Would you guys still be able to support the Rockets if they disrespected the flag by kneeling?

When Homer went on a hunger strike, was it to bring attention to the owner who planned to move the Isotopes to Albuquerque or because Homer wanted to disrespect food?

 

This.

Like so much right now there is not a simple narrow focus.

What Kaepernick wanted is not the same as what most casual observers think.

Like everything else the NFL is turning this into a marketing tool.

At the end of the day I don't think anything substantive changes.

Hell, you have Jerry Jones kneeling and aggressively getting the camera man to photograph him kneeling, that isn't what this is all about.

At the end of the day Trump gets a distraction from the investigation and his entirely inept administration, casual fans and people get to "feel good" by supporting nominally a cause that they don't even understand and NFL players get to see their message again drowned out.

 

Consider a popular vote. Maybe then, this can finally get resolved and allow us to move on to where we originally planned we would be at this point.

 

He shouldn't have to apologize to anyone including his teammates or coaches.

 

I think you may be confusing "love" and "respect" with "acceptance". I'm not suggesting you have to agree with everything one says, does, or what they stand for, I'm simply suggesting not to "hate" people regardless of who/what they are.

You can still "love" our President and disagree with EVERYTHING the guy stands for.

On a side note, there's really no point in taking personal shots, they do nothing to facilitate a conversation... especially on an internet forum.

 

Nice. Blame Jessica Alba!

 

"Love our president"?

What is this? North Korea? I didn't even "love" Obama. They have a job to perform and it's a very important job.

What is the threshold for you when it's acceptable not to love a political leader? Hitler? Should the world have "loved" Hitler? Maybe he wouldn't have gone so far with the genocide thing.

Love except for your children ought to be conditional. It ought to be based in merit.

Love and EMPATHY are different. I can have empathy for someone I don't love because I feel sorry for them. I don't feel sorry for Trump.

 

Get out the cuntry

 

I think only having those two choices is the saddest part about the post.

 

What the hell do you know about the relationship he has with his teammates. That's his business. Teams are like families.

 

The reason he apoligized seems to be rooted more in the fact that the team had agreed democratically that they were all going to do the same thing(stay in tunnel) rather than him feeling bad for standing for the anthem.

 

I see things differently. I believe rap artists have been making millions over the years putting out trash demeaning
our officers in arms. Teaching a generation of youths to disrespect law officials. My Latin and Hispanic brothers
are not getting shot because we follow the instructions given by the law officers.

When the police says put your hands on the steering wheel....we (latinos) put our hands on the steering wheel.

When the police say stop walking away from me.....we (latinos) stop walking away from the cop.

When the police say stop running or put the weapon down.....we (latinos) put stop running or put the weapon
down or we can expect for the situation to escalate to unfortunate levels.

I've faced racisms all my life. I've had cops put me in the back of a squad car and take me to an isolated
area near a local river in the middle of night. Take off their badges, disarm, and tell me, "so you think you are
tough, uhh?" "Well let's see how tough you are!" "Not a cop and civilian......just man to man." I was 16 at the time.
I understand it was an intimidation tactic. Was it right? Probably not. But I get it. The cop wanted to scare
in a direction so he wouldn't have to deal with me in the future. That could have actually pushed me into hating
cops. But it didn't. I overcame that obstacle. As I have overcome all obstacles laid out in front of me.

I don't ask the white man for anything. I worked two jobs in order to put myself thru college. If LeBron, CP3,
Kaepernick, Melo, any athlete want to make things better. They can invest in businesses in the inner
cities and employ our Black, Hispanic Oriental youths. Teach them a good work ethic. Encourage
a scholarship program in conjunction with said employment. Encourage respect towards authorities.

Because you can't get away with that crap of not following police commands in other countries. Why think
it will be allowed in this country?

 

The thing is "police brutality" will never be at a 0.00000% rate due to the nature of humanity so I feel like there are other causes they can bring light to such as blacks killing blacks in the inner cities. No case of police brutality is acceptable, but I do think this happens at much lower rate than citizen on citizen brutality by a large margin. It also has to be understood that the very nature of the job puts then in a position where they have to interact with another person in an unnatural way, it is not like they are waiting tables or selling you a car. The same few horrible people that do engage in police brutality would probably never would have committed these horrible acts if they chose a different career path in life and screening for these people is even farther problem because you would never know until they are put in the stressful situations that triggers something inside a person that a job like a police would expose. I see a lot of protests but not many solutions on how to have a 100% success rate in eliminating this problem. Complaints without a solution proposed are far more ineffective. If these protests happened 30 years ago and beyond I would see it as a thing that needs to be done, the fact is that police brutality and inequality did exist, there is no denying it. Our generation however was not apart of the generations past and should not be the ones to blame for a murky history.

As far as racial inequality in the united states existing this is interesting theory. I would like to see the examples on how our government has laws in place to discriminate minorities. Can someone please cite these discriminatory laws? It has been proven that in many major universities that black test scores can be lower than your white and Asian counterparts for acceptance. There is the U.N.F.C. and many other organizations that exists that purpose is to give minorities grants and do not give them to white people. Imagine the hell that would be brought upon a United Caucasian College Fund or any other white only fund. There would probably be discriminatory law suits brought to them. So again, my question I bring is what government policies are in place in today's society that discriminates towards the black population?

Ultimately I am not denying things like racism and sexism exist, that would be ignorant. I am saying that in today's society that the number is marginally lower to the point that trying to protest for it does more harm than good. Constantly bringing up the past in a society that has made HUGE progress towards solving this issue is only making the issue greater not weaker. Constantly saying how our nation is divided causes that exact problem. Imagine going to work and every single day 30 times a day one particular coworker says to you "You hate me, you hate me". This happens over and over for months, what do you think is going to happen? At the very least you will try to avoid that guy.

I do think the teams that try to spread the message of unity are on the right path however. That is what we need to be doing. Seeing past things like skin color and treating everyone as if ethnicity didn't exist is the best option. Don't have the attitude that blacks, whites, latinos, asians, need unite and love their fellow man but have the perspective that man needs to love their fellow man, lets drop divisive rhetoric and truly become a color blind society.


On a side note.. This freedom of speech argument is misunderstood. It is freedom of speech against the government not the freedom to say whatever you want on the job without the possibility of being fired. Imagine you are sitting at a restaurant and your waiter comes and stands beside your table and starts telling you their political views, bowel movements, favorite hobbies, ect. while you are trying to eat your meal. Does the restaurant not have the right to fire this person or is acceptable behavior? I am not sure what the NBA's rules states but in an NFL contract it is actually in there that they have to stand for the Anthem with their hand over heart and helmet in other hand. This is a contract they willingly signed. If the NFL or NBA decide to allow these protests then fine, but thats up to these organizations. To state that they have some right to do active protests during an event that they are under contract and paid large sums of money to do is definitely missing the mark.

 

Imagine a president using his bully pulpit to tell private employers whom to fire based on their employee exercising their first amendment rights.

The president is part of the government. He's using his bully pulpit to hinder first amendment rights.

 

While saying they need to raise their pay and increase standards is a lovely viewpoint I think if you really want to recruit even better potential cops to the force I think the area to start is to stop the rhetoric that cops are these bad people and support them. It takes a special kind of person to want to be in a job where everyone hates them. By spreading the cop hate it only does the opposite. The people who are looking to nefarious things are the people who would want to apply. The good person who wants to do good in their community will be deterred from applying because the community they try to support hates them.

So this anti comp rhetoric is actually in essence making it worse to find good solid cops.

 

This should be the real poll options.

If they kneel + win = Yes, it's not disrespectful.
If they kneel + lose = No, Get out of my country!

 

As far as I know the president is just an opinion, he isn't making laws so the words coming out of his mouth in that regard are only opinions. Secondly I don't think you fully read my post because you would have understood there is a difference on exercising their first amendment rights and exercising their first amendment rights ON THE JOB. Lastly I never mentioned the president at all.

 

It doesn't take a 'special kind of person'.

You do know that there are millions of conservative households that think like you who hold officers up on a pedestal like you do. They live in a bubble where in the people they associate with worship them. I know. 4 years in Marine Infantry, that was a bubble that would defend any and all cop actions.

It's still a highly worshiped proffession and as a result many try desperately to wave a magic wand towards the low standards and the general type of people who are usually drawn to law enforcement (people who revel in authority).

There are professions like roofing in this country that is emperical you more dangerous and those people are not worshiped like infallible gods.

 

I think there needs to be a 3rd option. Yes - It is disrespectful but I would support them anyways.

 

None of what you said here has to do with my point. Nothing what I said has to do with worshiping cops. If anything I said they are only human like the rest of us.