NFL players =< a pile of sh*t. Everything that is wrong with America.

Protests are not about respect, they are about being dissatisfied with the way an issue is going.

 

As America becomes more diverse, white people are no longer the standard especially the white christian kind, the 1950's are over , for good

 

I'm not going to sit through a 3:15:02 video to find a 20-second protest - you'll have to tell us what the deal is.

 

The only thing that's wrong with America is the intolerance of people like you

 

As a matter of irrefutable legal fact, this is NOT a Constitutional issue. Contract and labor law govern, and unless the contracts or law in question provide for it (they don't and they don't), there is no "right to engage in protest" applicable ANYWHERE IN THIS ISSUE. I can't imagine that you don't realize this after it has been pointed out many times on this forum in the last two days by myself and others, so the reasonable conclusion is that you are willfully repeating a weasel narrative towards cheap political gain.

To be even more blunt, employees generally DO NOT have a legal right to protest WHILE AT WORK unless their CBA or individual contract provides for it. As someone who has worked in this -exact- area of law in the past in similar circumstances, I'm fairly certain that no such contractual rights exist in either the individual employment contracts of the athletes or in the CBA.

No, they most certainly DO NOT.

 

WTF? Now you excoriate the NFL players for reacting to the presidents stupidity, because they aren't protesting other social issues?

Kapeornick)sic) had a legit protest about the disparity in policing in America. THAT was a social protest. What happened on Sunday was a DIRECT RESULT of Twitler saying stupid crap for the umpteenth time.

Yes there is a lot to celebrate as a black person in America these days when placed in an historical perspective. But that doesn't excuse or lessen the remaining contemporary problems and issues.

And protesting social injustice is ALL about love of country.

As an aside. I never used to believe there was such a thing as white priviledge, I thought it was merely another rhetorical construct (bumpersticker). But over the past year, I have learned that it truly is a thing so insidious that the vast majority of white people can't recognize it even when practicing it.

You got it bad.

 

Did you just combine "Trump", "Twitter", and "Hitler" into a new word? If so, bravo.

 

I notice all the usual racists around here are lamenting the fact that there are black atheletes who make more money in a month than they will make in their entire pitiful lives.

Not that how much a man makes is a measure of the injustices he may have faced or will face.
Not that how much a man makes should disqualify him from protesting injustice within his community.

Oh, and btw, these atheletes aren't protesting against the flag or the nation, they are protesting the idiotic remarks made by PRESIDENT Twitler.

Such is the stupidity of racists that everything is binary.

 

Not mine, but yes that is the meaning of Twitler.

 

Professional sports are all a dog and pony show anyway. Sure, they're great athletes, but that's not the point of sports. The point is to give guys a reason to get together and drink beer. So this Colon dude decides to do something to become more than just a second stringer by refusing to stand for the national anthem. Now I guess some other guys want to get in on the celebrity status. Keep this up and pretty soon Colon will have to get a sex change and demand to play for that lingerie league they had a few years ago if he wants to stand out from the crowd.

 

The owners of almost all NFL teams tend to disagree with you and Trump. To a man, they seem to support the rights of their employees to protest. There is a rich history of high profile sports figures using their platform of fame and notoriety to enact change and promote social justice. Bill Russell, Muhammad Ali, Jim Brown, Arthur Ashe and many others have gone before these guys. Many of them were disparaged by ignorant blowhards like Trump in their day too. Fortunately for our country, they took the heat and stood up for what they believed in.

 

But that's not a constitutional issue. It's, as Sanskrit pointed out, a matter of their contracts. If their boss says "stand and show respect for the country while the national anthem is playing" and they refuse, then blam! They can go back home to mom's basement and hope they managed to squirrel away enough moolah to keep them in burgers and beer long enough to get a regular job.

 

Can you name one player fired for refusing to stand? It will never happen

 

The owners can fire them.....but they never will. They would be crucified

 

- America isn't easy. America is advanced citizenship. You gotta want it bad, 'cause it's gonna put up a fight. It's gonna say "You want free speech? Let's see you acknowledge a man whose words make your blood boil, who's standing center stage and advocating at the top of his lungs that which you would spend a lifetime opposing at the top of yours. You want to claim this land as the land of the free? Then the symbol of your country can't just be a flag; the symbol also has to be one of its citizens exercising his right to burn that flag in protest. Show me that, defend that, celebrate that in your classrooms. Then, you can stand up and sing about the "land of the free".

From The American President.

I'm going with this as my first and last word on the subject of NFL protests.

 

I think you need new writers.

 

What a slimy goalpost shift. The above is totally irrelevant to whether or not the players are exercising "speech rights," especially First Amendment speech rights, which was what you claimed.

Support their protest? Don't like Trump's comments? FINE. I DON'T LIKE TRUMP'S COMMENTS MYSELF. You are entitled to your opinion. Make misstatements of legal fact about rights and the First Amendment? Not fine. Not a matter of opinion, just an obvious error.

You LW folk need to learn to LEARN. Your intractability with respect to basic facts is one big reason you are getting beat so bad. Stipulating to certain realities and acknowledging basic mistakes is a strengthening, not a weakening proposition.

 

Great writing.


Its quite the poignant moment in the flick, wot?

 

IRRELEVANT to whether there are First Amendment theories applicable to this issue. It is a matter of CONTRACT law, not Constitutional law.

 

That's nice. But they can do it and they will never be fired. Lets see the owner make a touchdown

 

Rest assured, if the backlash and $$ hurt gets bad enough, there will be discipline... just like fines for throwing footballs in the crowd, missing practice, overweight, underweight, pissing hot, late for bus. There are dozens if not hundreds of restrictions running both ways in this contractual relationship. Will the discipline amount to firing? In a "National Felony League" where they let dog fighters and drug dealers back in? Probably not, but when the bleed gets bad enough, this behavior will be dealt with. There is way too much money at stake for it not to be.

 

Ooooooh predictions. Issue one fine for this and the boycotts will begin. People will donate money to pay the fines. Go ahead....throw gas on this fire

 

Probably no "fines," something more drastic, I just used fines as an example. Here's how it works. In the collective bargaining agreement, a document you can DL easily in pdf format by entering "2011 NFL CBA" (ten year duration so still in effect) into your search engine should you desire, there will be a section on "grievances and dispute resolution" in which IIRC the method of dispute resolution is binding arbitration. The most important thing to know is that in most circumstances, this process remains entirely private. It ends up public usually only when there will be some schedule disturbance like a lockout or strike.

In that section, a grievance arbitrator will be designated, or referred to in some ancillary document, and a set of rules for dispute resolution agreed upon. Whenever there is the slightest whiff that a team owner, player or the league itself is about to lose money, the allegedly aggrieved party files for an arbitration. Then all the parties go to one of the fancy Manhattan law offices that represent the league, owners, and/or players union, sit around a table and make their case before the arbitrator, who may or may not add additional rules, evidentiary etc. The arbitrator then publishes a decision ASAP to the parties, and not to the public unless the parties designate due to historical or agreed labor law considerations.

This process is ongoing all the time. There are almost always open arbitrations, and I would be amazed that this one isn't filed and/or being heard right now. Odds are we will never know. What will happen, one day, I predict, is that all the players will stand for the national anthem on every team in the league, and we will not see similar protests for a good long while. Who knows what threats, provisions, remedies, penalties will have been engaged at that point, but that's how I predict this shakes out.

 

Ooooooh more predictions. Payers will go to the papers if they are pressured in any way. Then watch the backlash

 

Out of your depth <<<< You.

Believe my professional, experienced opinion or not, your prerogative, but the above is -not- going to happen as part of the process I have kindly educated you about.