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“If Ed Cunningham had not already seen enough, he would be back in a broadcast booth on Saturday afternoon, serving as the color analyst for another top college football game televised on ABC or ESPN. It is the work he has done each fall for nearly 20 years.<\/p>\n
“But Cunningham, 48, resigned from one of the top jobs in sports broadcasting because of his growing discomfort with the damage being inflicted on the players he was watching each week. The hits kept coming, right in front of him, until Cunningham said he could not, in good conscience, continue his supporting role in football\u2019s multibillion-dollar apparatus. ‘I take full ownership of my alignment with the sport,\u2019 he said. ‘I can just no longer be in that cheerleader\u2019s spot.'”<\/p>\n
So you know what this is. This is going to begin what\u2019s called the shaming of anybody who earns money in any away connected to football. “How dare you. How dare you earn your money on the backs of people suffering brain damage and in concussions and eventual CTE and perhaps suicide. You\u2019re encouraging this. You\u2019re broadcasting this stuff, and you\u2019re telling people it\u2019s great, and you\u2019re encouraging them, and you\u2019re promoting it and you\u2019re making them watch it. It\u2019s fueling this beast, this immorality. How dare you.”<\/p>\n
You think he\u2019s gonna be the only one? The way people become famous today, as they\u2019ve seen it happen on Twitter and on Facebook, is you get part of a movement that the media loves. Well, right now, we live in a time where the media is predisposed to oppose and try to destroy anything that is distinctly American. And in that list of things is the National Football League and football, college, high school, you name it.<\/p>\n
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It is a uniquely American game. And that\u2019s why they love Kaepernick. Kaepernick came out and protested not just the country, but the NFL. And this is what the media is. The media is supportive of anybody and anything that is anti-America, all while claiming that they\u2019re the best Americans, all the while claiming they love America. “We journalists love America. We are the biggest patriots. We are the ones who want America to be perfected. We\u2019re the ones who want America to reach its glowing ideals!” And that\u2019s simply a crock.<\/p>\n
They are part of the Obamaesque group of people that believe this country is flawed and unjust and immoral and deserves to be punished for all of its grievances. And football is on that list because football kills. Football maims. Did I not tell you when this whole thing began with concussions and the social justice warriors getting on this case? I told you. It was years ago, that the days of the National Football League or football as you and I know it are numbered. We just don\u2019t know how many they have left, but it\u2019s over. And this is just the latest example.<\/p>\n
So here you have a 48-year-old announcer who is going to be the biggest star he\u2019s ever dreamed of being in his life. Nobody ever heard of this guy, even though he\u2019s a color analyst on ESPN. I mean, there\u2019s so many of them out there now, they\u2019re cookie cutters. They\u2019re a dime a dozen. But this guy, Ed Cunningham, he\u2019s gonna stand out. He can no longer be a party to this, not in his name. No, ma\u2019am. No, sir. Not in his name are young men going to be disfigured and permanently damaged. Not in his name is gonna happen and he\u2019s gonna be celebrated and he\u2019s gonna be a hero and then anybody else who doesn\u2019t follow along, depending on who they are, this is the beginning of the whole process of shaming anybody who earns money connected to football, anybody who acquires fame.<\/p>\n
Now, the players will be exempt for a while. But if the players end up protesting the flag or protesting the NFL or protesting America like Kaepernick did, they will be celebrated, and they will be promoted. So keep a sharp eye. You know, when the left gets going on things, there\u2019s never an end. There\u2019s just always the next phase. You think at some point in every leftist movement, “Okay, that\u2019s it, they don\u2019t have anywhere else to go,” but they always have somewhere new to go. I imagine there are those of you out there saying, “Rush, you\u2019re overreacting.” No, I\u2019m not. And he may be the only guy this season, but I guarantee you he\u2019s gonna be so celebrated.<\/p>\n
I mean, there\u2019s already a story about the guy in the New York Times! He\u2019s more famous quitting his job than he ever was doing his job. He\u2019s gonna be a hero. He\u2019s gonna be on TV as often as he wants to be. “I just can\u2019t do it any longer. Not with what I\u2019ve known, not with what I\u2019ve learned. I can\u2019t sit here and actually encourage people to enjoy this game knowing what it is doing to the guys playing it. I can\u2019t, I can\u2019t, I can\u2019t do it, I can\u2019t, I can\u2019t do it.” He\u2019ll be a hero. And the pressure will build on others to follow suit. And pretty soon it\u2019s gonna be Roger Goodell in the booth doing game play-by-play and color commentary.<\/p>\n
BREAK TRANSCRIPT<\/p>\n
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RUSH: Let\u2019s use the Colin Kaepernick example — and I\u2019m going to do this \u2019cause I\u2019ve also had a couple emails, “You didn\u2019t finish what you were gonna say about Kaepernick.” I thought I had, but let me run through it again. I\u2019ll do this as briefly as I can. The NFL has not hired Colin Kaepernick. Colin Kaepernick walked out on the San Francisco 49ers. He had a contract. He walked out on it. He doesn\u2019t want to play with them anymore. He becomes a free agent. He has no offers. The sports Drive-Bys are outraged.<\/p>\n
They think he\u2019s being blackballed because of his politics. He may be — and if he is, the people blackballing him have every right to do so. What do you think the First Amendment\u2019s free speech clause grants you? The right to say what you want politically? You\u2019re right. It does. Now, the First Amendment says that government cannot stop you from saying what you want. It doesn\u2019t say the San Francisco 49ers can\u2019t. If you work someplace, your First Amendment rights do fall under the policies of your owner or of your boss or of your workplace.<\/p>\n
This is not a fine point. But larger point is this: The media is trying to portray Kaepernick as a hero for courageously and with great guts criticizing his own country and criticizing the bias and the prejudice and the murderous police. It takes guts and courage. Now, there\u2019s every entitlement to do it. Kaepernick, anybody else has every right to say what they want to say about that. But, two things are incumbent here. No one has the right to be heard — and this I find… When I say this to people who think they understand the First Amendment, that shocks them.<\/p>\n
‘Cause they\u2019ve never thought of it that way. Yeah, you can say what you want, but nobody has to listen to you. The second thing is you have the right to say what you want, you have the right to believe what you want, but you do not have the right to not suffer any consequences from it. So if you are going to make a case as a player in the NFL that your country is rotten, that your country mistreats people of color — if you\u2019re gonna say what Kaepernick said — then you\u2019ve got to be willing to accept the consequences of what you said!<\/p>\n
How many people do you think believe that Kaepernick should be applauded for courage and not have to suffer consequences for what he said? How does that work? Everybody… You know, there\u2019s a price. There are consequences. There\u2019s gonna a reaction. Not everybody\u2019s gonna agree with everything that anybody else says. Kaepernick is not a victim. But they\u2019re trying to portray him as a victim. “He went out and he said courageous things; he had the courage to criticize his own country,” and for that he should be made a hero? That\u2019s not how it works.<\/p>\n
Nobody gets to… You don\u2019t get to go out and say provocative things and then be immune from criticism or consequences. Everybody is. And so that factors into what you\u2019re gonna do. If you\u2019re gonna go out and you\u2019re gonna say things that are gonna make it harder for the people who might hire you to do business, it makes perfect sense they wouldn\u2019t hire you. Now you add to that that these people may believe you\u2019re not any good anymore. But if Kaepernick isn\u2019t being hired because of what he said, that\u2019s perfectly normal.<\/p>\n
Anybody who\u2019s been in the free speech business understands this the first time they ever say something controversial. Why do you think most people shut up? Why do you think most people “don\u2019t want to go there”? They don\u2019t want the reaction. They don\u2019t want the controversy. They don\u2019t want the criticism. So they don\u2019t say anything. They whimper around. They may react when somebody else does, but most people will stand or sit mute — and the reason is because they see what happens.<\/p>\n
Now, some of the responses, some of the circumstances are not fair, admittedly. But in a free and open society with the First Amendment guaranteeing political speech, there are consequences, and there are ramifications. The point is, the First Amendment does not grant anybody immunity from the consequences of what they say or from the reactions from people to what they say — and Kaepernick is being held up as somebody who should be immune. “He should not be held accountable for what he said because we happen to agree with what he said,” the media says. That\u2019s not how it works.<\/p>\n
If you\u2019re a football coach and you believe your team needs discipline and focus if they\u2019re to have a chance, the last thing you want is a circus, for whatever reason. Talk to Tim Tebow! Tim ![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.rushlimbaugh.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/NFLTebowPray585.jpg\")
is the exact opposite of Kaepernick. He loves America, is a born-again proselytizing Christian. Why do you think he\u2019s not in the league? A lot of people think, “Because there\u2019s anti-Christian bias, Mr. Limbaugh!” There may be, but there are also people that don\u2019t want to deal with the circus — and, if they don\u2019t, that\u2019s a consequence. You know, it may seem unfair, because you make value judgments on what someone says.<\/p>\n
Like you may value what Tebow is and what he says, and you might not think so much of Kaepernick and what he says or does. But in both instances, there are consequences for behavior and for reactions. You know, if you want to be on radio or TV? That\u2019s what Kaepernick ought to do. I think what he ought to do, Kaepernick ought to get a show on YouTube and go to town. He can say anything he wants; Google would celebrate it. (Google owns YouTube.) But Jim Brown said it. Jim Brown said (summarized), “Make up your mind what you want to do: You want to play football or you want to be an activist?”<\/p>\n
It\u2019s that simple.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
RUSH: Did I not tell you when this whole thing began with concussions and the social justice warriors getting on this case? I told you. It was years ago, that the days of the National Football League or football as you and I know it are numbered. We just don't know how many they have left, but it's over.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":56,"featured_media":245683,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\n