Kaepernick, sacrifice, and freedom of speech

It may well be to some. I’m intrigued by the concept that if someone pays you money you no longer have freedom of speech and expression in places they own.

The discussion has been deemed dull enough to be temped.

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I didn’t mean THE DISCUSSION was dull. I meant a workplace (or any other) scenario where activities were so circumscribed sounded dull.

WTF are you going to argue about in the loooing coffee breaks following a return from a loooong bizniz lunch in the pub?

I do apologise. Online discourse is error prone, and often dull.

Well, the money is kind of the religion, so a separation would seem a bit arbitrary.

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But isn’t the quasi-deification of your national symbols just another kind of religion?

It’s about litigation. I’ve got thousands of stories about this stuff.

Let’s see if I can make a simple example.

Girl Scout cookies in the office.

A parent brings their daughter’s GS cookies into the office to help her sell them to fellow employees. A co-worker, for example, just wants to come to work, do their job and then go home. Their job isn’t their life. They have a job, so they can have a life. So, this co-worker comes into their cubicle and asks if they would like to support his/her daughter by purchasing some GS cookies. They wouldn’t like to buy them, but they feel pressure to purchase at least one token box so as to not be seen as a cheapskate or disappoint their co-worker. They have just been coerced into spending money on something that they didn’t want and it happened in their place of work where they are a captive audience.

After the cookies, another employee brings in a donation sheet for a dog shelter, then homeless charity, blah blah on and on and on. Where does it stop? Answer. It doesn’t! It just grows. I’ve seen it. So the best course of action is to prohibit any type of solicitation, monetary or otherwise in order to have a comfortable, safe work environment free from harassment for everyone.

The basic rule of thumb, if it’s not in your job description or within the parameters of your job duties and responsibilities, it’s not allowed.

That’s not related to freedom of speech, is it?

Ok…I’ll go take a jog and think of a good story about freedom of speech and come back later. Seriously though, in America, you can find any topic or behavior that will offend somebody.

Freedom of speech. Thinking…so many examples. Ok…“Trump is an idiot and Hillary is a crook”. This is freedom of speech regarding politics. This kind of discussion in the work-place will have zero benefit to the company and their bottom line, making money. This kind of freedom of speech at best will cause hurt feelings and employees who don’t want to work together. At worst, a physical confrontation with work-place violence. It goes on and on.

And this, as already established, is against the state-sanctioned religion, which trumps politics.

Ooops. I typed TRUMPs, and I am actually at work.

But its OK, because I’m not American.

Phew!

Were you offended by some sportsman showing freedom of expression? You called him an idiot, so it appears you were.

Not being legally allowed to do what he did because he was at his place of work feels like an attack on freedom of speech to me.

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Thanks to @tempogain for the detemping!

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He is a star.

Professional sports is about entertainment, and sometimes it doesn’t even correlate with performance. Some players really suck and still draw a large crowd and some players put up all star numbers but no one cares. Kap was doing something that upsets around half the fan base give or take, and NFL rating dropped when he started to kneel. So I don’t blame teams not wanting to sign him. I wouldnt sign a player who half my fan base could be against who’s talent level capped out at bottom of the league starting QB. But those spots I rather give to younger guys to developed.

Kap isn’t the first guy to lose their job in the league of non performance issues.

I suppose what it boils down to is that one should not hijack one’s employer’s resources for one’s personal agenda. In this case, the people involved are using their employer’s massive PR machine to promote their own beliefs … which would otherwise get a lot less of a hearing. That PR machine represents a vast amount of manpower and money, and it was set up to further the aims of the organisation that paid for it (ie., the NFL or whoever). What they did is not dissimilar to - say - a Google employer hijacking a load of computing power to do some bitcoin mining on the side.

The purest example of “you only say what we tell you to say” was the Apollo programme. The astronauts had massive restrictions placed upon who they could talk to and what words they could use. Reason being, the entire programme was funded with government money, and it existed to get a specific message out there (ie., Make America Great Again). The astronauts were therefore expected to stay 100% on-message. Nothing to do with free speech as such, more to do with who owns the megaphone.

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It is interesting, exponents of freedom of speech denying it in selective situations. For me, and I’ll probably get shot down here, freedom of speech and expression is only limited to hate speech.

What constitutes hate speech is an issue.

Imo Kaep was not protesting in favor of BLM. Might be more accurate to state that BLM was not the whole gist of his actions.

What Kaep was actually protesting was the 49ers judgment of his efforts. Taking a knee allowed him the time to accept that the 49ers were not willing to plan their future around him, even though he’d nearly led them to a championship. All Kaep ever wanted was to be a hero. That hurt bad, I’m sure.

It’s related to the Greta Climate Girl thing. Greta’s age and her personal issues are exploited to make her climate stance unassailable. Kaep’s wounded ego is unassailable while he’s protesting for BLM.

Goading the NFL means his legacy will be heroic BLM protestor, not backup QB.

Kapernick is a hero to everyone except the narrow minded judging his value as a human by the outcome of the sports games he played in. And by all metrics has accomplished far more in his early 30s than anyone criticizing him in these threads ever will.

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I’ve had a think about this and you’re right. Regardless of whether one agrees with him he took a brave stand (or knee) that could only hurt him financially or otherwise.

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I think he is a prick who doesn’t give two shits about anything but his own ego . There again if you want to think of him as a “ hero” , then I would not be so thoughtless as to call you “ narrow minded “ because you think differently

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I said i believe people judging his value as a human being by his on field sports accomplishments are narrow minded. Why are you taking that personally?

Ill stand by that comment. Hes warranted respect for what hes done off the field.

I would think you would admire him. He is the model of business success and economic growth off the government grid we all aspire to in free markets.

If giving millions in charity makes a guy a prick in your circles, you must be hanigng around with some truly benevolent minded people.

Say what you want, hes acting on his principles. Respect due.