Niner safety Eric Reid seen kneeling for the anthem with Colin Kaepernick, as he was last night for before the Niners-Rams game.
News flash from Monday, as reported on the goofy, alt-Right nutwhack site breitbart.com:
"More than 75 percent of football fans feel justified in boycotting the San Francisco 49ers over quarterback Colin Kaepernick's refusal to stand "
And this from the Palm Beach Post:
"Despite a groundswell among fans to stop supporting the Dolphins because of Sunday's protest during the national anthem, players remain steadfast in their desire to make their point They said they intended no disrespect. they mean no disrespect.
In a blog post on The Post's Daily Dolphin, receiver Kenny Stills was quoted as saying "it stinks and it hurts, I guess, that people want to feel the way they do, but let’s understand we’re doing what we think is right.”
Then we beheld the vacuous eruptions from assorted politically correct Trumpie bloggers who just can't tolerate the "uprising" among some NFL players. Some of these bloggers and social media twits even denied any player support( for expression of rights)from the league - so they're actually calling for a boycott of the NFL. They claim the idiotic hashtag #BoycottNFL is now "trending".. Sorry, ain't buying it! And the only lot that would boycott NFL games doesn't watch them anyway. So it's kind of like a clique of hostile Vegetarians trying to boycott Omaha Steaks or Outback.
The truth is the NFL players are exercising their rights, and I emphasize here THEIR RIGHTS - not Kate Upton's, not Roger Goodell's, not Obama's and certainly not some PC -driven Trumpie's who sees 1st amendment expression as an "uprising". As if wild vagabonds and NFL Huns were burning, looting and pillaging with impunity. But this is the sort of hyperbolic rhetoric we've come to expect from Trump and his Klan.
But the funniest aspect is these highly sensitive, all of a sudden PC wingnuts going ape shit when they were the ones so ready to always call "PC" on the left.
First, there is this notion to call the NFL - its commissioner- as well as ALL the players "Nazis" -because small percentage (~ 0.15%) exercise their rights during the anthem. These Limbaugh lovers actually believe because the NFL adopts certain player standards for conduct it can also dictate how players behave during the national anthem (well, they can, but not if the behavior is an expression of sincere free speech under a constitutional amendment) Btw, for their information, the adjective "national" is used for many organizations and sports, it is not intended to be taken literally as if the organization or sport must conform to a national standard or the expectation for the fulfillment of such.
The NFL knows that it already has many rigid rules for player game behavior, infractions, as shown last night when the LA Rams' DE Aaron Donald was tossed out of the game for two unsportsmanlike conduct penalties. It also has a rigid code of conduct for off field behavior as it demonstrated in the Ray Rice case. Hence, by being OVERLY dictatorial for ALL behavior (including the anthem) it risks a full-scale player rebellion launched by the NFL Players union. And that could mean hundreds of millions smackeroos lost if there's a player's strike such as in 1982.
As Niners' safety Eric Reid put it in his recent interview with SI's Dan Patrick (Reid, btw, knelt with Kaepernick during the anthem in SF last night):
"We are respectfully taking up this issue with the national anthem in order to raise awareness. It's not meant to disrespect the military. We have the utmost respect for people who serve and put their lives on the line for this country We love this country so much we just want to make it better.".
I also had to howl with laughter on reading from some fulminating bloggers that "there are laws by God on how people must conduct themselves before the flag". Totally forgetting, or never processing those legalities, e.g. in a congressional law (36 USC § 301) now function as a legalistic formalism for patriotic organizations, and not applicable to individuals conducting an expression of free speech rights. Seems these PC wingnuts and regressed Reeptards never got the memo that another full branch of the Federal Government, the Supreme Court, overturned a congressional bid to outlaw flag burning in 1990 (United States v. Eichman, 496 U.S. 310 (1990).)
It was that SC decision, indeed, that basically stood 36 USC § 301 on its head, allowing the first amendment provision to use the flag as free speech totem - like it or not.
The failure to acknowledge this 1st amendment right is difficult to believe, and yet if anyone remotely suggested these yahoos turn in all their AR-15s or Glocks to show respect for the 22 dead kids at Sandy Hook, they'd all go ape shit and bark how "our rights is bein' violated!" Well yeah, Bud, but see those are your rights so how about respecting the FIRST amendment rights of others?
As for the "fans" yelping about the four Dolphin players who knelt Sunday, that's a real hoot if ever there was one. As Christian Christensen pointed out in his blog Sunday on smirkingchimp:
"When the national anthem is playing at stadiums, fans don’t immediately drop what they are doing and stand to attention. Many unsubtly check their phones. Many are out buying hot dogs and beer (and don’t flinch in the line when the song begins). Many use the anthem as a chance to go and take a leak before kickoff. So, what?"
So the same beer-soaked assholes who were calling Miami RB Arian Foster the N-word because he knelt for the anthem in Seattle undoubtedly were tugging on their brewskies instead of holding hands over hearts as the 36 USC § 301 idiocy dictated. Nor, I wager, did they stop pissing in mid-stream, immediately hold hands over hearts and look toward the stadium flag for three minutes.
As I watched last night's Niners-Rams game and spotted the sea of fans totally into the game and committed to it - I realized there is NO fucking way in hell any significant number of them will abandon the NFL to which they are addicted. This is irrespective of what beer talk spills out of their mouths, or the vapid mouths of extreme jingoistic Right wing bloggers, websites or talk show buffoons.
The NFL, worth over a hundred billion dollars a year (including in television network contracts), is the biggest national sports venue, and the most loved and followed in this country. And if you doubt it you just have to walk to the local pub or restaurant on any given Sunday and see all the people decked out in their Broncos, 49ers, Cowboys or Packers jerseys, and caps. Thus, the hyper ventilating huff that "Americans have had it with the NFL" is just that, empty huff....maybe some puff.
You think they are going to boycott this sport which 125 million follow passionately and bleed with when they lose? Then you are either a forlorn dreamer or not an NFL football fan at all. And in that case your calls for #Boycott NFL amount to meaningless drivel with about the same force as howling at an approaching Cat 5 hurricane to try to stop its advance.
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