Hypothetical situation for you ej … Let’s say that you decide, as part of your unique way of expressing yourself, to start giving your patients the finger rather than a traditional “Hello” or other more appropriate greeting. How do you feel management should respond? Should they just look the other way as you alienate and insult the very people that allow you to have a job in the first place? Now imagine if others started following your example so that it’s no longer an isolated case and more and more people are being insulted and offended. How long do you think it would take before those same people started to avoid your place of business altogether? I do understand it’s different in a hospital setting but hospitals do gain reputations both good and bad and some are avoided when at all possible as a result of those reputations. Management would be forced to take action whether it agrees with your expression or not just to protect the bottom line. The NFL is doing the same thing.
Like it or not, playing football in the NFL is a job and one that pays very highly no less. It is NOT, however, a platform for expressing your personal political opinions. I don’t watch the NFL to hear what Tom Brady thinks about immigration reform, I watch it for the entertainment value and if that’s not there, I’m not going to waste my time. In fact, last year I watched far fewer games than I ever have for precisely that reason. If those players want to get their personal opinions out there that’s fine just don’t try to force feed it to me. If I want to hear what they have to say about a subject, I’ll go looking for it.
Personally, I don’t think requiring them to stand for the national anthem is asking too much. I mean, they are finely tuned athletes are they not?