We All Lose

Echoing some of the things I said in my first post this morning, the editors of the Wall Street Journal have one paragraph worth passing on in their mournful editorial:

American democracy was healthier when politics at the ballpark was limited to fans booing politicians who threw out the first ball—almost as a bipartisan obligation. This showed a healthy skepticism toward the political class. But now the players want to be politicians and use their fame to lecture other Americans, the parsons of the press corps want to make them moral spokesmen, and the President wants to run against the players.

We all lose!

Sometimes the only way to win is not to play the game.

24 comments… add one
  • Andy Link

    Yes, we all lose. Social media is so full of self-righteousness over this I just end up tuning out. Whatever happened to live and let live?

  • gray shambler Link

    “Did You take a Knee against the flag, Joe?
    Say it ain’t so!”

  • Guarneri Link

    Indeed, we all lose. I catch up on news only at the start and end of day, so maybe I have missed it, but a huge issue has not been reported. This is a workplace rules issue, not freedom of speech. Player contracts are chocked full of clauses about representing the public image of the league.

    No chicken dances in the end zone if the NFL says so, and they have. No throat cutting gestures. No stickers on helmets in support of cops after a Black Lives Matter nut went on killing spree, and they have. And, importantly, there is a clause that says the teams will be present and respectful for the playing of the anthem. I used to work for a guy who owned a pro sports team. I’ve seen this with my own eyes. So what’s going on now? Players, starting with Colin Kapernick, got full of themselves and went rogue, and now the NFL is scared of pissing off 75% of their workforce. They are stuck.

    If you are an NFL exec of any sort do you know what you say now? “We are so fucked…….”

  • gray shambler Link

    I think that the business of the flag being dissed here is because of the worldwide re-emergence of nationalism, which Trump unabashedly supported at the U N. Vulnerable ethnic groups, (or those who feel so), see nationalism and national pride as the bogeyman, (which it can be), and so reflexivly embrace world governance. (which may be much worse). Those who worship multiculturalism see the flag, (any flag), as anathema. Those who oppose O.W.G. see the violent dissent coming from every direction and embrace nationalisn, not out of hate, but love for their families.
    The struggle continues…………………

  • Janis Gore Link

    From my background, I see it as a First Amendment issue. The uniforms fought for it.

  • steve Link

    I think we should just ignore celebrities. I don’t really see it as being about the flag, and the flag will survive just fine if some people kneel instead of stand.

    Steve

  • steve Link

    Also, would it be remiss to note that while the players want to use their fame to “lecture other Americans”, other people have used their celebrity status to get elected to office? Every other class of celebrity uses their fame to promote some agenda, not sure why anyone expected football players to be any different. However, if we just start ignoring them, no one would care.

    Steve

  • Janis Gore Link

    Well said, Steve. Any other time, fans would tell ’em to **** off.

  • CuriousOnlooker Link

    I hope everyone can keep their intellectual consistency with their advocated position here when Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission gets argued in a couple of months.

  • Have no fear. For most intellectual consistency is less important than getting their way.

  • Janis Gore Link

    That’s a tough one, CO. I’m a civil rights advocate dating from my childhood. I was Cinderella against a black Prince Charming in a school musical, Dallas, TX, 1966.

  • Janis Gore Link

    My gay brother died of complications of exposure to Agent Orange on the ground in the Vietnam War in 2014. He didn’t have to go. He could have just said he was gay and they wouldn’t have let him in.

  • Janis Gore Link

    Does a baker’s right to refuse service to someone he disagrees with…

  • Janis Gore Link
  • Guarneri Link

    You must have broken out the Jack Daniels, curious………..

    But I digress. In this morning’s news of horrible athlete oppression the FBI has caught (an) athletic shoemakers bribing players who have no business being in the college they are attending, er, excuse me, “student athletes” with hundreds of thousands of dollars in exchange for attendance at the “right” school wearing the “right” brand of sneakers.

    Sigh. Bread and circuses has prevailed. And along comes a guy who simply notes that longstanding patriotic rituals preceding sporting events shouldn’t be usurped to make personal political statements, said rituals in accordance with voluntary private contractual agreements that benefit “oppressed” athletes to the tune of millions of dollars per year. A guy who is simply advocating for another class of constituents he represents, the class who defend the country for far less remuneration.

    And to show how ESPN has gone nuts, commentator Stephen A. Smith is now claiming it was all a premeditated racist plot before Trump ran for office.

    You can’t make this shit up…….. Although when you have no argument, pound the table and scream racism.

  • Janis Gore Link
  • jan Link

    ” And along comes a guy who simply notes that longstanding patriotic rituals preceding sporting events shouldn’t be usurped to make personal political statements,…..”

    It’s beginning to appear there is no harmonious or unified ground left in America anymore. We have become so diversified, so victimized, consumed by gripes big and small, that are given amplified credence in discrediting anyone’s existence on the planet.

    No one is happy/satisfied, no one feels safe.

    Furthermore, a blunt, out-out-of-the-norm president apparently is someone who can be liberally trashed and skewed unless he meets with approval of certain politically correct classes of people. Even multiple, natural catastrophes, like was experienced in TX, FL, Puerto Rico, lacks the empathetical appeal it used to have in bringing fractured people together, in lieu of the massive, bitter hysteria that has engulfed this country.

  • Janis Gore Link

    Actually, in this circumstance, I blame the money-grubbing NFL.org. What the hell do they need with a measly portion of $6.8 mil? Sweat socks?

  • Ben Wolf Link

    The Founders chose to encourage the spread of certain myths and rituals in forging a common (white) identity. This was understandable given mass immigration by other european ethnicities has already eroded colonists’ sense of Britishness prior to the revolution. But this civil religion was founded under the assumption America’s populace would always be overwhelmingly european in ancestry, with 18th Century notions and values very different from ours today. The Founders could not possibly have conceived of how much this would change, nor could they have understood communications technology would make it extremely easy to share “undesirable” ideas and knowledge. It was only a matter of time before Americanism’s symbols, idols and graven images were called into question. As society has been atomized and traditional community has vanished, people feel less attachment to rituals which in their personal experience have no impact or meaning.

    I don’t see this as necessarily negative. Painfully, slowly, Americans are trying to find answers to fundamental questions; and they should be, because there are good reasons society is falling apart.

  • gray shambler Link

    Ben, you’re right, it seems the only thing Americans hold in common is pursuit of the almighty dollar, but even that doesn’t make us unique or distinct. We’ve bcome Iraq, just before the bloodshed. Not a nation, just a business transaction between people who really don’t like each other at all.

  • As society has been atomized and traditional community has vanished, people feel less attachment to rituals which in their personal experience have no impact or meaning.

    The common experience of humanity is that rituals are of vital importance. As Confucius said:

    Look at nothing in defiance of ritual, listen to nothing in defiance of ritual, speak of nothing in defiance or ritual, never stir hand or foot in defiance of ritual

    IMO the rejection of ritual solely on the basis of personal experience is solipsistic not to mention impoverishing.

    It is presently an open question as to whether the success of the United States and, indeed, the success of the United Kingdom, France, and Germany arise from the superstructure of Christian and Western European traditional practice. Even reflecting on this question is presently being castigated as “white supremacy”.

    In my view it is likely that our success is but in the case of the United States you don’t need to be white or a Christian in order to participate. In that sense being an American is more like joining a religion than becoming a member of a tribe. If you believe in the tenets of the religion and practice its rituals, you’re a member; if you don’t, you aren’t.

  • Ben Wolf Link

    IMO the rejection of ritual solely on the basis of personal experience is solipsistic not to mention impoverishing.

    We’ve had decades of consumerism, Friedmanism and Thatcher/Reaganism in which we’re told society doed not exist, only individuals. Whole generations have been brought up on it. Rejection of rituals which have no place in such a political economy was inevitable. You can’t propagandize people that only individuals matter and social relationships are temporary and expect them to then believe in, respect and participate in the same things. Market societies destroy social bonds.

  • Ben Wolf Link

    Prior to the 20th century conservatives were suspicious of capitalism for that very reason.

  • steve Link

    You know, as a final act of desperation, you can always read about why they have been kneeling, and find out that it was not meant as a sign of disrespect to the flag. But, the right wing snowflakes are getting the vapors over this. And, you kind of have to smile at the conservative contingent saying they are a bunch of rich celebrities, which disqualifies them from having a valid opinion about anything. Well, unless they are Trump.

    I think the real question here is, who does Trump go after next. He needs to keep giving his base people to hate. Inspire the ANGER. I am thinking he finds some immigrant group to rail against next. Or maybe some TV celebrity. Or some musicians. So much time. So many people to hate.

    Steve

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