Posted on 06/19/2014 9:53:06 AM PDT by Repent and Believe
Why the Redskins Trademark Ruling Should Terrify You
Article Subtitle: Anyone deemed politically incorrect is now outside the protection of the law.
Like most people, I haven’t been all that interested in the controversy over whether the name of the Washington Redskins is offensive. Personally, I’m more offended that Washington, DC, has become the kind of megalopolis that can support an NFL team. If I had my way, it would go back to being a humid, swampy backwater with impassable mud roads. Pierre L’Enfant has much to answer for.
But I think everyone should be terrified by the new ruling by the US Patent Office cancelling the team’s trademark.
The ruling was based on a dubious argument that “redskins” is a slur against Native Americans. Well, then maybe we’d better rename the state of Oklahoma, which drew its name from Choctaw words that mean “red people.” Or maybe we should petition the US Army to decommission the attack helicopter it named after a people it defeated in 1886. Then again, forget I mentioned it. I don’t want to give anyone ideas.
This name-bullying has become a kind of sport for self-aggrandizing political activists, because if you can force everyone to change the name of something—a sports team, a city, an entire race of people—it demonstrates your power. This is true even if it makes no sense and especially if it makes no sense. How much more powerful are you if you can force people to change a name for no reason other than because they’re afraid you will vilify them?
Given the equivocal history of the term “redskins” and the differing opinions—among Native Americans as well as everyone else—over whether it is offensive, this was a subjective judgment. (One observer suggests a list of other sports names that could just as plausibly be considered offensive.) When an issue is subjective, it would be wise for the government not to take a stand and let private persuasion and market pressure sort it out.
Ah, but there’s the rub, isn’t it? This ruling happened precisely because the campaign against the Redskins has failed in the court of public opinion. The issue has become the hobby horse of a small group of lefty commentators and politicians in DC, while regular Washingtonians, the people who make up the team’s base of fans and customers, are largely indifferent. So the left resorted to one of its favorite fallbacks. If the people can’t be persuaded, use the bureaucracy—in this case, two political appointees on the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board.
That’s what is disturbing about this ruling. Our system of government depends on the impartial administration of the laws by the executive. In this case, executive officials declared that a private company doesn’t deserve the protection of the law: if the ruling survives an appeal in the courts, the federal government will stop prosecuting violations of the team’s intellectual property rights, potentially costing it millions of dollars.
This ruling isn’t a slippery slope. It’s a slope we’ve already slid down: bureaucrats in Washington are now empowered to make subjective decrees about what is offensive and what will be tolerated, based on pressure from a small clique of Washington insiders. Anyone who runs afoul of these decrees, anyone branded as regressive and politically incorrect, is declared outside the protection of the federal government.
That this is happening, and that we have no idea where it will stop, is what should terrify us—even if, like me, you don’t particularly care one way or the other about the Washington Redskins.
Washington D.C. daily operates in a way that insults, berates, and belittles a key forefather of my country, a country which the current administration has conquered and who is going about destroying the traditions and customs and indeed beliefs that our forefather, George Washington, confirmed and led us in defending.
The district must not bear his name, for it terribly offends the minority of we who are proud of that name for what it once resembled!
What about the Spurs, those instruments of pain
and domination, or in the case of chickens DEATH???
“Washington, DC” should be highly offensive. It’s named for George Washington, a slave owner, and Christopher Columbus, who opened the New World to slavery and exploitation and started the genocide against the Native American Persons.
Agree. They should be forced to drop Washington’s good name. And change Columbia as well.
DC - The District of Corruption.
I want to know what specific human beings were responsible for this decision. I want their names and job titles.
Just ask Don Sterling
Say the wrong thing in private and....your property will be distributed to “someone more deserving”
Rename the ‘White’ House now...
This is only the beginning. The left will suddenly discover that it’s outraged over all these names. Indians, braves, etc.
Then they will obsess over it. Any one can file a suit and claim to be ‘offended’ and the poor person or organization that is using the name will be hounded until they bow down in abject submission and apologize.
What about the many town, rivers and landmarks named after Indians? eh? are they gonna make states change their names?
A few: kansas, Kentucky, Illinois, etc.
You’re way too kind.
District of CRIMINALS
Ironically, “Columbia” (District of) was depicted as an Indian:
“...At the outset of Colonization, America was symbolized as a noble, enigmatic Indian Queen. For many, however, the Indian Queen was seen as “too savage” a symbol and she was soon replaced with a tamer, more anglicized American image: the Indian Princess. In the 19th century, the “Indian” in the face of the Indian Princess dissolved into a lighter-skinned, more classical image. Her headdress of eagle feathers evolved into ostrich plumes spraying from a bonnet or helmet. The European settlers began to adopt this exotic princess finally as their own.
In the years surrounding the American Revolution, the image of this Indian Princess began to mesh with that of the Greek Goddess emerging from the European schools of classical art and architecture. “By the late 1790s,” folk-art historian Nancy Jo Fox points out, “it was not clear whether a feathered Indian Princess had changed into a Greek goddess or whether a Greek goddess had placed feathers or plumes in her hair.” Alluding to the order and sovereignty of the antique democratic state, the “Plumed Greek Goddess” represented what this eager new country wanted to be. Especially in the 19th century, Columbia would be visualized as a goddess-like national personification of the United States, comparable to the British Britannia, the Italian Italia Turrita, the Swiss Helvetia and the French Marianne. This personification was sometimes called “Lady Columbia” or “Miss Columbia.” “
http://realitysandwich.com/146191/goddess_we_trust_americas_spiritual_crossroads/
If you read the article you see that it’s change for sake of getting us used to being told what to do so that we are made ready for the really BIG changes they have in mind.
It’s kind of like tenderizing meat before you cook it.
Once we’re used to them telling us what to do in little things they’ll move on to the really big ones and we’ll be powerless to stop or at least suffer miserably in stopping it.
What do you think these communists have in mind?
Just look at history, which is a mortal sin by their standard, to look at history, that is.
And of course having the capital of the largest state named after the Holy Sacrament is a blatant violation of separation of church and state and obviously offensive to atheists and non-Christians.
I still maintain that the redskins just need to change the Chief to a potato and all will be well!
“it’s change for sake of getting us used to being told what to do”
Yep, like I said “agenda” is probably the reason.
Change the name of the Redskins to the Muslim Decapitators.
“Change the name of the Redskins to the Muslim Decapitators.”
Washington Redskins IS offensive. I could suggest a number of more appealing alternatives:
- Murdering Muslims
- Northwest Niggas
- Democratic People’s Soviet Collective Sports Team #427
I not at all offended that a sports team is named the “Redskins”, what IS offensive is having a president of the United States named “Hussein”!
*** Washington Kleptocracs ***
anchorage?
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