(09-26-2017, 01:11 AM)jj82284 Wrote:

(09-25-2017, 10:33 PM)Bullseye Wrote: What makes them Anti American?

They haven't renounced their citizenship like the Confederates. 

They haven't taken up arms against the country like the Confederates.

They haven't killed thousands of Americans like the Confederates.

And, unless you believe equality in law enforcement is inconsistent with American ideals, they haven't advocated for anything Anti American like the Confederates.

Yet self righteous conservatives like yourself revere the Confederates while having the gall to wrap yourselves in the American flag to castigate the players.

  If the players succeed in their protests, the "worst" that happens is that more criminal suspects of color will actually make it to trial instead of being shot by police and those acting like police under dubious rationales.  If the Confederates succeeded, the American flag would have at least thirteen fewer stars and the country would be a fraction of its current size and strength, and the anti American ideals they blatantly admitted to would have prevailed.  Yet conservatives, from Trump on down, jump on the proverbial grenades to protect icons of the Confederacy from removal or criticism.

It has NOTHING to do with Anti-American thoughts or deeds on the part of the players.


It has everything to do with more pernicious motives of the conservatives that bash the players.

The debate about confederate symbols is about opposition to editing history, not reverence for the confederacy or sedition. 

The monuments themselves were about editing history.

Moreover a large number of confederate monuments were erected in celebration of the actions taken by the confederates in the post war era to foster unity among parts of the country that had literally been at war with each other.  

"Foster unity"? Are you freaking kidding me? As was stated eloquently stated in a related thread, they were a middle finger to the North, and I would add to the recently liberated African-Americans, that coincided with the transition from Reconstruction to Jim Crow. They were part of a Kool-Aid recipe begun soon after the Civil War which evolved into a concoction from which you apparently over-imbibe.

And equality of law enforcement is an American ideal.  Within the arena of ideas if one is going to propose that there is widespread systemic racism then there should be some factual statistical basis for that argument.  Instead, in this discussion not only is evidence not presented, it's not even asked for.  The reality of the situation shows that both black and white people are shot in direct proportion to their interactions with police.  Their interactions with police are in direct proportion to the amount of crimes reported.  The major premise that in some way America has an unspoken institutional conspiracy to deprive people of color of basic due process doesn't pass any level of real scrutiny.  Instead we cherry pick one or two cases, write a bumper sticker and kneel to the ground.  

Most importantly the idea of players who control roughly 4 billion dollars of annual revenue having to PROTEST for anything is laughable at best.  This isn't the Jim Crow south where blacks were denied the right to vote and had a DP suppressed by legitimate external impediments to upward mobility.  These players should be the economic and political epicenters of their community.  If they want to advance a certain candidate for Mayor, police chief, DA, public defender or any of the like then they are more than capable of doing so.  In fact if they themselves decided to pursue a career in politics then they have the name ID to make that happen.  Either way, there is no reason that we should be looking at a symbolic proxy from a bunch of college educated millionares that are free to pursue any real course of action that they see fit.

Which is exactly what the owners, coaches and players did Sunday, and what Kaepernick has done since last season. They do not claim to be victims, they are kneeling or locking arms in support of those without a platform from which to speak. To say they have no right to protest because they are affluent is hypocritical and downright un-American.

But real action would require real solutions.  Real solutions would require a real examination of the facts that don't support the narrative advanced by the MSM or pop culture.  In Ferguson you had black witnesses coming before a Grand Jury testifying that the whole HANDS UP DON'T SHOOT narrative was a lie.  You had the initial witnesses recant their testimony.  You had concurrent forensic examination lead by the DOJ (Headed by Eric Holder, appointed by Barrack Obama) that confirmed this.  But when the DA who the people of Ferguson THEMSELVES ELECTED presented the FACTS OF THE CASE where were Tavon Austin and the other Rams players who protested Michael Brown's shooting to stop the looters from destroying part of a city?  In Baltimore again, you had a Black President, a black Attorney General, a Black Mayor, a Black (fine as all get out) District attorney and three black officers perpetrating institutional racism?  In the city of Milwaukee you had a BLACK OFFICER have to shoot a suspect that he knew from school.  INSTITUTIONAL RACISM!  In Dallas you had a madman open fire and kill 5 police officers in a department that was lead by a black Sheriff.  These are all instances where not only was a baseless accusation made, but national coverage went along with massive violence and even death!

You do realize institutional racism means the victims of racism are victims due to the color of their skin, regardless of the color of the skin of those victimizing them, don't you?

When you get outside the echo chamber you realize how silly this is.  Just because some drug dealer doesn't want to go to Jail and decides to try and duke it out with 5-0 doesn't mean that the country as a whole is actively trying to disenfranchise people of color.

Some seem to forget none of this was going to be a big deal as far as week three of the NFL schedule was concerned until the President of the United States, the supposed leader of the free world, saw fit to say anyone who peacefully exercises their right to free speech without breaking a rule or a law is a son of a [BLEEP] who should lose their job.

Given everything going on in the world, this is what your Orange Emperor wants us to talk about, and it's not because he gives a damn if anyone kneels, farts, stands or self-indulges during the national anthem. It's because he doesn't want you talking about anything else.

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