Anyone remember the Varlamov situation from last year? For those unfamiliar, Varlamov (or Varly for short) is the starting goalie for the Colorado Avalanche, he's also the goalie for the Russian National team. He's a very talented, well compensated athlete. Last year, according to reports, he beat and "kidnapped" his then girlfriend. He beat her pretty badly, the photos were shocking. Apparently he also told her if it was Russia it'd be worse. What was the NHL's response to this? They let the money and the legal system work out some sort of compromise and stayed out of it. Unfortunately Varly is part Russian property so some high level politicians from StalinLand got involved. Patrick Roy also beat his wife and nothing happened. Its just not football where domestic violence is an issue. I'm glad to see leagues being forced to take a stand against domestic violence. Clearly its not a crisis of conscience from the league standpoint, its obvious that money talks and money is saying punish those who beat their spouses, which is progress.
Not to derail from the horrifying thought of nasal aspiration by mouth, but I have a question for the Americans of the board. You guys still use the word Eskimo? I remember a huge backlash to that word a number of years ago and from then on, we were told to strictly use the word Inuit. Apparently Eskimo is derogatory because it implies they eat raw meat.
You'll be doing a lot worse things in several months' time. I've never heard of complaints about using the word Eskimo. So, no input from me there. I know, you're disappointed.
I'm going to respectfully disagree with this. It is not up to Sports' Leagues to police people. It is up to the police and the state to do that. I have no idea why we find it acceptable for a private group (NHL and NFL) to 'punish' these offenders when the state declines to do so. Pressure should not be put on private employers to police their employees. If you (and I mean the collective 'you') don't like a particular activity (i.e. wife beating) then pressure the party whose job it is to do something about it: the police. Let the police be the police, and let sports' leagues be sports' leagues. History has shown that both are really bad at doing the other ones' job.
But, that's exactly what, in the Ray Rice case, the NFL ultimately ended up doing. (Albeit, waaay after the fact and in the face of overwhelming public outrage.) When the initial altercation occurred, the NFL allowed the police to conduct their investigation and 'punish' him as they legally saw fit. (Now we can argue whether or not the punishment fit the crime in question, but that's another debate entirely.) After the conclusion of the legal investigation, the NFL then decided to punish him based on their own collectively bargained for code of conduct applicable solely to his employment in the league. The fact that they then decided to enact a more severe punishment after the release of the video just shows that they realized they screwed up in their initial punishment, but it has no effect on his legal standing either way.
Like what, exactly? I was thrown up on, pissed on, and got baby shit all over my hands and none of those things sound worse than sucking snot from an infant's nose.
It has no effect on his legal standing but terminating someone's employment is a much harsher punishment in many ways. Rice has the money to get any charges toned down, however, he doesn't have the capability to get himself employed again in the NFL as it stands now. However, it looks like Goodell is doing this for the PR, and will allow him back in the league.
Here's my problem with this train of thought. The Constitution has guarantees regarding your rights and your property. There are safeguards in place to protect you. To allow private parties to act like public ones, without the necessary safeguards, essentially places private parties in the position of the police, but without any protections afforded the defendant. In the Ray Rice matter? Sure, the guy's a piece of shit. He admitted it months ago, not sure why the video changes anything. I just don't like giving that kind of power (or approving it) to private parties to act like the police after the fact because people don't like the outcome. In this case it sure seems justified. But wait until it isn't. What if it's a gray line? What if there's no video? What if that person loses a career and years later we find out he didn't do it. As I said, in this matter it's pretty clear. But once you start down this road, there are a lot of people that will get ruined without protections. I do not like placing any party (power wise) above another, especially when they have the ability to permanently fuck with their ability to earn and live. Bad things will follow.
That was nice of them. Really, what happened was that word and video of this got out and the NFL went into full-on PR damage control and did what they thought was in their best interest, and that was to distance themselves as far as they could from that after it became apparent that the shit storm was not going to be manageable. They don't give a shit about the morality of the issue, and if they could get him dressed for the game this weekend without any fallout from the fan base, they would. $0.02 Odds are the police investigated only after seeing the leaked video and the press around it, as nobody else reported it to them.
Only one state has any appreciable number of Inuit. For the most part the only people around to get offended are the PC Nazis, so no one cares. Most Americans also have no knowledge about Inuit beyond cliches and stereotypes anyway.
I guess I should have worded that to say that the NFL waited for the police to conclude their investigation before handing down any punishment of their own. It was more meant in response to VI's point about the NFL 'policing' their players and vice versa. And I'm in no way disagreeing with you on the point that, if they wouldn't get epically shit on, the Ravens and the NFL would have no problem letting him suit up again next week like they initially were planning. However, to state that he should be completely free from punishment from his employer simply because he was able to avoid any legal charges is laughable at best. It goes back to the whole public image debate from earlier. Yeah, they took away his ability to be employed in the NFL, but it's not like he can't go get any other regular job, he just can't play football. How is that an infringement upon any of his rights? The government isn't saying he can't be employed, just his former employer.
The idea that the word Eskimo is related to eating raw meat is a little iffy (hooray Wikipedia). When I was working up in Alaska we used Inupiat and Eskimo interchangeably. That was 20 years ago however.
I knew of the term Inuit and Eskimo and didn't know it meant the same thing. I think I thought maybe the Inuit was a subset and there were other types of tribes. I had no idea Eskimo is now frowned upon. Probably because I don't know if I've even typed or said the word eskimo in a long time. I wonder if this will grow legs and cause Nestle to change the name of their eskimo pies.
Eskimos isnt a derogatory term in the US because most of the Alaskan natives are in fact, Eskimos. Besides, they're too busy being drunk to notice anyway. In case anyone cares
Ray Rice didn't have a constitutional right to be a football player. He got fired for according to the terms and conditions of his contract with the NFL. The NFL didn't punish him like a public entity, they fired him like a private one. They didn't lock him up somewhere in a private prison, which would be kidnapping, they fired him. If my assistant beat someone up like that, I'd fire her too. Ray put himself under the NFL's power, the NFL didn't assert itself somewhere it hadn't already been granted ingress to.