Monday, June 4, 2018

Trump Cancels NFL Philadelphia Eagles White House Visit



President Donald Trump has canceled a planned Super Bowl reception for the Philadelphia Eagles after many players were not going to attend due to his position that all players must stand for the national anthem.

“The Philadelphia Eagles are unable to come to the White House with their full team to be celebrated tomorrow.  They disagree with their President because he insists that they proudly stand for the National Anthem, hand on heart, in honor of the great men and women of our military and the people of our country,” Trump said in a Monday evening statement.

“The Eagles wanted to send a smaller delegation, but the 1,000 fans planning to attend the event deserve better.  These fans are still invited to the White House to be part of a different type of ceremony—one that will honor our great country, pay tribute to the heroes who fight to protect it, and loudly and proudly play the National Anthem.  I will be there at 3:00 p.m. with the United States Marine Band and the United States Army Chorus to celebrate America,” he continued.

Neither side can be supported from a libertarian perspective.

Trump is remarkably nationalistic, in the worst sense of the term, and militaristic. He just loves the military.

And the kneeling football players are a bunch of snowflake social justice warriors with helmets.

A plague o' both your houses.

-RW  

11 comments:

  1. The players are probably not Rothbardians but they’re protesting murder at the hands of state police by thumbing their nose at the nation’s most visible symbol of state power.

    They’re 1000x better than Trump on this issue.

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    1. No kidding! You won the super bowl and DONT have to visit the Cheeto in Chief, it dont get much better than that.

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    2. They're upset at state police so they're protesting the federal government? Not cheering that.

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    3. @Tom Woods

      Some of us here are libertarians, and are thrilled to see some private citizens waking up to the fact that the state (whether it’s the criminal gang in DC or one that controls a smaller territory) is not their friend, and is in fact antithetical to their interests.

      I wish more “conservatives” these days would exhibit similar skepticism towards the exercise of state power.

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    4. That’s a fascinating perspective.

      If you were an NFL player, would you pledge allegiance?

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    5. @Blake

      I’d like to say that I would not, and then when the media asked me about it, I’d have a great opportunity to explain why the state is awful and is not to be worshipped.

      However, if my livelihood depended on not alienating a bunch of nationalists, it’s hard to say if I’d actually do it. A star player would lose endorsements, and marginal player would risk being blackballed.

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  2. The US has now reached a very weird Orwellian-esque point: we have those who engage in the Two Minutes Hate each day against Trump, and we have those who engage in the Two Minutes Love for the military at each sporting event (and elsewhere).

    As a libertarian, I'd like to institute the Two Minutes Rothbard, where we spend two minutes each day talking to a statist about Rothbard's key arguments.

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  3. Tom and Robert, seriously? What? They aren’t protesting the correct way?
    Their protest isn’t pure enough for you?
    It’s true they are not protesting military intervention, it’s true they are mostly all statist themselves, for as much as I can judge them.
    Tom, it’s “state” police that they are upset about so how dumb to protest during the “national” anthem? How un States rights of them.
    Even that semi almost Libertarian Jefferson liked a little protest now and then, even for the wrong reasons.
    Academia much?
    Come on back to the live it world.
    Protest against the state away NFL players.
    Can’t believe one on hand we can cheer Rothbard finding common ground with lefty commies but have our noses stuck to high to even give simple support to some over paid football players. Or is that the real rub? I know as much as I can of several of them, and they are on both on the left and right as far as the political spectrum goes.
    Please neither of you comment or post on another “state” (little “s” of course) police shooting again.
    Or I jest.

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    1. Anti-Trumpers on the left show their inherent inconsistencies once again. Watch any sporting event in a Progressive city, and notice how when the pre-game national anthem is played, everyone jumps to their feet like trained monkeys, and sings along or stands solemnly; imagine the looks you'd get if you, alone, sat during this religious rite. I'm guessing that many of these spectators revile Trump's latest move, yet his point is that everyone should be doing what these Progressives do.

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    2. @TheNAPster

      I don’t think the left is necessarily being “inconsistent”. Most are irredeemable statists, so it’s only natural that they’d engage in a state worship ritual.

      But IMO that’s part of the reason that libertarians should be encouraged by the protests. Black players are part of a demographic that’s largely statist democrats, and yet they are flaunting their disrespect towards the state.

      I’m sure most of us were statists growing up, but then noticed certain instances of the state being evil or ineffective, which inspired us to dig deeper and to discover the importance of individual liberty. Once we noticed a crack in the facade, the mask probably fell away quickly. One must suspect that the protests are causing at least some black people to disabuse themselves of the notion that the state is looking out for them, and we know quite intimately the great things that can happen when one starts walking down that road.

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  4. It is my understand that Kaapernick's original kneel was meant to draw attention to police shooting unarmed black people. As far as I can tell that is a real thing that is really happening, it really is a problem, it really is caused by the state, and real libertarians should have unambiguous feelings on the matter.

    One could make strong argument that anything short of open hostility and disrespect toward state pageantry such as the national anthem is unlibertarian.

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