Hey, It's Only Rape

Let us revisit an NFL issue that is really about liberals. When the video of Ray Rice knocking out his fiancée in a New Jersey elevator hit the news, liberals went crazy and sanctimoniously demanded that anyone accused of domestic violence be immediately terminated and shunned by society without trial and rights be damned (“NO TOLERANCE!!”). I noted at the time that as always with liberals, this extreme reaction was just a knee-jerk response meant to satisfy their self-righteousness, and that before things were over, they would completely flip their “principled” positions. Not only did they do that, but now uber-liberal sportswriter Peter King is actually arguing that we should ignore serial rapes. No... I'm not kidding.

When the Rice issue first arose, every single liberal sportswriter I can name immediately dashed out columns trying to outbid each other on smug political correctness... Rice needs to be suspended! Suspended?! Heck, he needs to be banned for life! For life? You mean forever!! Hell yes! And the NFL needs to get back the money they paid him! And it doesn’t matter that his stupid fiancée doesn’t want him punished... victims can’t be trusted when they defend the accuser..

Essentially, no punishment was harsh enough. Rice’s rights meant nothing to these writers because they claimed that domestic abuse is such a horrible thing that ideas like innocence until proven guilty should be pushed aside. The allegation itself should be enough to destroy this man’s career and ban him for life, and shame on the NFL for not acting on this immediately!... that was the take every single liberal took on the subject.

But these are liberals who were doing the talking, and as I’ve pointed out many times, that means they make extremist snap judgments, which they immediately use as a way to smugly claim moral superiority and then judge conservatives harshly for not being as “enlightened” as they are. But they won’t stick to these extremist positions. To the contrary, they will reverse their position as the “fairness” of the situation shifts until they are actually taking the exact opposite position they originally took... though they will still wallow in their claims of moral superiority for taking the extremist position. Thus, when the situation is the powerful Rice versus a helpless woman, it is ok to punish Rice harshly because she is the victim. But once it becomes the powerful NFL versus the helpless Rice, then Rice becomes the victim and they see it as unfair to let the NFL harm him.

In this instance, it took a few days for the first liberal to break ranks. This liberal realized that by suspending Rice without a hearing, the NFL was harming the career of a young black man in violation of the union contract the NFL has with its players... and that’s just wrong. With a handful of additional players soon finding themselves suspended as well (this time without videos to bring out visceral emotions), the cabal of liberal sportswriters soon began to fret about the players’ rights and how the evil NFL was trampling all over them. Bad NFL! Why would you do such a thing?

Not only did these sportswriters attack the NFL for acting before all the evidence was in, but they wanted the NFL to wait to do anything until after the criminal trials were done. Moreover, they decided that banning a player for life was just too harsh. Why would the NFL ever think this was ok? In fact, not only was banning too much, but suspending the player with pay was considered too harsh according to these liberals. Yep. And they smugly proclaimed that they were the defenders of civil rights.

So that’s where things shook out. These liberal sportswriters claimed moral superiority because they took the principled position that someone accused of domestic abuse must be immediately terminated and shunned from society. Then they flipped that around when the NFL punished Rice and they claimed moral superiority for protecting the rights of Rice... the same rights they demanded to have stripped. Talk about ironic! And the whole time, they accused anyone who didn't agree with them of being evil. Amazing.

And now it gets worse.

Among the smuggest of these liberals was Peter King of Sports Illustrated. This guy is an obnoxious, brainless, groupthink-bound liberal who thrives on liberal smugness, all the while imagining that he is a moderate and that everyone except those crazy right-wingers must naturally agree with him. King went through the exact process outlined above, from demanding immediate execution without trial all the way to blasting the NFL for being too harsh. Now he’s done this...

King is one of the few voters for the Pro Football Hall of Fame. And Darren Sharper is up for consideration this year for entry into the Hall. Who is Darren Sharper? Sharper is a defense back for the New Orleans Saints who arguably belongs in the Hall for what he did on the field. But there is another side to Sharper too. See, Sharper has been charged with drugging and raping three women in Los Angeles, two women in New Orleans and one woman in Arizona. Yep. He stands accused of drugging and raping six women!

Naturally, King is outraged by this and wants to keep him out of the Hall of Fame, right? I mean, if just the allegation of domestic abuse is enough to ban someone for life from the NFL without even waiting to see if the allegations are true and despite the pleas of the victim not to punish the player, then surely six separate rape allegations in three different states is enough to avoid giving a player the discretionary honor of being elected to the Hall of Fame, right?

Wrong.

King thinks the Hall of Fame voters need to ignore the rape allegations. Here is his reasoning:

I mentioned in this column last week that former Green Bay and New Orleans safety Darren Sharper would be eligible for the Pro Football Hall of Fame for the first time in 2016. . .

Sharper stands accused of serial sexual assault in California, Arizona and Louisiana, in some cases by using drugs on the women he attacked.

So some media people, and quite a few fans, picked up on my note, and the reaction was intense: How can you consider a man sitting in jail, accused of drugging multiple women and raping them, for the Pro Football Hall of Fame?

I understand the emotion involved in a case like this. The crimes are deplorable and reprehensible, and if true, Sharper should be imprisoned for a very long time. [BUT]

To clarify the way the Pro Football Hall of Fame works, we have a bylaw that says we can consider only football-related factors in determining a candidate’s worthiness for election....

Maybe you would say: If a candidate is convicted of a felony, he cannot get into the Hall of Fame. Leaving the scene of an accident is a felony. Arson is a felony. Selling drugs is a felony. Animal cruelty is a felony. Should those crimes be enough to automatically eliminate a candidate?

Maybe you would say: Don’t complicate things! It’s obvious that a very serious crime, such as murder or rape, should bar a candidate from the Hall. Obvious to whom? There are 46 voters for the Hall of Fame. Do you want to leave it up to the conscience of each individual voter as to what constitutes a crime serious enough to ban a person from the Hall?

I don’t. The voters for the Hall of Fame should consider what a player did on the field, and the influences of a coach on the game and how many games he won, and the contributions that other figures have made to the sport.

Beyond that, the slope is far too slippery.

Did you see that? Some voters might think rape or murder is a serious enough crime to consider, but King sees that as too dangerous of a slippery slope. Hence, he argues that the voters need to do what the bylaws say and ignore these rapes. Isn’t it funny how he took such a harsh position (ban a player for life and end his economic career) because of a single punch, which the victim doesn’t even want punished, but when it comes to something far less live-affecting (being elected into an honor society), he argues that we should overlook serial rapes. Un... f*cking... believable.

The hypocrisy of this is stunning.

Moreover, keep in mind that the left loves to accuse the right of condoning rape. Outside of a couple of religious zealots, however, no one on the right has ever condoned a rape that I am aware of. Yet, here is smug liberal King doing just that: “Ignore the six rapes because he deserves this award!”

Welcome to the mind of liberals.

Thoughts?