Principles vs. Preference: The Political Athlete Debate

Added: 2026-06-03

[00:00:00]Speak up. You had someone like Muhammad Ali who took a stand against the Vietnam War and then you've had John Juan Carlos who who who took a stand against what was happening here in the US. I I think when you know the history of this president and you know the biases of this president for a certain community, the black community for me, if this feels personal. And and and I think if you are someone who attacks the community to which I belong and you support that, that tells me two things. Either one, you agree with his politics and you agree with his biases or you can be adjacent to it, stomach in it stomach it and that means you are complicit in my view.

[00:00:43]>> Yeah, there a whole there's a whole congress.

[00:00:47]And a whole congress all kinds of folks.

[00:00:50]>> Yeah.

[00:00:51]>> But we have to remember that his right to learn about consequences cuz I think he's very young and maybe doesn't realize that there are consequences to these things.

[00:01:03]You know, he's entitled but this book says if it's good enough for me, it's good enough for you.

[00:01:12]Okay, if it's if I got free speech, you got free speech. I don't have to like your speech.

[00:01:17]>> Exactly.

[00:01:18]>> [applause] >> I don't have to like anything you say.

[00:01:20]>> [cheering] >> Like a little set fans, supporters. They can respond in kind.

[00:01:25]>> That's right and maybe that's what the you know, maybe it's not just how to take care of your money they should be teaching folks coming out of school but what consequences are and what these kinds of things mean. So, you know, we all live in line.

[00:01:42]>> Yeah.

[00:01:42]>> Don't we though? We live in line. We'll be right >> So, here's what makes this so easy to see once you lay it flat and just look at it plainly. They never actually believed in the principle. What they believed in was the outcome. When athletes pushed politics in the direction the view agreed with.

[00:02:04]It was courage and responsibility and using your platform for good. When an athlete pushes politics in the direction the view doesn't agree with, suddenly the platform becomes dangerous and the behavior needs to be addressed by a sports league. The principle didn't change because principles don't change.

[00:02:20]What changed was the team and that's the tail.

[00:02:24]Think about what it means to hold a principle genuinely. It means you apply it even when you don't like the result.

[00:02:29]It means if you believe athletes should be free to speak politically, you protect that freedom even when an athlete says something you disagree with. And that's literally what a principle is. And the view can't do it because they were never actually arguing arguing from principle. They were arguing from preference and dressing it up as principle to give it weight. And look, nobody is asking the view to agree with Jackson Dart. Nobody is saying they have to like his politics.