Over time, I’ve lost interest in professional sports for many of the same reasons I’ve lost interested in the professional music, film, and other entertainment industries.
They have become thoroughly politicized by the left as part of the culture war. So for me, the lastest public fight over NFL players protesting on the sidelines is just the latest straw, and in many ways, the last straw.
This is not an issue of freedom of speech. These are private industries which, like other private industries, regulate the speech that is permitted to take place on the job. That regulation takes place both officially through guidelines for employment conduct, and unofficially, as expressing a particular political opinion can result in social media and internal attacks leading to job loss. Just ask Brendan Eich and James Damore.
I can’t tell you how many times readers and potential/actual authors have told me they fear loss of job and career damage if they express non-liberal opinions at work or in a way that people at work could find out. There is a reign of terror ongoing in this country, but it’s not from the government, it’s from social-media-empowered leftists who seek to impose the most intrusive political litmus tests in every aspect of our lives.
The most revealing aspect of the culture war is not that the professional entertainment industries are uniformly and aggressively liberal, but that they have pushed politics into every aspect of our lives. You will be made to care in the classroom and now, on the sports field.
The result, for me, is a withdrawal from much of professional culture.
My last refuge was the NFL. Now that is gone.
The NFL is as political an organization as there is, now. It picked sides in the culture war, and the side it picked is decidedly left. The NFL refused to allow the Dallas Cowboys to display a decal honoring the Dallas police killed by a Black Lives Matter supporter, yet it is completely supporting the “right” of players to kneel on the sideline while the National Anthem is played, as both a sign of support for the Black Lives Matter movement and an anti-Trump protest.
The right to protest is selectively applied by the NFL. Some protests are more equal in the NFL than other protests:
Numerous teams have backed up the NFL position, including the New England Patriots. The statements issued talk about defending the players’ right to express their views. But would the NFL support the rights of all players to express all views on the field during a game? I think not.
Nor would the media permit all forms of expression. Tim Tebow was viciously attacked and mocked by the professional media when he took a knee for prayer, yet NFL players are lionized in that same media for taking a knee while the National Anthem is played.
We have the image of NFL players taking a knee during the American National Anthem in London. That should be a Dixie Chicks moment for the NFL. Whether it will be remains to be seen.
The NFL and its teams have a “right” as private organizations, to pick sides. And it’s my right and everyone’s right to protest those protests, and to turn off the TV and not to attend games.
This is the consummation of the culture war, the takeover of professional sports by leftist activists. I’d rather see the NFL go down than be a part of and enable it.
I expressed my views on Twitter today in my first “thread” on a subject.
[Featured Image: YouTube Video, Ravens and Jaguars kneel for U.S. National Anthem in London]
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