Technical Foul Against the Suns

There’s a story out of Phoenix by Alex Pappas of the Daily Caller about a couple of Sun’s fans who wore shirts with the ‘wrong’ political statement while watching the game on the front row of the basketball game. Sitting on the front row wearing a shirt that clearly supports Arizona’s tough stance on illegal immigration didn’t go unnoticed as they were escorted out of the stadium.


“Two fans at a Phoenix Suns basketball game were ejected from their first row seats and removed from the arena last week after refusing orders from security guards to take off their shirts in support of Arizona’s recently passed law against illegal immigration.”


Any way you slice it there can be no justification for the actions taken by the security guards. It had been implied that TNT broadcasting didn’t like the political message displayed on the shirts because the fans were sitting on the first row. Who get’s to decide what political statements are acceptable ?


“I’d also like to know how a Supreme Court Justice Kagan would react to those in the Obama administration who urge more “media diversity” – their poorly disguised attempt to return to the Fairness Doctrine, whereby the Federal Communications Commission could revoke the license of a radio or TV station that was not being “fair” in its distribution of balanced views in its programming of political speech. Last year, the Obama FCC set up an Advisory Committee for Communications on the Digital Age.”


From the saber rattling coming out of the Oval Office, the Fairness Doctrine and Net Neutrality; the 1st Amendment only covers those who support the current administration. If you did little bit of homework you’d find the main purpose of the 1st Amendment was to guarantee that government could not encroach on the right to express POLITICALY diverse opinions; all the rest was secondary, important but secondary to protecting POLITICAL SPEECH. Elena Kagan argued before the Supreme Court that corporations are not protected by the 1st Amendment .


“Kagan’s argument that the government could prohibit political speech by corporations was rejected by a 5-4 majority of the Supreme Court in the case of Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote the majority opinion in that case, and in a scathing concurrence Chief Justice John Roberts took direct aim at Kagan’s argument that the government could ban political pamphlets.”


Here’s a great opportunity to ask, What If? What if the guys sitting in the front row of the Sun’s game wearing political statements on a shirt started a small corporation in order to protect their business interests, would Elena Kagan support their individual right to political free speech or would that fall under her “interesting interpretation” of a corporation that should be denied that 1st Amendment right? Who gets to decide?


Do you see the can of worms and the dangers of having Kagan as a Supreme Court justice?


“A spokeswoman for the Spurs did not immediately return a request for comment, but a TNT spokesman said the company had nothing to do with the incident. “We covered the events in Phoenix that night as they unfolded and forwarded the story throughout the night. No one from Turner’s staff made such a request,” said spokesman Jeff Pomeroy.”


Given the furor over Arizona’s illegal immigration law I’d have to give these two businessmen a ‘thumbs up’ for getting some free advertising out of the whole mess. They also got free tickets to the next ten games; more televised coverage either to solidify their political stance in a very public way or kick start their new business.


“Clark says he has since printed 500 “Viva Los 1070” shirts that he plans to sell to fans on a soon-to-be launched website.”


It may have started out as a political statement or perhaps it was simply a chance to get some free media attention in order to sell a bunch of shirts; either way I’d have to give them a couple shots from the free throw line; the Suns got pulled in on a technical foul.


This article has been cross posted to The Moral Liberal , a publication whose banner reads, “Defending The Judeo-Christian Ethic, Limited Government, & The American Constitution”.