@Miller,
wait a minute...
you said previously that you were a doctor.
with a law degree?
imagination is not one of your limitations...
@engineer,
I agree if Sterling had make some public statements that was as racist as that recording that some level of punishments would be call for.
However no way should a conversation that Sterling have ever reason and even legal right to assume was private should be used to punished the man.
i can only wonder how many of those who wish to hang him could stand to have his or her most private statements being made public in the same manner.
It doesn't matter that the comments were private. They became public. The only question was whether or not he actually made them and apparently he confirmed for Silver that he did.
It's a public and employee relations disaster for the NBA. Silver had to act quickly and definitively.
Part of the deal in buying a NBA team is to subject oneself to the judgement of the Commissioner. Sterling can, of course, sue, but he won't win.
If enough other owners vote to force him to sell, he will have to.
Silver made the right decision, and despite the praise of Kevin Johnson, the Media and Race Hucksters are not going to move on. This is too much juicy red meat for them to pull away from the table.
Now it's up to the other owners to take the next step. Which ones are going to come out against forcing a sale?
Cuban won't, and he was the one talking about slippery slopes.
@Finn dAbuzz,
Quote:It doesn't matter that the comments were private. They became public. The only question was whether or not he actually made them and apparently he confirmed for Silver that he did.
Maybe in your world view statements made in private that was illegal recorded and then released without a person permission should be allowed to removed ownership and property rights from that person but not in my world view.
I can only hope that Mr. Sterling exercises his rights to the court systems and slam the NBA with an injunction and mult millions of dollars lawsuits.
@BillRM,
I think we have long ago established that we don't share a world view.
"Allowed?"
He "allowed" it when he agreed to the conditions of ownership.
He's obviously a bigot, but more importantly to the NBA, he's a revenue liability.
He doesn't have a contract that provides shelter from the NBA's decision on this.
@Finn dAbuzz,
Hopefully that will be decided by a federal court of law whether a very private conversation that was illegal recorded and released can be used as a reason to void property rights by third parties.
One can only wonder if the NBA commission could keep his position if his wife would illegal record and then released some private non-pc opinion that he expressed to her one night.
Hell of a world where you will need to be so on guard that you would need to carefully choose your words even in private with a lover or a wife.
@hawkeye10,
I remember being creeped by Marge.
Dictatorships? Money is king, why the league happened, but principled ideas show up from time to time. These are associations with rules/guidelines. I will admit those may be mush, but if you want to belong to the associations, listen up.
Whether Sterling's aberrance qualifies as against stated conditions, I've no idea, and even less idea what courts would think. It won't matter if everybody leaves.
@engineer,
I see your point. Apparently, though, it became public. By whom, what agency? I figure this will be over, somehow about that.
@Rockhead,
Bingo. Maybe she/he flubbed law.
@ossobuco,
Not that there is anything wrong with that.
@aidan,
This was my first opinion, aidan. I agree with you so far.
Sterling's feelings and what he thought were private comments were disgusting. So what? Since when do we light torches and round people up because of private comments and hateful feelings?
I'm still learning about the laws and NBA constitution. This is a fascinating example of free speech at its most heinous. I'll be watching and reading to see if this is justified or not.
Quote:Regardless of how vile the owners found the language that Stern uttered, none of these men of privilege wants to establish the precedent that an angry public can rise up and create a national furor over their private lives and forcibly separate them from their teams.
As Dave D’Alessandro wrote in the Newark Star-Ledger over the weekend, if you start examining the political beliefs and the business practices of the men who own the teams you love, you might find any number of issues with that could keep you from spending your time and hard-earned dollars on what are essentially frivolous competitions.
Imagine a world where public opinion takes a sharp turn against say, fracking.
The last thing Aubrey McClendon wants is a throng of pitchfork-wielding environmentalist protesters camping out in front of Chesapeake Arena, home to the Oklahoma City Thunder.
Or if an objection to gay marriage is suddenly viewed by the vast majority of individuals as solely an expression of homophobic bigotry. Do you think the Orlando Magic owner Rich DeVos wants fans of the team having to decide whether buying tickets is a form of validating his statements that gays “keep asking for favors,” and that marriage is “not vital to them, in my opinion?”
This is why Silver’s actions today were surprising. He has established as precedent the idea that words and actions that have nothing to do with what occurs on the court could result in the loss of a billion dollar asset.
That’s the side that Silver has chosen. More importantly, he’s going to war against the long-standing assumption that the owners and the owners alone get decide who stays and who goes in their exclusive club; not their basketball-playing stars, and certainly not the people who pay to watch the games.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/04/29/the-nba-s-war-with-donald-sterling-is-just-getting-started.html
The players have announced that they had agreed to strike if they did not get what they wanted, the immediate forced exit of Sterling. That is going to give the owners second and third thoughts about catering to the mob. The demand of the mob will always escalate once they think they have power, the NBA owners are mostly successful businessmen who know damn well that if the mob runs things none of them come away with their heads.
@Lash,
Quote: Since when do we light torches and round people up because of private comments and hateful feelings?
since america submitted to the thought police, AKA the mob. No better than sharia patrols they are, a gross triumph of the uncivilized.
Did anyone notice that Sterling has been barred from defending himself at the meeting that is to determine is fate?
I did.
America, we used to be better.
@hawkeye10,
I find it amusing that no one in the news media is not completely on the let hang Stirling bandwagon.
You need to look/read carefully to know that a few of the other owners had dare to express some mild concerns over this rush to try to take Stirling ownership rights away from him.
One owner even stating that there should be a pause to think this situation over but as I said you would never know that not all the owners are 100 percents eager to get to the hanging tree by just a fast read of what the news media is putting out.
@hawkeye10,
My own guess is that he is probably unable, though he has been an able attorney in the past, very able. I don't like him at all, but never mind, very able in the past.
@ossobuco,
Quote:My own guess is that he is probably unable, though he has been an able attorney in the past, very able. I don't like him at all, but never mind, very able in the past.
A two billions or so fortune will buy a great numbers of not top lawyers but top law firms.
God I hope the man turn the hounds of wars loose on these jokers.
The idea that a man can not expressed in private, opinions to a lover no matter how non-PC and or hateful those opinions might be without this kind of hanging mob forming is more then annoying.
@tsarstepan,
The NBA is also a private organization with its own rules so they can do as they wish
Everyone that is defending (even those that say his words were vile) keep saying: "It was a private conversation!"
Um, in the age of Twitter, Facebook, Myspace, Kik, Keek, etc nothing seems to be private and sacred anymore. People can get fired for saying disrespectful things about their employer on Facebook, and even though its their facebook and its "free speech" many companies have contracts and within those contracts there are specific rules in which all associates must abide by.
The NBA is a private organization with its own sets of rules perhaps similar to the corporate businesses of America, but it stands to be known that there is a level of behavior owners must have in the face of the public and private. If it is known that an owner is a racist especially in a league which is predominantly blacks and/or other ehtnic minorities of color, he/she will (and rightfully so) should be punished.
The NBA understands the monetary risk that went along with Sterlings comments and many sponsors knew the risk. Money talks and what organization which made money off talented African-Americans for decades would side with someone who thinks ill of people like Magic, or the amount of money African-Americans (especially impoverished Americans) put into the NBA?
Now I've heard others say if this was Sterling's first offense perhaps a fine would be in order or some type of public reprimand, but it wasn't. Sterling has had issues with race for a long time let's not forget. People like Bill and Hawk are seemingly defending this man. Look, he got caught. If this dipshit wasn't dipping out on his wife in the first place with an ugly gold digging tramp to begin with, not to mention if he wasn't a racist prick this **** wouldn't have happened. But it did. End of story case closed and no matter how you spin it his racist views are nationally known.
Oh and if you're going to use that 1st Amendment argument forget it! This isn't abouyt government impeding your right to free specch, its about a private organization with its own rules.
@Buttermilk,
Quote:The NBA is also a private organization with its own rules so they can do as they wish
It is a business that is under US laws including protections design to protect property/ownership and the rights of partners.
Strange thinking on your part as if the owners would had decided not to hire any more black players you would not I am sure be trying to sell the idea that as a business they can do so.
By the way my bet is that the owners are shitting themselves as if the principle that an owner or owners can be single out due to some private opinion that became public and their control and ownership of their property taken away due to the mob/public/players not liking those opinions none of them are likely safe.
Is there a tape/record of an owner for example disagreeing with gay marriages or gay adoptions or abortions or............................
