Open Mouth, Insert Foot

I heard the other day that NFL Quarterback Colin Kaepernick was auditioning to replace Natalie Maines as the spokesperson for the band Dixie Chicks.  Seems the guy forgot who his demographic supporters are, which gives him a real shot at the job. At the rate he’s going, he needs to run for higher public office, as in my experience that is par for the course.  Get to the top, forget how you got there, and then do your own thing.  It helps to have a righteous cause to convince yourself it is worth the risk.

I have no problem with Colin or Natalie exercising their 1^st Amendment rights, which are freedom of religion, speech, press, assembly, and petition. I do it all the time. I also know who I am talking to most of the time and if it offends them, I am pretty sure they are not paying me a salary, or expecting me to endorse a product for a fee or salary.

When Dixie Chick numero uno stood on that stage in England and declared she was embarrassed of the President of the United States, she made a couple very serious errors. One, she was in a foreign country and she’s an American Country and Western singer. Two, a whole bunch of people who buy her records supported GWB. Three, she forgot she was a singer and pulled the classic Smothers Brothers routine of using the entertainment stage to express her political views. Four, her remarks ultimately killed her band and income stream.

They are finally active again and guess where they are entertaining?  Small venues.  The top C&W band went from the mountain top to the valley low and like Jane Fonda’s legacy, many red-blooded patriots will turn the channel when their music plays, let alone attend a concert.

Now let’s a take a look at this NFL Quarterback for a second, who has a yearly salary of 19 million dollars. Like Ms. Maines, he has forgotten a couple of things, so he can push a cause which has nothing to do with football. His cause is so sensitive that the politically correct crowd have no option, but to back him and they will. The truth of the matter is no one wants an athlete to use their position in a sport to do anything other than play that sport. Next, he represents this franchise and as quarterback, the brains of the team. What he is doing is not team related and he’s doing it on the field. If it were not of the race card being played, I imagine they would set his butt down and probably fine him to boot.

Let’s take a simple traffic cop who decides to make a political statement right in the middle of an intersection as an example. Ain’t nobody got time for that. Let him do that on his own time. If Colin Kaepernick wants to make an impact, he should set up a fund to help black people out of poverty and the social punji stakes laid down by white people. He makes 19 Million dollars a year for goodness sake and has a palatial mansion that you can view on the Internet.

Sadly, by all accounts his talent is waning and he’s sort of engaged to the radical Islamic militant disc jockey Nessa Diab and has become “all riled up” mainly due to her perceived injustices and liberal Berkeley education. Never mind that she is also semi-famous and kind of successful and has a blooming career in TV and radio.

Why can’t people just be happy to be doing well? Why do so many privileged and financially blessed people feel the need to go on the warpath to expose the evil system that made them successful? Why does George Clooney (estimated personal wealth 180 million) support a party that wants to tax him more than it currently does?  Why would George Soros (24.9 billion) support a political candidate who wants to redistribute his wealth? It makes no sense to me at all.

The only distribution of my wealth I support is my own spending. I want the government to keep its stinking fingers out of my wallet and I have no trouble saying that to anyone. Football players need to support their teams and keep politics and personal biases and opinions off the playing field. The same goes for all sporting events, award shows, and entertainment venues. 

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