Retired German Athlete: “We Really Do Not Have Freedom of Expression”

Stefan Kretzschmar is a retired professional handball player, and very well-known in Germany. In the following interview he discusses the uniformity of publicly-expressed thought that is imposed on (or is self-imposed by) professional athletes.

Many thanks to MissPiggy for the translation, and to Vlad Tepes for the subtitling:

Video transcript:

00:00   Nowadays, society is designed in such a way that
00:04   for every critical comment you get smashed in the face.
00:07   No one wants that anymore. No professional athlete is going to go through that.
00:12   Everyone goes his leisurely way trying to get by somehow.
00:16   No one sticks his head up more than he has to,
00:19   because he’s afraid of getting it smacked. I wouldn’t want to deal with that kind of stress
00:23   anymore, either. Which athlete still dares to speak out politically today?
00:27   Unless, of course, it is the mainstream political opinion.
00:30   Where you say, “We are colorful” and “Refugees Welcome”;
00:34   there you can’t do anything wrong socially.
00:37   Now if you have somewhat critical opinions, about society or the government,
00:42   then you aren’t allowed to say anything anymore in this country.
00:47   You are immediately reproached. Freedom of expression in this country
00:52   means you are still free to speak critically without landing in jail.
00:58   But we have no freedom of speech in the true sense. As soon
01:02   as we express a socio-critical opinion, we can expect reprisals from our employer
01:07   or we have problems with our advertising contracts
01:11   that can be terminated if what is said doesn’t fit into the “concept”.
01:16   We really do not have freedom of expression if we dare to be critical.
01:19   That’s why no one expresses criticism today. No one does that anymore.
 

10 thoughts on “Retired German Athlete: “We Really Do Not Have Freedom of Expression”

  1. In a way, this emphasizes the beneficial aspects of amateur versus professional sports. I think of rugby in its earlier days when all players were amateur, that is, non-paid players. As such they were not money generating products as athletes are now. Their personal opinions were not damaging to a teams’ income in nearly the same manner, if at all. Most teams were supported by the fees the players themselves paid or of the sponsoring school. The only real concern was that players maintain a clean police record since that could bring bad press reports but there were no commercial sponsors to please so personal opinion mattered little to the team or the public. If the team was comprised of coal miners, then it was expected that the men would have the attitudes and opinions of miners. What the coal mining players said in their unrefined language off the field wasn’t often considered news worthy and there were no commercial sponsors to be offended.

    The more players are paid, the more they become vassals of the team share-holders and sponsors.

    This is why I support and encourage others to support local amateur sport; the level of play is often high, ticket prices are cheap or free and the players can be themselves off the field.

    I refuse to pay the ridiculous high prices of professional sport. I cannot afford them anyway but I do not want to support such a massive behemoth system where salaries are now unrealistic and commercial interests are more important than the actual game.

    • The reasons you give for following amateur sports, rather than professional, are compelling.

      I have a larger question. Communications and sports are made up of huge money groups and fabulously wealthy billionaires. Why are these groups and individuals overwhelmingly leftist, indeed, Stalinist? They not only oppose contrary opinions, but go after the livelihood and sometimes the personal safety, of the people with opinions contrary to leftism.

      I would understand it in a bureaucracy. The money and power come from ever-larger government. But, often the corporations enforcing conformity actually became wealthy delivering better goods and services. Mastercard and Visa are probably the most insidious enforcers of leftist orthodoxy, since they can and do threaten to cut off service providers from access to money flow if the service providers provide a forum for dissident right views.

      Let me repeat: new startups trying to offer alternatives to the censorship-ridden Facebook and Patreon have found their credit card access threatened by Mastercard and Visa. This in turn devastates the potential competition. The whole thing is, presumably, independent of government regulation, except that the government is quite obviously not enforcing anti-Trust law.

      So, again you have people and companies who made vast fortunes in what is more-or-less a free market by providing better services than any competitor. Why are they pushing communism and collectivism?

      • I think that it is because they have conveniently forgotten that it was the system that enabled their success. I think that tremendously successful people assume their success is due entirely to their own unique talents and drive, rather than being partially owed to conditions that foster it.

  2. He won the Auckland, NZ., single men’s tennis.

    his outspoken nature that got him into trouble last year – a reputation that threatens to follow him around for the rest of his career. …

    … It led to a media storm, bringing up the 27-year-old American’s chequered history on social media, including his support of American president Donald Trump, homophobic tweets, and an apparent interest in nationalist and alt-right politics. ….

    …. Sandgren accused the media of “demonising” him in a pre-prepared monologue, refusing to answer further questions about his past tweets and political beliefs.

    That would only end up fueling the outrage machine, as fans and former players took to social media to criticise Sandgren.

    Among them, was tennis great Serena Williams who slammed her compatriot for his support of Donald Trump, also saying “there is an entire group of people that deserve an apology”.

    She also tweeted “turns channel” while Sandgren was on the court against Chung. …..
    https://www.nzherald.co.nz/sport/news/article.cfm?c_id=4&objectid=12189368

    If the sports players can be controlled, and as can be seen, the pressure, stress, and cost put on the players.
    The media have easily found another area to hide any opposing opinion or thought.
    It can be made into an example, to show that any other views that become public, come at a very high price.
    Another means of ‘terrorizing’, that can also affect any one who thinks differently.

    That means one may have to question that if this is in the public domain, then one must consider their safety and security. This is not stated, and even maybe journalists and media would say that is untrue. But they are a part of the ‘doxxing’, and incitement, and another level of thought, that the ‘transgressor’ deserves what may befall him.

    I do not buy newspapers that support this.
    Nor do I watch television, that inherently keep pushing many such pc. multi culti, identity, etc. agendas.

    Thank you Baron & Dymphna, for being one of the alternative ways of finding information, and even more so in some of the great posts, in making one think, on many topics, with great knowledge of tried and tested ways, showing up fallacies, and how to work in with the modern world.

  3. Thank you Miss Piggy and Vlad for your work. These examples of opinions from people around the world are very helpful.

  4. Good for Herr Kretszchmar! I will, however, admit that I do not follow professional sports. They are the number one reason for the desecration of the lord’s Day.

    • I think the decline in church attendance (at least in the UK) preceded the routine playing of professional sports on Sundays.

      In any event, isn’t much of the point of this blog the prevention of religious people from dictating what non-believers may do with their free time?

  5. Sounds like a pretty good description of Canada.

    I can get away with more than most, because I work in an industry known for its un-PC opinions, and my specific clients would fit in rather well on GoV.

    I’ve nonetheless been kicked in the head – not even for an un-PC opinion, but for testifying before an appeals panel as to municipal misconduct!

    There isn’t really freedom of speech here, not for anything where anyone powerful really cares, is my conclusion.

  6. You have to see humans as survivors of 200,000 years if living in a tribe. If we lived in a group of 50-150 hunters and gatherers and we were always hungry and cold and wet and sore and wounded and dying and we had to constantly kill animals or other people to survive, we would not tolerate any strange personalities that thought or behaved differently or unorthodoxically. We were, by default, egalitarians who were constantly trying to save everyone in the tribe.

    Running out of space to hunt and forage and figuring out how to work agriculture and domesticate farm animals led us to much larger populations and brand new needs for other instincts and genes. But this was only yesterday….and we are still stuck in this default yearning for socialism and/or whatever other communitarian system is out there.

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