October 9, 2017

This position will not go over well

VP Pence's walked out of the Indianapolis Colts game after members of the 49ers knelt during the National Anthem. His actions were pure politics, obviously pre-planned and a waste of taxpayer monies. It was, in plain words, horse crap.

Of course players were going to kneel, the Veep knew it when he came to the game. San Francisco is the team where the protests started. Pence came to make a grandstanding political point. Nothing more. The fans of the Colts paid the price in extra security to get into the game and ultimately for the pane trip and security through taxes. You did too.

I'm no fan of the kneelers. I think they should choose a different venue to make their point. But I'm also not in favor of Pence's publicity stunt. My first take of the event was smug self satisfaction. Then I wondered what I would say if Obama or another lefty wasted my tax money like this? I would bitch and rant.

Pence injected politics into football. What he did was no different than what the kneelers are doing. I'm tired of it. Politics is intruding into every facet of life, is it too much to ask for three hours of entertainment free of political commentary and protest?

Yes, yes, I hear you. If the kneelers have a right to their free speech so do President Trump and Vice President Pence. They do. I just don't want them wasting a bunch of taxpayer money flying their family and crew across the country to make a political point. Pence upstaged a tribute to the Colts greatest player; Peyton Manning's  jersey was retired at halftime, and that upstaging is sad in itself. It demonstrates a level of egotism and assholery not previously exhibited by the VP.

I swear I'm convinced every elected official should get "it is not your money" branded on their forearm as a condition of taking office.

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

From what I understand Pence was on his way back from Las Vegas,and stopped by the game to honor Manning since Pence had been the Gov of Indiana. Any additional cost was from landing and takeoff fuel used. I am not a fan of the political bullshit going on with the NFL, I didn't like it last year. Employee's will get away with whatever they can, I blame the owners, and haven't watched an NFL game in two years. My last job was on a miltiary installation and the national anthem is played every morning, if you are outside you are expected to stop work and stand facing the flag post. We had union stevedores at the wharf and I do remember one being sent home without pay because he acted like a spoiled kid. I found out later his fellow employee's had a heart to heart discussion with him. At one time all vehicles on post stopped until the anthem was over, that stopped because of saftey reasons all though some vehicles still pull off the road. I don't ever remember a soldier kneeling durig the playing of the anthem at any military station, wonder why.



James Old Guy

Melissa said...

I honestly thought Pence was sincere but it may have been just a set up for lack of a better word. It truly makes us look as bad as them. I am truly beginning to despise politics....

Joe said...

You and me both

Fuzzy Curmudgeon said...

If you despise politics, tell the farking NFL to stop politicizing itself. Tell ESPN to stop acting like MSNBC with athletes.

This all started because the idiot who is currently the Commissioner of Football didn't immediately suspend Colin Kaepernick when he started his kneeling stunt last year. I don't care if there are no rules in the rulebook about it (and there aren't, regardless of what people were sending around on Facebook purporting to be such rules), from a general publicity standpoint, what Kaepernick started was so obviously a slap in the face to the average football fan that someone at high levels in the NFL front office should have been screaming, "My God, somebody stop him! Think of our phoney baloney jobs! Because they'll all be down the toilet after three or four years of this!"

And that person is probably going to be right.

Anonymous said...

Not going over well, but only a matter of different opinions (in some parts). I too am tired of politics, I feel like many of us watch TV, the movies or sports to escape politics and life's stresses. Politics have invaded everything mentioned above, so I do not participate any more. I rarely watch TV, seldom go to the movies and I'm done with professional sports! I still may watch, or listen to (radio) college football and baseball.
What the VP did this weekend may have been a stunt, I'm not entirely against it, it's time the left feeds on the crap they've been feeding us for years. As far as the cost, boy, I wish the few thousands of dollars that stop-over cost was what the big government wastes are, and what we should be concerned with. The trouble with conservatives is that we are too polite, and no matter how bad things get, we roll up our sleeves and make the best of a situation. It's gotten us in the sorry state we're in now. It's going to take some stunts and counter punching to get the real stories coming out and making change.
I worry for our kids.

Ed Bonderenka said...

My friend Mike across the street has Lions season tickets.
He is a conservative and he despises the knee taking.
He doesn’t walk out. But those tickets cost him a relatively large amount of money and he doesn’t want to let a relatively small number of the team to rob him of the enjoyment he gets from watching the game.
I get that.
But Pence did the right thing.
And it was not a setup.
It was a reaction.
And a good one.
If Pence hadn't shown, it would have dissed Manning.
If he stayed it would have dissed the country.

mts1 said...

When Pence got called out by the acting cast as he sat in the audience for the play Hamilton, he took it with far more courtesy and poise than I and maybe 90% of people would've done, and he stayed put to watch the whole play. But no one gave him credit for that. They still thought he was a jerk.

A Colts home game is something that happens 8 times a year, every year. A Manning day of honor happens once. I believe he came for the Manning statue unveiling, and the game was a throw-in; if he stayed, fine, if the usual suspects did their usual suspicious thing, he could literally jet on out and the cost is a sunk cost either way. If he stayed, the left and the press (same-same) would've peed all over his shoes over how they could once again diss him to his face and all he would do is smile and take it.

The time has come when even the normies, and Pence is the standard bearer of white bread lawn mower pushing suburbanite WASP normie-ism, finally stopped caring about being called every name but Child of God by the endlessly shaming left, or even more center people like the Hoosier Boy. Old paradigm: Left: "You're evil!" Target: "Oh, boy, I better change to make you like me once again." Left: "Nice dog." New paradigm: Left: "You're an evil this, that, and the other thing." Target: "Yup. I am, and three other things you forgot to mention, too!" Left: "I, uh, well, I uh, I, Uh, ..."

Kind of the natural development of being called Nazis and Worse than Hitler and Literally Hitler for the past 10 years for opposing the AHCA, GATT, war on coal, or whatever, and rappers on telethons and pink hat womyn accusing you of directing hurricanes and summoning earthquakes for no other reason than to hurt minorities and women. They hate you anyway, and no amount of groveling will make them like you. When the world done gone crazy around you, acting sane is an insane response. Next time some official walks, I hope he gives the Sicilian salute with the #1 sign on the way out.

Joe said...

This is the first time I have ever been labeled a centrist.

Pence wasn't there for the statue ceremony. Of course he knew the 49ers would kneel, and what he would do when they did.

Anyone who argues the kneelers are not protesting te country are dead wrong and did not listen Kapernick the day after he started this nonsense. The NFL let it go on and is paying te price. ESPN is foolish if they don't fire the anchor who just encouraged a boycott of NFL sponsors. You know the people who spend money for ads on her network, the people who pay her salary. If the ad buyers aren't calling ESPN today, they are fools.

That said, I thinkence wasted tax money to make a political statement.mhe is not te first, nor te last politician to do it.

Again, what would you say if Obama pulled a similar stunt?

Fuzzy Curmudgeon said...

Name the similar stunt that Obama might have pulled, Joe.

Because I'm sure in Pence's place he would have stood there and nodded approval of the 49ers taking a knee, and that would have had the right up in arms no less than the progs are up in arms about Pence walking out.

The point you're making is that politicians need to stop trying to arouse their base by engaging in this type of nakedly-partisan political stunt. But such stunts have become an accepted part of the political landscape since at least Teddy Roosevelt. (Remember that McKinley campaigned from his front porch, the last president to campaign essentially by proxy. TR changed all that.) The difference we've seen since at least 2000 (and probably more like 1992) is that the stunts are escalating in terms of divisiveness. Also since 1992, we've seen the evolution of the permanent campaign in which we the people are never left simply to be non-partisan citizens interacting in non-political ways. The internet has simply fed this and made it worse, particularly as services like Google, Facebook, and Twitter have become more and more dominated by operators of the left wing.

What really needs to happen is that the citizens of this country need to go on political strike. Stop feeding the monster and let it starve to death. Stop the knee-jerk responses to idiots on the other side in social media. Do as one friend of mine has been doing on Facebook -- just post cute cat memes and stay out of the political crap as much as you can.

If we stop responding to the provocations of politicians, maybe they'll stop being assholes. But until we do, we're just their puppets, and they're pulling all of our strings.

Joe said...

I read piece today (the federalist?) saying that both parties have moved deeper to their "corners" since 2010. Lefties are more left and righties are more right than any time in recent memory

I think your analysis is spot on. In fact, I think we agree Pence's action was a stunt. You say welcome to modern political life

I am living in a fantasy world where I wish someone could take the high road.

I hope I'm not always this naive in my political positions.

Ok. I was semi wrong

Melissa said...

Fuzzy - a lot of points to think on. Thank for that.

Consider everything here that is of original content copyrighted as of March 2005
Powered By Blogger