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Teams & Riders Tao Geoghegan Hart discussion thread

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as long as he keeps it in "general" level of comments i see nothing wrong with that...its once an athlete try to go deeper (ala lebron james whose ignorance in political issues is covered only by the massive following on social media) the problems occur

even his attempt at "sponsoring" a place in a team for a person of colour, as missguided as it is, at least comes from a good place

just dont dye your hair blue
Why? Are they not citizens, sentient beings? You seem to espouse a repression of critical thought, which in democracy is lethal. And ignorance of political issues? Perhaps as in being estranged from the lobbying that has rendered today's democratic state a cove of legal corruption?
 
Why? Are they not citizens, sentient beings? You seem to espouse a repression of critical thought, which in democracy is lethal. And ignorance of political issues? Perhaps as in being estranged from the lobbying that has rendered today's democratic state a cove of legal corruption?

That's all fine and well, but are people willing to accept citizens who espouse all the various political viewpoints or only those that match with their own ideology. Is it ok for TGH to promote political viewpoints, but then see Chloe Dygert reprimanded for 'liking' other political viewpoints. It is a slippery slope and in these times will only create even more division as everything becomes so polarised. Simmons and Dygert were censored for causing potential damage to their employers/sponsors. By going down the politics route, is TGH not running the risk of alienating people who do not agree with his political views? Is this not what counts to employers/sponsors?
 
Nice of him to do something to support the same opportunity to start the sport for everyone. What makes me sick though is that nowdays it is only cheered to express your political opinion when it is on the "right" side of the opinion/political spectrum. I wonder what would happen if some athlete spoke out loud against BLM movement, because you can fool yourself all you want about the noble cause of the movement, but you cant deny they fight racism by being racist themselves.
 
That's all fine and well, but are people willing to accept citizens who espouse all the various political viewpoints or only those that match with their own ideology. Is it ok for TGH to promote political viewpoints, but then see Chloe Dygert reprimanded for 'liking' other political viewpoints. It is a slippery slope and in these times will only create even more division as everything becomes so polarised. Simmons and Dygert were censored for causing potential damage to their employers/sponsors. By going down the politics route, is TGH not running the risk of alienating people who do not agree with his political views? Is this not what counts to employers/sponsors?

So essentialy say only things that won't upset certain categories, racist and bigoted though they may be. I don't get what you are talking about. Tao is taking a stand against racism. If that amounts to a "slippery slope," then any sense of moral perogative upheld by the free speach and indeed freedom oriented democratic state is an utter sham. By contrast, what you are arguing sounds like the proverbial "don't rock the boat" mantra, which is conservative conformism personified. As far as Simmon's and Dygert's views are concerned, they are no less political but decidedly less virtuous. Although Tao's not to blame for that, unless you view antiracism as an "ideology" to be expunged.
 
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That's all fine and well, but are people willing to accept citizens who espouse all the various political viewpoints or only those that match with their own ideology. Is it ok for TGH to promote political viewpoints, but then see Chloe Dygert reprimanded for 'liking' other political viewpoints. It is a slippery slope and in these times will only create even more division as everything becomes so polarised. Simmons and Dygert were censored for causing potential damage to their employers/sponsors. By going down the politics route, is TGH not running the risk of alienating people who do not agree with his political views? Is this not what counts to employers/sponsors?

Exactly! I really think it is nice gesture from him, but I hate the biased media celebrating one side of the political spectrum and bash anyone with a different opinion.
 
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So essentialy say only things that won't upset certain categories, racist and bigoted though they may be. I don't get what you are talking about. Tao is taking a stand against racism. If that amounts to a "slippery slope," then any sense of moral perogative upheld by the free-speech and indeed freedom oriented democratic state is an utter sham. By contrast, what you are arguing sounds like the proverbial "don't rock the boat" mantra, which is conservative conformism personified. As far as Simmon's and Dygert's views are concerned, they are no less political but decidedly less virtuous. But Tao's not to blame for that.

I believe the "slippery slope" is not Tao's gesture, it is actually very noble. What is a "slippery slope" though, is the fact that media (including cyclingnews) only celebrates the one, "right" opinion and anyone with a different opinion deserves to be banned. And I dont mean Simmons, I really cant say if the emoji was meant to be racist or not - if not however, he wouldnt deserve to be banned...just for his support for Trump.
 
I don't get what you are talking about. Tao is taking a stand against racism. If that amounts to a "slippery slope," then any sense of moral perogative upheld by the free-speech and indeed freedom oriented democratic state is an utter sham. By contrast, what you are arguing sounds like the proverbial "don't rock the boat," which is conservative conformism personified. As far as Simmon's and Dygert's views are concerned, they are no less political but decidedly less virtuous. But Tao's not to blame for that.


Because not everyone see BLM as the noble cause it purports to be. You can still be against racism and not support BLM, the two are not inextricably linked. This is about not damaging your sponsor or brand so if you risk alienating even a fraction of potential customers , then you are damaging the brand.
 
Nice of him to do something to support the same opportunity to start the sport for everyone. What makes me sick though is that nowdays it is only cheered to express your political opinion when it is on the "right" side of the opinion/political spectrum. I wonder what would happen if some athlete spoke out loud against BLM movement, because you can fool yourself all you want about the noble cause of the movement, but you cant deny they fight racism by being racist themselves.

After a centuries-old history of enslavement and repression, an acrimonoius sentiment among certain blacks today towards whites seems a rather foregone conclusion, but this doesn't nullify the past.
 
I believe the "slippery slope" is not Tao's gesture, it is actually very noble. What is a "slippery slope" though, is the fact that media (including cyclingnews) only celebrates the one, "right" opinion and anyone with a different opinion deserves to be banned. And I dont mean Simmons, I really cant say if the emoji was meant to be racist or not - if not however, he wouldnt deserve to be banned...just for his support for Trump.

I don't think being against racism is up for questioning as "right" opinion. Two centuries of emancipation and civil rights have moved progressive democracy out of that nefarious orbit. To then say that on this matter "different opinions" (so racism) should have the same moral value, is to equate an injustice with something righteous. If Trump supportors can't stand the heat, then get out of the fire.
 
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Because not everyone see BLM as the noble cause it purports to be. You can still be against racism and not support BLM, the two are not inextricably linked. This is about not damaging your sponsor or brand so if you risk alienating even a fraction of potential customers , then you are damaging the brand.

Nah, while there is certainly an agenda behind BLM, it pales in comparison for so many historical reasons to a certain suburaban white resistance to it. The very fact that going against BLM risks consumer preferences, however, speaks of a corporate America that maybe has some moral compass after all.
 
Regardless it's about being on the right side of history, civil advancement for all peoples, regardless of ethinicty or color, or a return to barbarism.


Yes, we are going to return to barbarism if TGH doesn't talk about politics. Jeeez.
[/QUOTE]

No, but the fact that he can make his statement means we're ok for the moment. Yet it seems you're rather annoyed about this and that, by contrast, not making the statement would ease your irritability over him, God forbid, being political. Considering the many places around the world where censorship and execrable political repression still persists, I'm not comfortable with even the potential implications of what appears to so aggravate you. Whereas taking a knee has already cost someone his career, owing to a misguided patriotism (is this worth a sarcastic "jeeze" too or should it be considered a shameful form of liberty supression, an admirable defense of flag-waving loyalism or a perverse negation of a democratic right to protest?). And recently a group of vehement civic jackasses and conspiracy knuckleheads, egged on and abetted by their political leader, made a pathetic attempt at insurrection on Capitol Hill. Clearly there is still much to be vigilant about.

When Tao mentions leaving the world a "better place," one may scoff at such naive youthful exuberance. But it might be worth considering his conceit as making a small, but nonetheless useful, contribution to the constant dose of antibodies our civic corpus needs to fend off the ever-present threat of anti-democratic forces that lurk within it. Less than a century ago a band of aggrieved veterans and violent thugs at a Bavarian beer hall decided to form an organization that became a ruling political party, which outlawed any opposition, created proscription lists and, in its ultimate folly, instituted regime sponsored mass murder. In the wake of WWII the democratic states have wisely, at least on the surface (which thankfully has sufficed), accomodated voices of protest as the anecdote to authoritarianism. If only in this sense, Tao's protest makes a valid and necessary continued contribution to being on the right side of history. I can't find, therefore, any merit in the sentiments of those being annoyed by him and his gesture.
 
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So, I'm not sure whether the "power of the bicycle" is a real thing, and I also don't quite see what makes the bicycle "humble".

For millions and millions of people around the world the bicycle was the first vehicle to enlarge their range of movement by a factor of 10 or more. You can buy a functional bike for under 100$ almost anywhere in the world, it's powered only by your own strength and maintanence costs are minimal if you watch a couple youtube videos. I think the bicycle is very humble and one of the greatest human inventions of all time.
 
Yeah, in the interests of balance, would some racist riders please speak up.

Given where this debate has gone, I think his stance is even more admirable and important.

if you wait long enough eventually everybody will be racist, that extinction fellow is already distributing the "right side of the history" badges :D while referring to everyone who has a different take (not even different fundamental opinion) as trump supporter

anyway your joke is wrong, because we all agree with each other, there are no racists and antiracists in this thread, speaking against athletes is not racism, thats common sense if you dig deeper into their hypocrisy up to blatant antisemitism that goes awkwardly unmentioned in the media, to simple things like financials (which is why there is always an article popping up about "fair" salary for men and women etc.)

whether its failed education system, large ego manufactured by athletic success or support form social media, athletes (and celebrities in general) are the most removed from life people and their opinion should always be taken lightly which is why on one hand i condemn not speaking up against china by commrade lebron, but at the same time its painfull realization he has no power over anything but his shoe sales so what am i even expecting?

just like i dont need jesus to love my neighbour, i dont need an athlete to lecture me on equality...especially ones who dont practice equality themselves

so tl,dr i better not see tao riding in china for a paycheck so he can lecture western world on moral values, if he wants to go that social justice route, he better commit 100%
 
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Yeah, in the interests of balance, would some racist riders please speak up.

Given where this debate has gone, I think his stance is even more admirable and important.

Which loops up back around to my original point. Once you step onto the politics minefield, you will always get a contrarian viewpoint, regardless of how noble the cause. My original reference to the 'slippery slope' was not related to racism but politics as a whole. Once you allow an athlete to express political views, where does it stop and who controls it? Covid-19 Lockdowns, Climate Change, Religion, Brexit, trans athletes in sport, Immigration, Catalan Independence etc, etc, etc. Are we going to limit what particular political subjects athletes can campaign about and if not, are we going to allow differing viewpoints on those subjects?

Sponsors/Employers want as little controversy as possible so opening up the possibility of athletes talking any form of politics is opening a can of worms. Plus, they may not be correct either. For example, Trek have become on-message, but who remembers them dumping Greg LeMond after he queried Lances relationship with Ferrari. He received a lot of flak at that time and that was before twitter. I am sure Trek still felt they were correct, based on sales, but it also illustrates how hypocritical many of these companies are.

I understand this sentiment of people being allowed to express their political beliefs, and this has never been more evident than the last ten years due to social media etc, yet I cannot recall a time in my life when there has been so much division. The middle ground is being lost and we are seeing the rise of extremes so I have my doubts about the success of all this political activism. There was the old saying that the two subjects you never talked about in public was politics and religion because it was sure to cause arguments.

As someone who is not very political, sport is an escape from the drudgery of the news and real life issues, yet more and more politics is creeping into sports and it is happening here as well and to be honest, it is starting to frustrate me.
 
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Once you allow an athlete to express political views, where does it stop and who controls it?

I can understand people are annoyed by division and arguments that lead only to hate. However, of course athletes should be able to express political views!! They are human beings. If anything I can accept sponsors and employers limiting their freedom of speach within the professional environment - like, "if you express yourself, make clear that is your private view which does not necessarily represent us", "don't show political signs on your shoes during a competition" / "don't say anything political while you are wearing our kit". Regarding social media they could say "don't express anything political using an account that also represents you as a part of our pro team/ use a private account for that". But to say they should not ever be allowed to publicly speak their mind (within legal rules) is not a democratic take. If we, as spectators, don't want to hear about politics while watching sports, we can just watch the competitions and not read athlete's social media or articles, not listen to their interviews...
 
if you wait long enough eventually everybody will be racist, that extinction fellow is already distributing the "right side of the history" badges :D while referring to everyone who has a different take (not even different fundamental opinion) as trump supporter

anyway your joke is wrong, because we all agree with each other, there are no racists and antiracists in this thread, speaking against athletes is not racism, thats common sense if you dig deeper into their hypocrisy up to blatant antisemitism that goes awkwardly unmentioned in the media, to simple things like financials (which is why there is always an article popping up about "fair" salary for men and women etc.)

whether its failed education system, large ego manufactured by athletic success or support form social media, athletes (and celebrities in general) are the most removed from life people and their opinion should always be taken lightly which is why on one hand i condemn not speaking up against china by commrade lebron, but at the same time its painfull realization he has no power over anything but his shoe sales so what am i even expecting?

just like i dont need jesus to love my neighbour, i dont need an athlete to lecture me on equality...especially ones who dont practice equality themselves

so tl,dr i better not see tao riding in china for a paycheck so he can lecture western world on moral values, if he wants to go that social justice route, he better commit 100%

It's curious that you express a concern over everyone being branded "racist," while not acknowledging the persistence of the phenomenon towards those who continue to be its victims. It strikes like a facile subterfuge in keeping with the "all lives matter" reply uttered by those who surely have never experienced the burdens of skin color, but feel threatened by an inconvenient statement of protest by those who have. In this same vein to make out being "lectured to" on equality an athlete's stance for some belief, evidently indicates a disquieted nature about nondisclosed political positions. Otherwise, how else is the defensiveness to be explained? And since athletes live privileged lives, they have no business talking about equality. Well, by your reasoning, no citizen who has never experienced discrimination should engage issues involving equality. Too bad that does away with some three centuries of political philosophy, without which modern constitutions grounded in egalitarianism and civic gaurantees wouldn't exist. Lastly, my thoughts on "being on the right side of History" was not intended as a badge of honor to be distributed like some military conferment. Rather it arrises from considerations over centuries of inquisitions, enslavement, dispossession, segregation and regimes of murderous repression, wars and genocide (along with their antitheses of course); you know what is broadly speaking referred to as History. Mockery in response to critical thought and value judgments only demonstrates a lack of argument.
 
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Which loops up back around to my original point. Once you step onto the politics minefield, you will always get a contrarian viewpoint, regardless of how noble the cause. My original reference to the 'slippery slope' was not related to racism but politics as a whole. Once you allow an athlete to express political views, where does it stop and who controls it? ...

To the bolded, have you any idea how potentially repressive and unconstitutional that sounds? In theory the liberty of each citizen extends as far as the limits of another's. Put differently, my liberty ends where another citizen's liberty begins. In practice, of course, the democratic state has grappled with legal and constitutional frameworks to achieve this ideal, which as all ideals go is ever in a state of potential achievment, but for unavoidable conflict of interests (in which the strong almost always prevail over the weak) is never fully obtained. But just the act of striving for it, however imperfect and incomplete though it may be, is what I intend as "being on the right side of History." And herein lies the necessity for anyone of good intention who feels compelled to react, protest, make a statement, even athletes yes, must be gauranteed the right to express their political views. The alternative is totalitarianism, in which all political opposition is forbidden and those who resist are singled out as "enemies" of the nation to be proscripted off to concentration camps and pogroms or else dropped from airplanes over sea, poisoned to death or made to "disappear" by the regime secret services.

It is thus troublesome (to put it mildly) your concerns over expressing political views, specifically nonviolent and democratic in this case I might add- in relation to "were does it stop and who controls it" - considering the nefarious results that have been obtained by authoritarian regimes guided by similar reasoning past and present.
 
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I can understand people are annoyed by division and arguments that lead only to hate. However, of course athletes should be able to express political views!! They are human beings. If anything I can accept sponsors and employers limiting their freedom of speach within the professional environment - like, "if you express yourself, make clear that is your private view which does not necessarily represent us", "don't show political signs on your shoes during a competition" / "don't say anything political while you are wearing our kit". Regarding social media they could say "don't express anything political using an account that also represents you as a part of our pro team/ use a private account for that". But to say they should not ever be allowed to publicly speak their mind (within legal rules) is not a democratic take. If we, as spectators, don't want to hear about politics while watching sports, we can just watch the competitions and not read athlete's social media or articles, not listen to their interviews...
Where were you in the Simmons thread.
 
To the bolded, have you any idea how potentially repressive and unconstitutional that sounds? In theory the liberty of each citizen extends as far as the limits of another's. Put differently, my liberty ends where another citizen's liberty begins. In practice, of course, the democratic state has grappled with legal and constitutional frameworks to achieve this ideal, which as all ideals go is ever in a state of potential achievment, but for unavoidable conflict of interests (in which the strong almost always prevail over the weak) is never fully obtained. But just the act of striving for it, however imperfect and incomplete though it may be, is what I intend as "being on the right side of History." And herein lies the necessity for anyone of good intention who feels compelled to react, protest, make a statement, even athletes yes, must be gauranteed the right to express their political views. The alternative is totalitarianism, in which all political opposition is forbidden and those who resist are singled out as "enemies" of the nation to be proscripted off to concentration camps and pogroms or else dropped from airplanes over sea, poisoned to death or made to "disappear" by the regime secret services.

It is thus troublesome (to put it mildly) your concerns over expressing political views, specifically nonviolent and democratic in this case I might add- in relation to "were does it stop and who controls it" - considering the nefarious results that have been obtained by authoritarian regimes guided by similar reasoning past and present.


You realise that you post in a forum where political discussion is not allowed and where the politics forum was shut down yet here you are complaining about censorship. My issue is that if people are to be allowed to post political viewpoints, there should be no half-measures. Various viewpoints should be accepted or else that is censorship and totalitarianism.

But the reality is, politics is bad for sponsors/brands in the current climate of cancelling anyone who holds an opposing view. Take Movistar, you think they want their riders talking about Catalan Independence in a public forum? How would that be for team unity if you have two riders who hold completely differing views going at each other on twitter? it is up to the athlete to behave in a professional manner to not damage their sponsor. Talking politics is a sure fire way to raise the ire of someone or some group. Bad news for the sponsor.

I don't think people should be censored from talking politics, but it should be in the relevant time and place. If people start talking politics at any place of work and it starts causing division, then I am sure most employers would clamp down on it. I think I recall the TV show Scrubs doing an episode on this very subject. Espousing your political views is all very well, but as I said, it has caused more division and resentment over the last 10 years than anything so I fail to see how it can be viewed as a positive step.
 
Various viewpoints should be accepted or else that is censorship and totalitarianism.
not necissarily.

"various viewpoints" is often an excuse to provide a platform for racism, hatred and divisiveness. That's why social media has rules, forums (like this one) has rules, etc.
Again, your liberty ends where my liberty begins. If certain viewpoints attack certain (groups of) people, are divisive or just plain (factually) wrong (intended to spread lies, whether or not on purpose), the liberty to post what you want, ends. Too many idiots have gotten a platform these days because of those 'various viewpoints', long after there has been consensus (think about all kinds of conspiracy theories).
 
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