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The Redskins Brouhaha Has Nothing To Do With Native Americans
Townhall.com ^ | June 20, 2014 | David Limbaugh

Posted on 06/20/2014 5:12:04 AM PDT by Kaslin

Do you think leftists are the slightest bit troubled by the public's overwhelming opposition to their crusade to force the Washington Redskins to change their name? That was rhetorical; I give you more credit.

Despite leftists' ongoing effort to convince Native Americans and the rest of us that Native Americans must be offended by the long-standing name, the polls don't seem to be moving in their direction. But that hardly deters them. They are the final arbiters of who may be (and who is being) offended.

In the end, this liberal crusade has little to do with protecting the sensitivities of Native Americans and everything to do with liberals setting themselves up as their guardians. Their practice of patronizing groups cannot yield to the facts. Their cause transcends reality. For the cause is not defending the oppressed or the downtrodden but about making themselves look wonderful with their latest piety.

Please do not think I am exaggerating. Isn't that the way liberals operate today? They imply, for example, that African-Americans are not self-sufficient or savvy enough to procure voter identification and so to require all people to produce such documentation is racist. Is their presupposition not a form of subtle bigotry?

Moreover, isn't it destructive to race relations for liberals to suggest that Republicans insisting on people having to prove they are who they say they are as a condition to voting -- as a measure to ensure the integrity of the voting process -- want to disenfranchise blacks? If liberals hadn't made such an issue of this, I honestly wouldn't have known that blacks are less likely to have identification than whites, assuming that's true. Where do these people get such dark ideas that they are so eager to project onto their political opponents?

While the nation is beset with myriad administration scandals, a woeful economy, the Middle East on fire, an imploding health care system, an upside-down budget, etc., many liberals, especially the Washington bigwigs, are focusing instead on coercing a football team to change its innocuous name. Harry Reid actually said this issue is the nation's top priority. But do you think it's just an accident that Harry Reid et al. are harassing the Washington team instead of, say, the Cleveland Indians? Fear not, however; if their bullying campaign succeeds here, they'll seek to expand its reach.

In this era of Obama, in which lawlessness is in vogue, it's hardly surprising that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has officiously intermeddled into this nonissue, which is none of its business. This small cabal of bureaucrats has pulled the team's trademark because of the team's "disparaging" name.

Who do these mini-tyrants think they are? What makes them feel empowered to divest an entity of its legally valid trademark simply because they deem, way after the fact and in their own unsolicited and unauthorized discretion, that the protected name is offensive? Even those who insist on being offended by the name should be alarmed by this abuse of power. But they won't be, because the mentality that leads them to impose their will on Native Americans in the first place is the same mentality that leads to such abuses.

You should understand that it's not just the people at large who are not exercised about this issue; polls consistently indicate that Native Americans themselves reject the phony narrative that "Redskins" is offensive. My nonconfidential sources tell me that there has never been a poll indicating that the majority of Native Americans support a name change.

Even though the board's ruling will have little immediate practical effect because it doesn't affect the team's ownership of and right to use the Redskins name and logo, don't underestimate the left's persistence in such matters. Leftists will march on until they get their way; their ideological zeal and political energy are greater than millions of Energizer Bunnies. Their concern for the people's collective will is nonexistent. They'll either intimidate people into supporting their position -- or pretending to support it -- or ignore them. For them, "compromise" is merely an Orwellian term used to bludgeon their opponents into submission.

So many of today's liberals are not content with a healthy political and cultural debate and letting democracy run its course. More and more, they seek to censor opposing views, as when they fined, suspended and sent to sensitivity training Miami Dolphins player Don Jones for posting tweets registering disapproval of Michael Sam, the first openly gay person to be drafted to the NFL. It's one thing to say you disagree with Jones, but to punish him for expressing his views? In America?

The current brouhaha has nothing to do with Native Americans. They are merely props the left is exploiting in its latest self-serving exercise. It's about the growing intolerance and tyranny of today's left and what that means for the future of liberty -- thought, speech, religion and beyond. We'd better wake up and fight back.


TOPICS: Culture/Society
KEYWORDS: liberals; nativeamericans; washingtonredskins
The last paragraph says it all
1 posted on 06/20/2014 5:12:05 AM PDT by Kaslin
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To: BigCinBigD

Ping


2 posted on 06/20/2014 5:13:04 AM PDT by Kaslin (He needed the ignorant to reelect him, and he got them. Now we all have to pay the consequenses)
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To: Kaslin
Whin I use a word, it means exactly what I want it to mean.

When you use a word, it means exactly what I want it to mean.

3 posted on 06/20/2014 5:23:22 AM PDT by Steely Tom (How do you feel about robbing Peter's robot?)
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To: Kaslin

The author forgot to mention an obvious variable at play, that is, that liberalism is a mental disorder.


4 posted on 06/20/2014 5:24:43 AM PDT by envisio (Its on like Donkey Kong!)
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To: Kaslin
In the end, this liberal crusade has little to do with protecting the sensitivities of Native Americans and everything to do with liberals setting themselves up as their guardians. Their practice of patronizing groups cannot yield to the facts. Their cause transcends reality. For the cause is not defending the oppressed or the downtrodden but about making themselves look wonderful with their latest piety.

Absolutely spot on. That is the only thing this is about.

5 posted on 06/20/2014 5:43:08 AM PDT by Obadiah (None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.)
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To: envisio

The libs are trying to do a mental reset on the population as to what the government has the authority to intervene and act on. I think the whole Redskins fiasco is simply one of their social exeriments to test The People’s reaction to government overreach. It’s incrementalism 101. If they succeed you can rest assured the next overreaches will be more serious and delve into constitutional areas.


6 posted on 06/20/2014 5:48:50 AM PDT by jsanders2001
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To: Kaslin

I’m probably dead wrong, but the way I see this is, the copyright to the brand was cancelled, but the name was not “forbidden, so the team can keep on going by the redskins name, even if it costs them some merchandising. Who’s going to “steal” the copyright name and/or logo? They’ll be ostracized by the libs, as well.

I say keep the name and rob it in their faces.


7 posted on 06/20/2014 5:51:30 AM PDT by FrankR (They will become our ultimate masters the day we surrender the 2nd Amendment.)
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To: Kaslin
I knew a liberal girl from Boston who told me that the death toll in Katrina was much higher than reported.

I asked her why she thought that. She actually said, "Because poor black people don't always report the death of their family members to agencies."

I said, "You really think that there are black people who watched their grandmother or their child get washed away in the flood, and then just sat there sad and did nothing about it? They didn't call the police? They didn't look for the body? They didn't collect on any insurance or benefits?"

"They need people to come down and help them with the paperwork or it doesn't get reported."

Seriously, in her mind, caring white liberals from Boston would have to fly down and help those poor people process the information or they would just sit there on their washed out porch missing grandma and doing nothing about it. She viewed them as a culture of friendly but dimwitted children, and she could not comprehend that her thinking was clearly racist, because she cared.

8 posted on 06/20/2014 6:03:50 AM PDT by dead (I've got my eye out for Mullah Omar.)
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To: Kaslin

Here we see a recent picture of Native Americans wearing Washington Redskins apparel.

The current brouhaha has nothing to do with Native Americans. They are merely props the left is exploiting in its latest self-serving exercise. It's about the growing intolerance and tyranny of today's left and what that means for the future of liberty -- thought, speech, religion and beyond.

9 posted on 06/20/2014 6:08:38 AM PDT by Obadiah (None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.)
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To: Kaslin

Too many Liberals out there just bored out of their minds, trying to find a cause and a stupid one at that. I don’t see Native Americans out in the streets or leading protests against this team. Anybody see Native Americans out there, upset?


10 posted on 06/20/2014 6:15:19 AM PDT by Netz
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To: Kaslin
The last paragraph says it all.

I agree. It's the part about "We'd better wake up" that bothers me. After all that has transpired, it still seems to me that the American public remains stuck in their abysmal ignorance of political developments. If this is so, then they deserve what they get. Unfortunately, we will suffer from what they get.

11 posted on 06/20/2014 6:15:32 AM PDT by OldPossum ("It's" is the contraction of "it" and "is"; think about ITS implications.)
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To: Obadiah

The current brouhaha has nothing to do with Native Americans. They are merely props the left is exploiting in its latest self-serving exercise. It’s about the growing intolerance and tyranny of today’s left and what that means for the future of liberty — thought, speech, religion and beyond.
_______

This needs to be trumpeted from rooftops!


12 posted on 06/20/2014 6:17:17 AM PDT by Chickensoup (Leftist totalitarian fascism is on the move.)
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To: envisio

Is it really necessary to mention that?


13 posted on 06/20/2014 6:46:12 AM PDT by Kaslin (He needed the ignorant to reelect him, and he got them. Now we all have to pay the consequenses)
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To: Kaslin

“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.”

“The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.”

“The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master—that’s all.”


14 posted on 06/20/2014 6:52:38 AM PDT by P-Marlowe (There can be no Victory without a fight and no battle without wounds)
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To: dead
"They need people to come down and help them with the paperwork or it doesn't get reported."

That mentality may not be far from the current truth. I had to go to Louisiana to assist with Hurricane Gustav & Hurricane Ike. After travelling around down there for about 2 weeks, watching people watch you drive by, while their yards had trash & other debris lying around, waiting for someone from the government to "help"

Yeah, I can see it.

15 posted on 06/20/2014 7:13:05 AM PDT by Darth Dan
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To: Kaslin

I think they push these issues along with sodomite “marriage” just to see what they can get away with.
Or to see how they can manipulate the public.


16 posted on 06/20/2014 7:28:17 AM PDT by Ruy Dias de Bivar (Sometimes you need more than seven rounds, Much more.)
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To: Obadiah

Joe Theismann, former Redskins QB, was on “Fox & Friends” this morning. He told of Native Americans telling him that they should keep the name.


17 posted on 06/20/2014 12:44:34 PM PDT by Verginius Rufus
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To: Obadiah

Joe Theismann, former Redskins QB, was on “Fox & Friends” this morning. He told of Native Americans telling him that they should keep the name.


18 posted on 06/20/2014 12:44:34 PM PDT by Verginius Rufus
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