General Baseball Chit-Chat Thread

[Banedon]

Counterpoint...group 2 doesn't actually exist. It's just group 1 people that THINK they aren't group 1, but really are.

[SouthSideRyan]

Mojo, regarding directing the protest at the military, that seems like double counting to me. I agree that militarization is an issue, and ex-military taking a military approach towards policing is a big part of that, but what's the point. You're already protesting their policing, what is to be gained by protesting "the military" Their actions while enlisted aren't what's directly causing issues. You don't protest Criminal Justice majors because they wind up becoming police officers.

 

I'm not saying it should be focused AT them; I'm saying they're part of the problem that's being protested.

 

They don't deserve any kind of special exemption from a protest over issues that they very much at the core of, and yet they already have it with the kneeling and still people lie to themselves about how this is "offensive." They cry that this is a disrespectful act, when the military has been actively LEFT OUT of a protest and actually PAID TRIBUTE TO when they should be included as part of the problem. You can't point to the abuse by police and ignore a gigantic part of what's feeding that. Hell, if anything it's even more vital in this setting since the NFL is such a willing platform for the government and the military.

 

Nobody's saying hey abusive cops who used to be military, you're cool with us. It's saying by kneeling during the Anthem they're not protesting the military itself.

[Sammy Sofa]

Mojo, regarding directing the protest at the military, that seems like double counting to me. I agree that militarization is an issue, and ex-military taking a military approach towards policing is a big part of that, but what's the point. You're already protesting their policing, what is to be gained by protesting "the military" Their actions while enlisted aren't what's directly causing issues. You don't protest Criminal Justice majors because they wind up becoming police officers.

 

I'm not saying it should be focused AT them; I'm saying they're part of the problem that's being protested.

 

They don't deserve any kind of special exemption from a protest over issues that they very much at the core of, and yet they already have it with the kneeling and still people lie to themselves about how this is "offensive." They cry that this is a disrespectful act, when the military has been actively LEFT OUT of a protest and actually PAID TRIBUTE TO when they should be included as part of the problem. You can't point to the abuse by police and ignore a gigantic part of what's feeding that. Hell, if anything it's even more vital in this setting since the NFL is such a willing platform for the government and the military.

 

Nobody's saying hey abusive cops who used to be military, you're cool with us. It's saying by kneeling during the Anthem they're not protesting the military itself.

 

Yeah, I get that. I'm saying it's a needless distinction. If you're making the choice to use the platform of the anthem to protest to begin with, trying to add caveats to placate the willfully ignorant is a pointless effort. The people crying foul trying to ignore the reasons this is being done would be crying even if Kaep was saluting and wearing a shirt that said "I LOVE VETERANS" so long as he was also sitting or kneeling.

 

Though, to be fair, it does serve a purpose in that you can point to it whenever some mouth-breathing starts slobbering about how it "disrespects the troops." It creates a talking point to counter with, so, hey, maybe not as pointless as I was thinking.

[Sammy Sofa]

I just don't see how any argument that entails making the protest more palatable to the people it's pissing off, targeted at, or are too chicken to join in makes any kind of sense. As soon as you do that, it's failed.

[Tim]

Had a conversation with a guy I thought was fairly enlightened about this today. I learned something new about him.

 

He firmly believes that he is against this because they are disrespecting the military. But I kept pressing and chipping away at his argument. When I floated a trial balloon about the "uppity" players, he latched on. I was really depressed after that.

[Tim]

Maybe it's a product of where I grew up, but I think your Group 2 is much larger than you realize Constable.

 

I also think group 2 is much bigger than he realizes, but that's part of the point. That's the group that was going to complain about any form of protest. They were going to find it ridiculous and unnecessary. But they weren't going to be as deeply offended as many of them are now (that's not me, and I actually have a vested interest in the protests succeeding, but many around me feel this way). They could have been convinced eventually that there was a problem with police brutality, even if they don't now. But they are never going to change on the National Anthem issue because it's so deeply ingrained. So to take an issue they disagree with but eventually could change about and tack on another issue that they are never going to change on is a big struggle.

 

I think you see it even in some of the NFL players themselves. For example, here's a player (Kevin King of the Packers) who decided to kneel the one time:

 

"That was a tough decision. It was a tough decision. ... I haven't sat before, and it's something that's been on my mind but I didn't want to do it for different reasons, but when I heard some comments that were made recently that put it over the top. I don't know if it's something that I plan on doing every game because my grandpa is a veteran and have respect for that

 

And here's Adrian Clayborn of the Falcons:

 

"A lot of stuff needs to change, man. [Trump] has his support, and he has his people that's behind him that's continuing this crazy rhetoric that he's spilling. I want to be optimistic, but it's crazy times. I didn't [kneel], but I support my brothers 100 percent. Anytime somebody has a question for me about how I feel about it, I'm going to answer it. And the way I feel about it right now is stuff ain't right and he's just spilling all this hatred that's not doing anything positive for what's going on in this world." Clayborn stood along with the majority of his teammates.

 

So here you have two players who definitely support the protests and are willing to say it publicly, but even they are reluctant to kneel or don't want to because they know what that says to so many people. I'd have to dig them up, but I know I've heard quotes from several other NFL players the same thing: they want to protest and they support the protesters, but the Anthem is a line they don't personally want to cross.

 

http://www.espn.com/nfl/player/_/id/13965/adrian-clayborn

So...they totally support it and would protest if it wasn't for the anthem aspect. So how else are they protesting? If they aren't, it is lip service.

[Transmogrified Tiger]

I'm a little late, and this is largely echoing others, but a quick anecdote. I work in customer support, so we see a lot of people passing along their requests for our product, e.g. "I would totally buy your thing if it could do XYZ or if it cost less". In personal experience and in reading from other people, when you actually do those things, many if not most all of those people still don't actually buy your product. That was just a story they told themselves because they never planned on crossing the threshold of paying any dollars at all. Rather than confront their own behavior of why $0 v. > $0 is such a big leap, they conjure up the most logical reason they can for their inertia.

 

The people who denounce anthem protesting are doing the same thing. Acknowledging the protest as worthwhile would take them too far out of their comfort zone, because they haven't had that lived experience and people as a species try to cope by assuming a baseline of 'okayness' about their environment. They wouldn't acknowledge it any differently if NFL players started donating their game checks(which requires the players telling/"bragging" to the media about it for anyone to find out), the 'method' of protest is the out that makes the default(things are okay, no action needed from me or the structures around me) more reasonable.

[Sammy Sofa]

That's a good-ass analogy.

[ConstableRabbit]

I'm a little late, and this is largely echoing others, but a quick anecdote. I work in customer support, so we see a lot of people passing along their requests for our product, e.g. "I would totally buy your thing if it could do XYZ or if it cost less". In personal experience and in reading from other people, when you actually do those things, many if not most all of those people still don't actually buy your product. That was just a story they told themselves because they never planned on crossing the threshold of paying any dollars at all. Rather than confront their own behavior of why $0 v. > $0 is such a big leap, they conjure up the most logical reason they can for their inertia.

 

The people who denounce anthem protesting are doing the same thing. Acknowledging the protest as worthwhile would take them too far out of their comfort zone, because they haven't had that lived experience and people as a species try to cope by assuming a baseline of 'okayness' about their environment. They wouldn't acknowledge it any differently if NFL players started donating their game checks(which requires the players telling/"bragging" to the media about it for anyone to find out), the 'method' of protest is the out that makes the default(things are okay, no action needed from me or the structures around me) more reasonable.

This is a good analogy overall but misses one piece:

 

If half of your potential customers (people who don't buy today) overwhelmingly say that they need the product to do XYZ or cost less in order to buy, the company would probably try implementing some of those changes to see if it impacts sales/profitability. They wouldn't just say "well, a lot of people say these things and don't mean it... no one is going to buy the product so we shouldn't listen to them. Let's just keep the product as-is and hope some people change their minds."

[Transmogrified Tiger]

I'm a little late, and this is largely echoing others, but a quick anecdote. I work in customer support, so we see a lot of people passing along their requests for our product, e.g. "I would totally buy your thing if it could do XYZ or if it cost less". In personal experience and in reading from other people, when you actually do those things, many if not most all of those people still don't actually buy your product. That was just a story they told themselves because they never planned on crossing the threshold of paying any dollars at all. Rather than confront their own behavior of why $0 v. > $0 is such a big leap, they conjure up the most logical reason they can for their inertia.

 

The people who denounce anthem protesting are doing the same thing. Acknowledging the protest as worthwhile would take them too far out of their comfort zone, because they haven't had that lived experience and people as a species try to cope by assuming a baseline of 'okayness' about their environment. They wouldn't acknowledge it any differently if NFL players started donating their game checks(which requires the players telling/"bragging" to the media about it for anyone to find out), the 'method' of protest is the out that makes the default(things are okay, no action needed from me or the structures around me) more reasonable.

This is a good analogy overall but misses one piece:

 

If half of your potential customers (people who don't buy today) overwhelmingly say that they need the product to do XYZ or cost less in order to buy, the company would probably try implementing some of those changes to see if it impacts sales/profitability. They wouldn't just say "well, a lot of people say these things and don't mean it... no one is going to buy the product so we shouldn't listen to them. Let's just keep the product as-is and hope some people change their minds."

 

The business-specific advice is to take suggestions from non-customers with a grain of salt. Obviously you don't want to be ignorant to customer demand, but by and large the people who have already decided you were worthwhile and became customers are going to have suggestions that are more valuable than those who tell you why they didn't buy. This may not generalize to every last industry, but enough that it works as a truism for this analogy.

[ConstableRabbit]

I'm a little late, and this is largely echoing others, but a quick anecdote. I work in customer support, so we see a lot of people passing along their requests for our product, e.g. "I would totally buy your thing if it could do XYZ or if it cost less". In personal experience and in reading from other people, when you actually do those things, many if not most all of those people still don't actually buy your product. That was just a story they told themselves because they never planned on crossing the threshold of paying any dollars at all. Rather than confront their own behavior of why $0 v. > $0 is such a big leap, they conjure up the most logical reason they can for their inertia.

 

The people who denounce anthem protesting are doing the same thing. Acknowledging the protest as worthwhile would take them too far out of their comfort zone, because they haven't had that lived experience and people as a species try to cope by assuming a baseline of 'okayness' about their environment. They wouldn't acknowledge it any differently if NFL players started donating their game checks(which requires the players telling/"bragging" to the media about it for anyone to find out), the 'method' of protest is the out that makes the default(things are okay, no action needed from me or the structures around me) more reasonable.

This is a good analogy overall but misses one piece:

 

If half of your potential customers (people who don't buy today) overwhelmingly say that they need the product to do XYZ or cost less in order to buy, the company would probably try implementing some of those changes to see if it impacts sales/profitability. They wouldn't just say "well, a lot of people say these things and don't mean it... no one is going to buy the product so we shouldn't listen to them. Let's just keep the product as-is and hope some people change their minds."

 

The business-specific advice is to take suggestions from non-customers with a grain of salt. Obviously you don't want to be ignorant to customer demand, but by and large the people who have already decided you were worthwhile and became customers are going to have suggestions that are more valuable than those who tell you why they didn't buy. This may not generalize to every last industry, but enough that it works as a truism for this analogy.

Yeah it falls down a bit when we dig in, and I think this has been a point of disagreement in this conversation overall: should we make a mass product that more people will buy, or one that resonates well with the core consumer but won't ever be purchased by others?

[Sammy Sofa]

The reason the protests exist in the first place is because of the disparity in how Americans approach racial issues, so there's zero chance of finding a way to get the point across AND appeal to a majority of Americans at the time time. Protests aren't supposed to appeal to the opposition; they're supposed to make them uncomfortable and force them, in any kind of small way, to confront what they've been unaware of or ignoring. That's why this...

 

If half of your potential customers (people who don't buy today) overwhelmingly say that they need the product to do XYZ or cost less in order to buy, the company would probably try implementing some of those changes to see if it impacts sales/profitability.

 

...doesn't work. The people opposed don't want the protests to be tailored to make them feel more comfortable or welcome. They just want the protests to go away.

[ConstableRabbit]

The reason the protests exist in the first place is because of the disparity in how Americans approach racial issues, so there's zero chance of finding a way to get the point across AND appeal to a majority of Americans at the time time. Protests aren't supposed to appeal to the opposition; they're supposed to make them uncomfortable and force them, in any kind of small way, to confront what they've been unaware of or ignoring. That's why this...

 

If half of your potential customers (people who don't buy today) overwhelmingly say that they need the product to do XYZ or cost less in order to buy, the company would probably try implementing some of those changes to see if it impacts sales/profitability.

 

...doesn't work. The people opposed don't want the protests to be tailored to make them feel more comfortable or welcome. They just want the protests to go away.

There are a LOT of people like this. Some people will always find an excuse to complain about the protest mechanism because they don't want to confront these truths, or are racist, stupid, etc. However, I think that there are also people who are unwilling to listen that otherwise would be listening if this didn't involve the anthem. They're completely turned off to it. And that's why a lot of the national conversation is around those people being offended and the anthem, not the subject of police brutality, which I think is a miss.

[jersey cubs fan]

The reason the protests exist in the first place is because of the disparity in how Americans approach racial issues, so there's zero chance of finding a way to get the point across AND appeal to a majority of Americans at the time time. Protests aren't supposed to appeal to the opposition; they're supposed to make them uncomfortable and force them, in any kind of small way, to confront what they've been unaware of or ignoring. That's why this...

 

If half of your potential customers (people who don't buy today) overwhelmingly say that they need the product to do XYZ or cost less in order to buy, the company would probably try implementing some of those changes to see if it impacts sales/profitability.

 

...doesn't work. The people opposed don't want the protests to be tailored to make them feel more comfortable or welcome. They just want the protests to go away.

There are a LOT of people like this. Some people will always find an excuse to complain about the protest mechanism because they don't want to confront these truths, or are racist, stupid, etc. However, I think that there are also people who are unwilling to listen that otherwise would be listening if this didn't involve the anthem. They're completely turned off to it. And that's why a lot of the national conversation is around those people being offended and the anthem, not the subject of police brutality, which I think is a miss.

But this conversation is actually happening because these neanderthals keep struggling to hide their bigotry behind faux patriotism.

 

the protest is working, it is drawing attention to the problem and making shitty people uncomfortable.

[CyHawk_Cub]

I don't think we have agreement on what protest is supposed to accomplish.

[ConstableRabbit]

The reason the protests exist in the first place is because of the disparity in how Americans approach racial issues, so there's zero chance of finding a way to get the point across AND appeal to a majority of Americans at the time time. Protests aren't supposed to appeal to the opposition; they're supposed to make them uncomfortable and force them, in any kind of small way, to confront what they've been unaware of or ignoring. That's why this...

 

 

 

...doesn't work. The people opposed don't want the protests to be tailored to make them feel more comfortable or welcome. They just want the protests to go away.

There are a LOT of people like this. Some people will always find an excuse to complain about the protest mechanism because they don't want to confront these truths, or are racist, stupid, etc. However, I think that there are also people who are unwilling to listen that otherwise would be listening if this didn't involve the anthem. They're completely turned off to it. And that's why a lot of the national conversation is around those people being offended and the anthem, not the subject of police brutality, which I think is a miss.

But this conversation is actually happening because these neanderthals keep struggling to hide their bigotry behind faux patriotism.

 

the protest is working, it is drawing attention to the problem and making horsefeathers people uncomfortable.

It's certainly drawing attention to the sentiment that a lot of people think it's disrespectful to kneel/sit during the national anthem and say you aren't proud of a flag that represents oppression, a discussion on employee/employer rights, the first amendment, and what patriotism means. But are you really satisfied with the share/extent of the discussion surrounding how fucked up our police/justice system is?

[jersey cubs fan]

There are a LOT of people like this. Some people will always find an excuse to complain about the protest mechanism because they don't want to confront these truths, or are racist, stupid, etc. However, I think that there are also people who are unwilling to listen that otherwise would be listening if this didn't involve the anthem. They're completely turned off to it. And that's why a lot of the national conversation is around those people being offended and the anthem, not the subject of police brutality, which I think is a miss.

But this conversation is actually happening because these neanderthals keep struggling to hide their bigotry behind faux patriotism.

 

the protest is working, it is drawing attention to the problem and making horsefeathers people uncomfortable.

It's certainly drawing attention to the sentiment that a lot of people think it's disrespectful to kneel/sit during the national anthem and say you aren't proud of a flag that represents oppression, a discussion on employee/employer rights, the first amendment, and what patriotism means. But are you really satisfied with the share/extent of the discussion surrounding how horsefeathers up our police/justice system is?

 

The share, no. The actual count, more so, yes. Dumb bigots are going to dumb bigot, trump has taught us that if we didn't already know. Shitty assholes have hidden behind the flag for generations, and always will. So what.

 

People on this very website have changed their tune from the time of Ferguson, to now. The progress will not continue unabated, but it will continue.

[Tim]

Talking about the protest with one person has allowed me to make one otherwise decent person awfully uncomfortable about race relations in America this week. Even if most people have an initial reaction about it being about the flag/military/whatever, as long as this makes them voice that horseshit and have others call them out on it the protest is working.

[Sammy Sofa]

Yeah, the point is to force people to at least talk about this, and it's succeeded. If it was tailored as something that most people agreed on, then what's the point in the first place? To make people feel good? That sounds like one of the Bum's "tolerance rallies."

[ConstableRabbit]

Yeah, the point is to force people to at least talk about this, and it's succeeded. If it was tailored as something that most people agreed on, then what's the point in the first place? To make people feel good? That sounds like one of the Bum's "tolerance rallies."

Haha did I miss this?

[Sammy Sofa]

Yeah, the point is to force people to at least talk about this, and it's succeeded. If it was tailored as something that most people agreed on, then what's the point in the first place? To make people feel good? That sounds like one of the Bum's "tolerance rallies."

Haha did I miss this?

 

Oh man, it was one of my favorite Bum moments. I just found it, but I'm ashamed that I've been getting it wrong all these years...he called them "equality rallies!"

 

http://www.northsidebaseball.com/archive/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=53721&p=2138405&hilit=rallies#p2138252

 

It is, of course, in a thread about the Budweiser House.

 

We (mostly me) have had had fun with it over the years:

 

http://www.northsidebaseball.com/archive/search.php?keywords=%22tolerance+rallies%22&terms=all&author=&sc=1&sf=all&sr=posts&sk=t&sd=d&st=0&ch=300&t=0&submit=Search

[David]

Yeah, the point is to force people to at least talk about this, and it's succeeded. If it was tailored as something that most people agreed on, then what's the point in the first place? To make people feel good? That sounds like one of the Bum's "tolerance rallies."

Haha did I miss this?

 

Oh man, it was one of my favorite Bum moments. I just found it, but I'm ashamed that I've been getting it wrong all these years...he called them "equality rallies!"

 

http://www.northsidebaseball.com/archive/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=53721&p=2138405&hilit=rallies#p2138252

 

It is, of course, in a thread about the Budweiser House.

 

We (mostly me) have had had fun with it over the years:

 

http://www.northsidebaseball.com/archive/search.php?keywords=%22tolerance+rallies%22&terms=all&author=&sc=1&sf=all&sr=posts&sk=t&sd=d&st=0&ch=300&t=0&submit=Search

 

oh my god that whole conversation hahahahahahahahhaahahhahahahahahahah

[David]

hahahahaha and then there's fat erik actually complaining about the budweiser house change of course he is

[Sammy Sofa]

I like how there were people worried about the thread going off track.

[SouthSideRyan]

Since people pouted about pizza talk, I'll go off track with a topic we never cover. I do not remember this exchange from da bum, but my God imb.

 

http://www.northsidebaseball.com/archive/viewtopic.php?f=44&t=52330&p=2051101&