Posted on 04/04/2021 6:18:31 AM PDT by Kaslin
First, let me apologize for the word I used in the title. Not “censored,” which is a perfectly good word, quite useful in situations like this. I mean the word it stands for. It’s not a word I normally like to say, because I think it makes the speaker sound coarse and ignorant, like some self-absorbed rapper or brainless Twitter bluecheck, or maybe a certain newly-elected schoolboard member in my local district.
However, as a professional wordsmith and someone with no small amount of linguistics training, I believe every word in the English language has its purpose—a time and place when it alone is appropriate, when no other word will do. For the word in question, that time is now.
I am also, like most conservatives, not a big believer in boycotts. I even wrote a newspaper column several years ago arguing against them. But once again, there is a time for everything. And once again, this is that time: time for every conservative in America, along with anyone else who cares about the future of our republic—who cares that it has a future that doesn’t include full-on totalitarianism—to utterly abandon Major League Baseball. Don’t go to a game. Don’t watch games on TV or listen to them on the radio. Don’t buy any official gear. Just pretend like MLB no longer exists. Like it’s dead to us. Because right now, it is.
If you’re not sure why I’m calling for a boycott, you must not have been paying attention to the news lately. So just to recap: On Friday, Major League Baseball announced that it is moving the 2021 All-Star Game from Atlanta because of Georgia’s new election integrity laws. According to the insufferable virtue signalers at MLB, the law is “restrictive,” hampering “fair access to voting.” (Fact check: It doesn’t, unless the voters they’re talking about are illegal immigrants. Or people who have already voted in another precinct. Or people who are dead or otherwise don’t exist, which seems to be one of the Democrats’ key constituencies.)
Contrary to the leftist talking points—aka, their blatant lies—there is nothing in this law that is particularly egregious or that suppresses any legitimate votes. It’s no stricter than the voting laws in many other states, and less stringent than some(including in President Asterisk’s home state of Delaware). All it really does, or attempts to do, is make sure voters are who they say they are, whether they vote in person or by mail, while preventing various types of bribery and fraud. The only people who could be opposed to such a law are those whose campaign strategy relies heavily on bribery and fraud.
Moreover, even if our fascist elites find Georgia’s measures extreme, who cares? The constitution clearly leaves it up to the states to set their own election laws and processes. As long as those laws don’t actually discriminate against any legally eligible voters—and this one does not—then it’s nobody’s business in other states what the laws are.
In other words, moving the All-Star game in response to a perfectly sensible law, which Georgians have every right to enact through their elected representatives, is nothing less than a brazen attempt to interfere in a sovereign state’s political process. Essentially, MLB is the one attempting to disenfranchise the majority of Georgians who voted for those representatives who, in accordance with the will of the people, passed this legislation.
Some, including many conservatives, will argue that MLB as a private entity has every right to hold its all-star game wherever it wants. That may be true, but I wonder how far that logic extends. When huge, powerful corporations like MLB (and Coke and Delta) align themselves with an oppressive regime to pressure citizens into forgoing their right to self-governance or else, that’s not democracy. It actually sounds a lot more like fascism. And even if they technically have a right to promote fascism over democracy, we as consumers still have some rights, too, foremost among them being the right to vote with our feet and our wallets.
So yes, I know you love the Braves (or the Cardinals or the Rays or the hated Mets or whomever). So do I. In the early 1980s, when I was in college about 50 miles west of Atlanta, my buddies and I used to drive over to the old Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium on Sunday afternoons and buy general admission tickets for a couple bucks. When we couldn’t go in person, we crammed into one guy’s dorm room on the third floor, where he had an east-facing window. If we set his old black and white TV on the ledge, and stuck the rabbit ears out the window, we could pick up the games on Channel 17. So yes, I know what it means to be a lifelong fan.
But freedom requires sacrifice. And in the grand scheme of things, forgoing major league baseball for a summer or two is a pretty minor one. After all, we did without for most of last summer and discovered we could. It’s not like anyone is ever going to make a movie starring Mel Gibson about that time you didn’t get to watch some highly-paid, overgrown teenagers chase a little ball around a field.
If, like me, what you really love is the beautiful game of baseball itself, go to a high school game. Or, this summer, to the local American Legion. Take in a college game, if there’s a college nearby. Just stay away from the major league ballpark (or the minor league park, for that matter, since they’re also affiliated with MLB).
Let’s see how long MLB can maintain those $100 million salaries when half their fan base abandons them, as they have abandoned us.
Boycott MLB. Encourage your friends to do the same.
MLB,NFL,NBA die already! sick of your “I made it rich in America because of American’s but I hate this country” A lesson in losing it all and back to the hood may wake some of you idiots up, but I doubt it
Absolutely correct.....Sorry for being blunt but anyone and I MEAN ANYONE including those on this forum who patronizes MLB by listening, watching, or attending games IS complicit with their vile hypocrisy and should be ostracized.
That goes with all of professional sports. I'm done with the whole she-bang. Even NASCAR. Not that I was a big NASCAR fan to begin with but even they have surrendered to the cancel culture.
>> listening, watching, or attending
Can I read news articles?
In a free capitalistic country, the consumer is king. The pattern of consumption expenditure determines the pattern of production and the pattern of employment.
This was the hardest boycott I had to do to date. I stopped watching in 2019. I miss baseball but I miss America more.
‘We have more people than they do’!
MLB requires photo ID to pick up tickets from Will Call, but boycotts Georgia for voter ID law
Wonder if the woke Rob Manfred, attorney and Commissioner of Major League Baseball ever read the Georgia election law and really understood just how griveous a wound he has inflicted on MLB. It will be the people who ensure justice. They will buy far fewer tickets, buy less merchandise and more importantly watch far few games on TV. Soon revenue will decline as will ratings. Advertisers will demand lower rates or won’t place advertising. Nor will there be any honor or generosity among the woke. Soon ESPN and Fox will meet with Manfred and demand a renegotiation of their contracts with MLB and demand far lower payments. They may even dictate that their will be no renewals. Would pay a quarter just to see the expression on Manfred’s face when he is told the new reality.It would be equal fun to watch him explain the new realities to the owners and the overpaid, pampered players.
I’ve already been doing it but I have passed it along to my baseball loving friends
Let them all suffer with the loss of a significant portion of their fan base while locked in for all of those long-term contracts
New tagline.
I hear you Vaquero. To me, baseball is fond memories of childhood with my father when he wasn’t underway. Wrigley Field, Ernie Banks and Ron Santos, Good and Plenty and Brauts when he was stationed at Great Lakes. Watching the Tidewater Tides with our base Little League team when he was stationed in NAS Norfolk. And Hammerin Hank when dad was stationed in Albany. I hate what leftists have done to the institutions of this great country.
I stopped watching baseball in the 80’s during one of the Strikes
Then you are diametrically opposed to Trump. He's calling for boycotts on Major League Baseball, Coca-Cola, Delta Airlines, JPMorgan Chase, ViacomCBS, Citigroup, Cisco, UPS and Merck. This is in addition to boycotting all the companies that dropped My Pillow, the NFL, and Lord knows how many other companies.
It was the same evil, nearly 30 years ago, when Arizona refused to join the MLK Day “Borg” / collective. They got WRONGLY ,sadistically ,slandered,by the usual black racists and ULTRA PIOUS Jewish / White leftists,and refused to ever be allowed to host a Super Bowl, until, naturally, they caved.
Same leftist excrement here.
“Can I read news articles?”
You can do whatever you like including becoming a member of the DU if that’s your fit.
The list of work companies grow daily. We can’t boycott everything and expect to live in a modern society.
So far:
all sports are out (golf perhaps?, but a snoozefest)
all streaming/terrestrial/cable entertainment is out
all Hollywood entertainment is out
all social media is out
most major grocery stores and major retailers are out
most online shopping is out (Amazon, Walmart and Target are huge online)
most domestic airlines are out (Southwest seems to be an outlier)
most major brands are out.
most computer gaming companies are out
most quick-service/ fast-food is out (is In-n-out woke?)
What’s left?
I am not boycotting MLB. I am just never going to watch it again.
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