NO TROLLS Should AFL players bend the knee before each match in 2021?

[mr bagcroft]

When people say they want politics out of sport, they simply mean politics they don’t like. If I may make a generalisation, a majority of people opposed to players taking a knee would lose their sh*t if the AFL was told to drop Anzac Day. There would be cries of censorship, cancel culture etc. But the very nature of Anzac Day and how it relates to our history is political.

Politics is life, life is politics, you can’t separate it from anything.

Big difference between Anzac Day commerating people who died for our freedom, and a bunch of virtue signalling tossers.
Yeah,nah.

 

[Gough]

Big difference between Anzac Day commerating people who died for our freedom, and a bunch of virtue signalling tossers.
Yeah,nah.

You need to read up on WWI history, we were fighting in Turkey under control of the Brits to gain land for the Russian. It had nothing to do with our freedom, we could have sat on our hands during that war and Australia would have been unchanged. As Chuck D said, Don't Believe the Hype.

 

[morningbrown]

Anzac Day is not political.

If you think it is, you need to spend some time with some of our returned soldiers, listen to their experiences and understand the impact it has had on them and their families.

Last week I spent 3 days trying to get government help for an ex-soldier whose job it was to recover, put together and identify body parts of people killed in Timor by Indonesia. The impact on him, his children and his wife would bring the manliest bloke to tears. Yet we do very little for these people who give everything up.

Politicians choose what wars we fight - argue with them the politics. Anzac Day is about honouring our soldiers, some of whom are the reason you and I can even have this debate on a message board.

Equating it with this kneeling nonsense isn’t just wrong, it’s disrespectful.

People of colour are currently fighting a war against injustice. They are fighting so that future generations are no longer unfairly treated or even killed, based on the colour of their skin. They are fighting for freedom, exactly what the ANZACS were supposedly doing, except now the enemy is within their own countries.

 

[CaptainCripps13]

People of colour are currently fighting a war against injustice. They are fighting so that future generations are no longer unfairly treated or even killed, based on the colour of their skin. They are fighting for freedom, exactly what the ANZACS were supposedly doing, except now the enemy is within their own countries.

Fighting by kneeling versus getting shot and killed for your country

I cannot compute how someone would equate the two

 

[CaptainCripps13]

You need to read up on WWI history, we were fighting in Turkey under control of the Brits to gain land for the Russian. It had nothing to do with our freedom, we could have sat on our hands during that war and Australia would have been unchanged. As Chuck D said, Don't Believe the Hype.

But Anzac Day is not just about WW1.

Funny you support the UN right? Alliances sometimes mean you stick up for allies outside your area of concern

 

[morningbrown]

Fighting by kneeling versus getting shot and killed for your country

I cannot compute how someone would equate the two

The kneeling is a message of support and unity for the POCs who are getting shot and killed for simply being a different race. Doesn't take a genius to understand the correlation.

 

[CaptainCripps13]

The kneeling is a message of support and unity for the POCs who are getting shot and killed for simply being a different race. Doesn't take a genius to understand the correlation.

If you can't understand the difference between the two in terms of one being a national day of significance and the other being something people can choose of their own free will to protest over, I can't help you.

 

[Atomboy]

Anzac Day is not political.

If you think it is, you need to spend some time with some of our returned soldiers, listen to their experiences and understand the impact it has had on them and their families.

Last week I spent 3 days trying to get government help for an ex-soldier whose job it was to recover, put together and identify body parts of people killed in Timor by Indonesia. The impact on him, his children and his wife would bring the manliest bloke to tears. Yet we do very little for these people who give everything up.

Politicians choose what wars we fight - argue with them the politics. Anzac Day is about honouring our soldiers, some of whom are the reason you and I can even have this debate on a message board.

Equating it with this kneeling nonsense isn’t just wrong, it’s disrespectful.

ANZAC Day is increasingly politicised and used by a variety of groups to further their self interests.

The ex-Defence Minister (backed by major arms companies) wants to spend half a billion dollars to build a new war memorial in Canberra. Meantime support funding for veterans and their families for issues like PTSD continues to stagnate.

To take a stand against it is then to be labelled “anti-ANZAC” and “anti-veteran”. Soldiers and their families are an afterthought in all of this.

Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel.

 

[Ricketz]

But Anzac Day is not just about WW1.

Funny you support the UN right? Alliances sometimes mean you stick up for allies outside your area of concern

Like minorities.

 

[Jiggyman]

Context is still a thing. I would disagree that the primary motivation behind ANZAC Day is political, or that there is some agenda involved. If you do disagree with the idea of a nation/country in principle and find it offensive to remember the lives tragically lost in conflict, whether you think that conflict was justified or not, well you probably have bigger issues to think about.

Shameless promotion and hijacking of ANZAC Day to sell a product, however, is in bad taste. You could argue the AFL has crossed this line in the past, and I would hope they wouldn't go over the top on social justice simply for the "brownie points". In other codes and sports, as well as the corporate world in general, it has come across as tokenism in recent times.

 

[Altum Volantes]

Shameless promotion and hijacking of ANZAC Day to sell a product, however, is in bad taste. You could argue the AFL has crossed this line in the past, and I would hope they wouldn't go over the top on social justice simply for the "brownie points". In other codes and sports, as well as the corporate world in general, it has come across as tokenism at times.

Of course they do it for brownie points.

Perhaps more out of fear of being called out as racist/out of touch etc etc

Entities like the AFL do not set the agenda in this country, they comply and embrace issues that the majority of their demographic side with (at least publicly).

If you ask 10 supporters at any AFL game if they oppose racism they’d all say ‘of course!’ - so the AFL embrace the ‘minimum standards’ in professional sport at the time.

Ask 10 supporters what they think of homosexuals for example, and you’d probably get a bit more of a mixed bag - maybe 6 who ‘support’ gay rights etc, 2 that are indifferent but probably side to ‘favour’ and maybe 2 that have a problem with that lifestyle. So they AFL approach that with a bit more of a low key approach - there is a ‘Pride Game’ but not a ‘Pride Round’ and they skew it more towards the AFLW which features the more ‘socially acceptable’ form of homosexuality in sport.

It is 100% all about the optics, the brownie points and the outward appearance of a progressive organisation.

 

[Sweet Jesus]

 

[HaroLad]

When people say they want politics out of sport, they simply mean politics they don’t like. If I may make a generalisation, a majority of people opposed to players taking a knee would lose their sh*t if the AFL was told to drop Anzac Day. There would be cries of censorship, cancel culture etc. But the very nature of Anzac Day and how it relates to our history is political.

Politics is life, life is politics, you can’t separate it from anything.

Except you can draw a line and avoid politics which are widely disparate from normative and established morality.

ANZAC Day, the anthem etc. are rituals, imagery and symbolic of what we coalesce around as a society. While some may find it disagreeable or 'controversial', it is inevitable in an individualistic liberal society that there will exist dissidents from the norm.

ANZAC Day is an established which is agreeable to the vast majority. Black Lives Matter and radical marxist politics are not established social rituals and are much more inherently 'political' in their nature. It is Marxist in origin, in support and in object. It is the anthesis of the normative and established values which most of us hold and abide by.

When people say they don't want politics in sport, they mean they don't want politics in sport. ANZAC Day, while technically might be 'political', has a much more important social function.

 

[Ricketz]

Except you can draw a line and avoid politics which are widely disparate from normative and established morality.

ANZAC Day, the anthem etc. are rituals, imagery and symbolic of what we coalesce around as a society. While some may find it disagreeable or 'controversial', it is inevitable in an individualistic liberal society that there will exist dissidents from the norm.

ANZAC Day is an established which is agreeable to the vast majority. Black Lives Matter and radical marxist politics are not established social rituals and are much more inherently 'political' in their nature. It is Marxist in origin, in support and in object. It is the anthesis of the normative and established values which most of us hold and abide by.

When people say they don't want politics in sport, they mean they don't want politics in sport. ANZAC Day, while technically might be 'political', has a much more important social function.

What a load of crap.

If that is what you need to form a sense of identity no wonder you feel so threatened by people who wander outside your particular idea of normal.

It's a fragile and very brittle castle you have built for yourself.

 

[HaroLad]

What a load of crap.

If that is what you need to form a sense of identity no wonder you feel so threatened by people who wander outside your particular idea of normal.

It's a fragile and very brittle castle you have built for yourself.

It has little to do with individual 'identity' and more the preservation of certain social practices and solidarity.

Football is, of itself, a fundamental social practice in Australia, and it is my belief it should be free of intrusions by overtly dogmatic political doctrines which are contrary to our collective morality.

 

[JZ_Skitzo]

Playing the national anthem of a country at a sporting event in that country is not political.

Neither is having empathy for fellow humans. Thinking black people shouldn't be killed by police officers is apparently a political point of view due to "keep politics out off sports".

 

[Ricketz]

It has little to do with individual 'identity' and more the preservation of certain social practices and solidarity.

Football is, of itself, a fundamental social practice in Australia, and it is my belief it should be free of intrusions by overtly dogmatic political doctrines which are contrary to our collective morality.

That's probably even more ridiculous. Preservation of social practices? Social practices change all the time. AFL has only been around since the 90's and it's constantly changed over that period.

Solidarity? Taking a knee is a sign of solidarity.

Overtly dogmatic political doctrines? You are the one labelling people Marxists. That is the very definition of dogmatism.

Relax mate. People have opinions, they aren't forcing them on you.

 

[morningbrown]

What has to have gone wrong in someone's brain to think that supporting people of colour and hopefully enact change to stop them being murdered is "politics".

 

[g_TRAIN]

What has to have gone wrong in someone's brain to think that supporting people of colour and hopefully enact change to stop them being murdered is "politics".

Agreed.

* heads need to stop crying and being offended so easily when someone does something like take a knee.

I don't know how the right-wing made stuff like this and climate change politics. That and this obsession with labeling everyone a Marxist or Socialists. I've never seen anything so stupid in my entire life.

 

[JackOutback]

Big difference between Anzac Day commerating people who died for our freedom, and a bunch of virtue signalling tossers.
Yeah,nah.

As pointed out, the Anzacs didn't 'die for our freedoms' and bandying that term about is as much virtue signalling as taking a knee. You just disagree with the virtues in question.

 

[HaroLad]

That's probably even more ridiculous. Preservation of social practices? Social practices change all the time. AFL has only been around since the 90's and it's constantly changed over that period.

Football has only been around since the 90s?

Solidarity? Taking a knee is a sign of solidarity.

Not really. What I mean by 'social solidarity' is behaviours, symbols, rituals and ideas which, in order for the proper function of a culture, must be held in common. Marxist values are the anthesis to Western liberalism and are not held in common. The flying of the flag, or the anthem, is.

Overtly dogmatic political doctrines? You are the one labelling people Marxists. That is the very definition of dogmatism.

I am not labelling people Marxists, but the movement is explicitly so. The core values (i.e. against the nuclear family, the nation state, the individual) are at their core Marxist; the founders, and prominent adherents, are all 'neo-marxists' in that their worldview is shaped entirely by relations between racial and sexual groups. Increasingly we define people according to their racial, sexual, or gendered class - not as an individual, and interactions between individuals are not seen as such, but as between different class groups (The interaction between Derek Chauvin and George Floyd was not seen as an action between individuals, but between black and 'white'). This is dangerous and needs to stop.

Relax mate. People have opinions, they aren't forcing them on you.

They are - every ambit of life is being encroached and tainted by these Marxist ideas, whether it be education, the workplace, entertainment or government services or Ministries.

What has to have gone wrong in someone's brain to think that supporting people of colour and hopefully enact change to stop them being murdered is "politics".

What has gone wrong in someone's brain to see someone being murdered and think of them not as an individual but in a deterministic vein (as a member of a racial class)?

 

[JackOutback]

Except you can draw a line and avoid politics which are widely disparate from normative and established morality.

ANZAC Day, the anthem etc. are rituals, imagery and symbolic of what we coalesce around as a society. While some may find it disagreeable or 'controversial', it is inevitable in an individualistic liberal society that there will exist dissidents from the norm.

ANZAC Day is an established which is agreeable to the vast majority. Black Lives Matter and radical marxist politics are not established social rituals and are much more inherently 'political' in their nature. It is Marxist in origin, in support and in object. It is the anthesis of the normative and established values which most of us hold and abide by.

When people say they don't want politics in sport, they mean they don't want politics in sport. ANZAC Day, while technically might be 'political', has a much more important social function.

I guess I don't consider the idea that black lives matter that "disparate from normative and established morality". I see it as "common ******* sense" myself.

 

[HaroLad]

As pointed out, the Anzacs didn't 'die for our freedoms' and bandying that term about is as much virtue signalling as taking a knee. You just disagree with the virtues in question.

The issue is not what they died for, but that the idea and ritual of the 'ANZAC' is enshrined in our culture, while Marxist group politics are not.

 

[HaroLad]

I guess I don't consider the idea that black lives matter that "disparate from normative and established morality". I see it as "common ******* sense" myself.

If the name of an organisation or movement is entirely descriptive of the object or values of said organisation or movement, would you then support a 'White Lives Matter' movement, given the notion that white lives matter is, as you said, common sense? Or would you shudder in disgust because you disagree with the sentiment, origins and proponents of the movement? Is the name 'Democratic People's Republic of Korea' entirely descriptive of North Korea? You do support democracy, don't you?

 

[Underarm]

It has little to do with individual 'identity' and more the preservation of certain social practices and solidarity.

Football is, of itself, a fundamental social practice in Australia, and it is my belief it should be free of intrusions by overtly dogmatic political doctrines which are contrary to our collective morality.

"As long as they conduct themselves like white people, well, off the field, everyone will admire and respect … As long as they conduct themselves like human beings, they will be all right. That’s the key.” -Allan Mcallister, Collingwood President 1993.