San Diego’s new stadium may be tackled by NFL protests
Americans won’t passively watch political drama at game-time any longer.
I will straight-up admit I am no fan of sports.
Therefore, I have been mostly oblivious to the latest social justice drama playing out across the country involving San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick refusing to stand during the national anthem.
The kabuki theater of #BlackLivesMater America-hate is now spreading beyond the San Francisco team.
…Kansas City Chiefs cornerback Marcus Peters raised his fist, four Miami Dolphins players knelt, and players from several other teams interlocked arms or raised their fists as an apparent sign of unity with Kaepernick, who began his protest last month during the NFL’s preseason over what he said was the oppression of “black people and people of color.”
Peters — who is black and told the press Friday that he salutes Kaepernick, calling it “a great cause” — raised his fist in protest at the start of a home game against the San Diego Chargers today. As he did, many of his teammates locked arms in an apparent show of solidarity.
Meanwhile, in Seattle, Miami Dolphins players Arian Foster, Michael Thomas, Jelani Jenkins and Kenny Stills knelt during the national anthem at the start of their game against the Seahawks.
Like me, many people are tired of others turning their sports and entertainment into a political messaging opportunity. Football fans across the country are deeply unhappy at the disrespect being shown to the nation during the anthem-based protests, tired of the #BlackLivesMatters campaign and its race baiting promoters, and angry that the NFL and the teams’ officials are allowing the racialist histrionics to continue.
Since the football professionals don’t want to clamp down on these game-time protests, citizens are using social media to initiate a boycott campaign themselves.
America, love these crybabies back! Start paying them minimum wage #boycottnfl
— Ivy Baker McLaurin (@ivymac) September 14, 2016
The NFL Just Proved How Anti-American They’ve REALLY Become #BoycottNFL https://t.co/ABEfzixGxU
— ✯✯US VETERAN✯✯ (@Mike_USPatriot) September 14, 2016
Unite against stupidity, this is NOT the right venue for spoiled overpaid players to act like they care about someone else. #boycottnfl
— Michael Lyons (@poetchaser1) September 14, 2016
There is a ballot measure hitting San Diego this November that may be tackled by this sentiment.
Prop C is the appropriately named measure in the city of San Diego that has to do with the Chargers.
Their proposal to raise the hotel room tax in the city to pay for a downtown multi-purpose football stadium and an adjacent convention center facility.
I must admit, I am torn. I am not keen on raising taxes to fund a venue that will help multi-millionaires connected to politicos get richer. However, after coming downtown for Padres games and seeing what the new baseball stadium has done for the surrounding district and the businesses there, I have been tempted to vote “yes.”
Plus, the new stadium could help us keep an event really important to me: Comic-Con.
However, the protests are already undermining the chances for measure approval, especially among undecided voters whose votes will really be needed to pass the plan by a supermajority.
San Diego Chargers can forget about a new stadium. I won’t vote to help one nfl team #boycottNFL
— Dawn Wildman (@dawnwildman) September 9, 2016
Hey #SanDiego the #NFL wants you to pay for stadium. #SDChargers can find new home after reading this. #BoycottNFL http://t.co/WcihFlxoT3
— Chris (@p91fun) May 11, 2015
@Chargers If 1 Charger exercises his ‘right’ to disrespect the flag – I’ll exercise my right to tune out & and my right to vote NO on prop C
— LStrickland (@LStrickland760) September 10, 2016
Nobody is saying these athletes can’t protest. They can take the time out of their busy days, go to a rally, pass out petitions, and get engaged in any cause they wish. On their private time.
Just imagine going to your office and staging such a drama. How long would you keep a job or face some disciplinary action?
The days of Americans passively accepting demonstrations thrust upon them during sporting or other community events are over.
Right now, many football-loving citizens are weighing their personal protest options. Mine include voting “No” on Proposition C and not watching the one football game I do watch each year…Super Bowl.
I suspect I am not the only one considering my own protest involving Super Bowl 2017 either.
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Comments
Liberals are destroying Sports in this country.
Duke and Carolina basketball are now on the chopping block.
It’s OK if dook gets the chopping block.
But not the Heels – Carolina Blue Lives Matter 🙂
I came to the realization many years ago that watching little league and high school sports is every bit as entertaining as pro sports, often more so.
Cut the cable cord, stop handing over stacks of your hard-earned money to government sponsored monopolies that have no respect for you or your opinion.
I had more fun at my high school football games than watching the NFL. PS: my high school team lost every game.
1. The NFL, and the owners, have plenty of money. Let them build the new Chargers Stadium. It is much more beneficial for cities to have private ownership pay for the whole process than to have the public pay for a stadium just to hand it over to a private group who can limit access.
2. Colin Kaepernick’s, as well as the other NFL players, 1st Amendment Right as Americans allows them to calmly protest any injustices they believe are occurring. I don’t particularly agree with their position, but it certainly their right to do so. Quite frankly, who cares if they choose to kneel or raise fists?
it’s all about freedom unless you dare refuse to bake a cake for a gay wedding!
Hey random, I don’t know what your career is but try what they are doing at your place of business and see how it goes. As the Dixie Chicks found out, they do have first amendment rights but there were also consequences to their actions. When you work for a company and they say that you cannot display or communicate any form of political or social opinions then you are prohibited from doing so on their property. You can do what you like at home or in public but not on company time.
Actually his 1st Amendment rights are a check on the government.
The National Felon’s League and/or the owner can fine him for his actions.
Not all NFL teams or players behavior is disrespectful.
http://ijr.com/2016/09/691764-nfl-player-puts-national-anthem-protesting-peers-to-shame-with-stunning-tribute-to-first-responder/
Unfortunately the NFL restricts respectful actions by players.
The Cowboys were banned from wearing anything in tribute to the murdered police officers while players are allowed to support the killers.
Time, I guess, to examine “rights” versus “license”.
A right, as in the First Amendment, involves something you may do that THE GOVERNMENT has no business preventing or punishing you over. A “right” in me necessarily involves a stricture in someone or something else. It’s like a see-saw.
This is true in contract law, as well. If I have a right under a contract, someone else has an obligation.
A “license” is something else altogether, and there are very few to be found anywhere. It suggests you have an absolute capacity to do any-damn-thing you want without consequence.
Helen Thomas, for instance, certainly had a “right” to be as anti-Semitic as she cared to be, and no American level of government could do anything about it. But she had no “license” to be anti-Semitic without repercussions. Her employers could run her off, and they essentially did.
Nobody…celebrity, athlete, pundit, writer, etc…holds a license to do much of anything. We all MAY say what we will, by word or deed. And we all get to eat the consequences. That is NOT an infringement of any “right” we have. It’s the way reality works.
Do these morons have a “right” to act out? I’d say they do. Each of us holds an obligation in a free society to afford them that, up to a point that nobody here has passed.
Do we have a right to make them eat the consequences of what they elect to do? Absolutely.
I suggest we use our rights, as we afford them theirs.
The question, Rags, is whether Facebook is truly operating as a “private” business when it censors conservatives and not Leftists in service to a political party which controls all or part of the government? How about a business forced to alter its’ practices simply to avoid a flood of “private” complaints to various government bureaucracies. Does the legal system that allows that violate the First Amendment?
Good…hard…questions beyond the scope of my comment, but…
Is the New York Times a private business, as in your FaceBook example? Yes. It is, IMNHO. It USED to be that there were at least two daily newspapers in most American cities, and one would be on one side and the other the opposite. Nobody questioned their First Amendment rights. It’s hard cheese on us that there is no conservative FaceBook. But it ain’t actionable, again IMNHO.
If a business is pressured by complaints to crater to pressure of the kind in your second question, is that a violation of the First Amendment? I’d say there was a great court case to be tried! I can see the argument.
Wow, Rages…twice in one month, I fully and unequivocally agree with what you just wrote. Well done! THIS is the Rags commenting I always enjoyed reading. I even logged in so I could reply to your post ????
Those ??? were actually a smiley emoji, not sure what happened.
Welcome back to sanity…!!! 😉
I kid, I kid… Thanks.
I know, I know! : ))))
And what would happen to a player who changed his name to PantsUpDontLoot?
America will submit to this, because America must have its football.
If the fans going to the games want to fix this they can in about 5 minutes. Just have everyone in the stadium get up and walk out for the kickoff and first 5 minutes or so of the game. The NFL will fix the protest no later than the next week. Honestly the NFL doesn’t care about the protests unless it hurts their income stream. If it appears that it is or may hurt the income stream it will be fixed post haste.
Have you ever been to an NFL game? Do you know how long it takes to clear a stadium? The first half would be over before everyone got back into their seats! Just the security alone would be staggering and take forever.
May I suggest a MUCH more effective route…
Don’t buy a ticket. Don’t buy a jersey. Don’t buy ANYTHING that comes from an NFL or OTHER sports franchise…including some of the college ones.
THEN write and tell them why.
My answer to this garbage is NFL = NO F**KING LONGER!
I’m just completely unimpressed by an adult who is paid millions of dollars to play a kid’s game whining about oppression.
San Diego can assess a small tax on visiting FOOTBALL PLAYERS to pay for their stadium, rather than tourists staying in Hotel Rooms. The State of CA already taxes the football players, so why not local hotel owners get a break on top of their current taxes.
Let me share with you what my father said. He employed and mentored many blacks during the late sixties and seventies, when doing so wasn’t such a popular thing. But as a liberal son, he and I had many arguments dealing with my position “If we only gave them one more program or funding, they would turn the corner and…”
My dad would give me a wearied look, somewhat sad, like he tired of trying. One day he looked at me and said, “Son, you can take them out of the neighborhood, but you can’t take the neighborhood out of them.”
I didn’t get it back then, but after a long life of observing, it is now clear they cannot free themselves from their own culture. Especially now that the culture has been accepted, promoted and rewarded. That culture limits their advancements. Rappers, gangs, drugs, illegitimate birth are all symptoms of the greater culture. Most of these players are thugs, were when they were recruited, and making them rich just makes them rich thugs.
The end result, after forty or more years of trying? Their new movement is to become segregated and want their own “nation within a nation.”
My father, long gone, still speaks to me. I can still see his weary face. He knew back then this is where we would end up.
Why can’t Ckand the other protesters along with the owners finance their own stadium. If they care about injustice and inequality and a stadium revitalizes an area and offers jobs – even low paying ones-wouldn’t they do this??? Unless they are hypocrites