Categories
Accountability Common Sense general freedom media and media people national politics & policies Regulating Protest responsibility

Time for Action

Sharing

More protests during the national anthem; more opposition to those protests by the Trump administration; more recriminations about the administration’s opposition to the protests. Ah, modern times.

Let’s review:

  1. NFL players have a constitutional right to take a knee during the national anthem.
  2. NFL owners do have or could have (depending on who you believe) a contractual right to require players to stand for the national anthem or face action.
  3. Presidents have a right to suggest that owners fire NFL players who take a knee during the anthem, though I’d really prefer they not use the term SOB — though again they have a right to say it.  
  4. Vice-Presidents have a right to leave an NFL game if NFL players take a knee during the anthem or, believe it or not, for any reason they feel like. And under our free system, they can even go further, and plan their reaction ahead of time depending on what action players take.*
  5. NFL fans have a right to continue to be fans or not.

I love football, but haven’t followed the NFL for decades.

I love rights even more. And I think we certainly ought to be talking about and, more importantly, working on criminal justice reform. Let’s not lose sight of that in the controversy over the NFL protests.

Perhaps, the time for protest is ending. The time for action is now.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

* Did Vice-President Mike Pence leave the Colts-49ers game as a PR stunt? Well, every move the president or the VP make is a public relations stunt. If that’s the primary attack on the VEEP’s actions, he has turned the corner and is in the clear.


PDF for printing

 

5 replies on “Time for Action”

The point and counterpoint are made, let’s move on, there are other things to address, foreign affairs, foreign troop involvement, the deficit, tax reform, medical care and education to name a few. 
This is becoming an excuse for inaction. 

The NFL didn’t lose a viewer here, for the simple reason that I don’t watch and never have.  It’s a boring game.

That being said, there is no constitutional protection of freedom of speech in the workplace.  You do it at your own risk.   No one can arrest you for exercising your rights, but your employer may discharge you.    A reasonable argument can be made that those football players are in the workplace.  If the owners want to allow this behavior, then that’s their decision.   The American who has paid to watch these overpaid prima donnas will make his choice as well.

Hopefully the above is clear that employers have rights along with players. Not necessarily First Amendment rights and not only First Amendment rights. The owners can check the players without, as you point out, violating anyone’s 1st Amendment rights. But the owners have until very recently decided not to do so.

Leave a Reply to Pat Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *