong horse. Sometimes not choosing a side is choosing through omission.
You’ve taken something that unites Americans of every color, creed and religion and managed to divide them through your cowardliness and fear of offending the “wrong ” people. Fine them or fire them this is behavior that is covered in their contracts “conduct detrimental to the integrity of and public confidence in the National Football League.”
Honoring 9/11 is detrimental, wearing pink in your hair to honor breast cancer survivors and casualties is detrimental, twerking is detrimental but dishonoring the American flag is not detrimental to the integrity of the NFL. Hypocrites. You lousy lowlife mamby-pamby money grubbing cowardly political correct assholes can all go to hell.
Your decision to hide in the tunnel is disgusting and cowardly. Your decision to criticize Alejandro Villanueva a war veteran, a man who fought for your freedom, a man who saved lives, a man who was willing to lay his life down for you, a bronze heart recipient is beyond words.
Mike Tomlin, James Harrison, Ben Roethlisberger and any Steeler who has the audacity to criticize or question Alejandro Villanueva standing for the National Anthem, choosing country over his team, you are what is wrong with America. As a team you boys get a ball from one of a field to another and celebrate. As a man Villanueva rescued wounded soldiers while under enemy fire and you cowardly clown hiding in a tunnel because you couldn’t decide whether or not to stand or sit for the American flag have the misguided intrepidity to criticize Villanueva’s dedication to America?
I hope my fellow Americans pray with me for a holy curse on your team, that you not win a single game for the rest of the season. I hope that you lose your tax exempt status, I hope you rethink your disgusting words and actions.
May the souls of the faithfully departed brothers and sisters who came home under the American flag haunt your every moment.
Norseman's Link
Don't read it unless you took a double dose of blood pressure meds
This brief video clip contains a vital lesson that every leftist needs to learn....and learn fast before it's too late.
This goes back to everything "happens to me because I'm black". Bullshit!
BowSniper's Link
Whoops, didn't see someone already posted this.