Monday, September 22, 2014

More Thoughts On The Attack On The NFL

I’m going back to the NFL’s domestic violence issue because this is a highly instructive incident that keeps getting more and more absurd. Indeed, it highlights exactly what is wrong with the feminist-left and it shows why you cannot ever play their game. Here are my thoughts on this.

Free Ride Self-Righteousness: As I’ve mentioned before, all this outrage about the domestic abuse scandal is a crock. How do we know? For one thing, these a-holes calling this the greatest outrage since the Holocaust said nothing about these events when they first hit the news. Their "moral outrage" didn't develop until it became popular to be outraged. Further, their outrage is selective. Notice that they happily attack the NFL, but they remain completely silent on US Soccer and Hope Solo, who abused her nephew and half-sister. They also claim to speak for the victims while specifically dismissing every victim who doesn't go with the program. Also, their outrage is wrongly aimed. They aren't upset at the abusers, instead, they are using this to attack the NFL. In effect, they are tarring 1,600 players because of the actions of four.

What makes this whole thing worse is that these moral hypocrites are acting self-righteously even while taking no consequences for their stances. In fact, let me reprint something disgusting for you. This was written by Peter King, a true liberal cocksucker. King earns $2 million a year writing about the NFL for Sports Illustrated. His entire career has involved leeching off the NFL. He sits on the Pro Football Hall of Fame selection committee. He gets regular access to anyone and anything in the NFL, and he has carried the NFL’s water on issue after issue for decades. If the NFL is dirty, then he is the guy who sold the dirt to the public. He also said nothing at all about the domestic abuse until the blowback occurred. Now he writes this:
So, should we still like football? I’ve asked myself that a few times over the past week. I think we all have. (typical liberal... "everyone thinks like me!") And what I’ve come to think is this: It’s a personal decision. I can’t tell you to feel better about the gutter the NFL has fallen into. . . If you’re revolted by Ray Rice cold-cocking his fiancée (which King initially wasn’t) and you just can’t watch one more game, don’t. It’s your call. No one can make it for you. . . . If you think the NFL is so full of greed and Roger Goodell so consumed with the bottom line that human decency is way down the league’s list of priorities, walk away. (Wait, what? Greed? Are we OWS now?). . . If you think the NFL is just too dangerous, and you read in The New York Times (the only source for news a good liberal accepts) last week that the league, by its own admission, acknowledged that one in three former players will have some sort of cognitive problem long before an average person in the general population would, stop watching. It’s your call. No one can make it for you. . . No one will blame you for walking away.

This past week has been the most ceaselessly miserable one I’ve see in my 31 seasons covering the league. I am disturbed for some of those reasons, particularly the greed I see (what does greed have to do with this?). And this one as well: As I watched the games Sunday in my viewing-room perch at NBC (King is a pathological name-dropper), I noted the brutality of the game. (So after 30 years of covering the game, he finally realizes it’s a violent game?) In a 15-minute span in the first quarter of the early games, I saw [lists some injuries, as if they were intentionally caused]. . . I’ll be troubled by the violence of the game, which may eventually drive me from it (BUT NOT YET).
This kind of self-righteous hypocrisy makes me want to punch the crap out of pathetic bastards like King. Nothing he mentions is new, only his outrage is new. And his outrage only exists because he thinks that makes him morally superior. More importantly, notice that after appearing to take this strong moral stand in which he lays out a case for how evil the NFL is, he then concludes that he will keep watching... for now. That makes his entire moral stance bullshit: "Oh yeah, Hitler's evil and everyone should quit supporting him, but I'm going to keep my job as Jew processor for now." Wanna bet he writes a book about how he should have quit the NFL decades ago the day after he retires?

And King's hypocrisy is common. Notice that everyone has shifted the blame from the players to a nebulous NFL. The reason they have done this is that it lets them take strong moral stands without having to worry about the effects of their moral stances on the players, i.e. it's a lot harder to say "Ray Rice should be banned for life" than it is to say "the NFL needs to ban abusers for life." It also lets them escape the consequences of what they advocate when they change their minds later and decide that "zero tolerance" isn't a fair idea. You can rest assured that, at that point, they will attack the NFL for being too rigid and uncaring about the players and they will dismiss their own advocacy of "zero tolerance" as never really meaning zero tolerance... just like "life in prison" to a liberal means "in jail until they look old and harmless and it feels unfair to keep them there anymore."

You Can’t Satisfy The Politically Motivated: The one lesson the NFL has so far failed to grasp in all of this is that they can't please the people who are using this as a political issue. Those people see this as an opportunity and there is no level to which the NFL can hike the penalties that these “critics” won’t claim “still isn’t enough.” There are no policies the NFL can put into place that these critics can’t dismiss as a PR move designed to deflect attention. Even if the NFL gives these critics every single thing they demand, these critics still will say that the NFL waited too long or that their needing to be told only shows they don’t care. This is gotcha, pure and simple. Who is doing this? People with grievances against the NFL and feminists.

Grievances?: Yep. A lot of the people attacking the NFL, and Roger Goodell in particular, are union types who are dissatisfied with Goodell smacking the union around in their contract negotiations. Some are people who remain upset about his treatment of agents, his handling of drug suspensions, or people interested in the concussion litigation. These people see this as their chance to bring down a man who has protected the NFL against their predatory attacks.

Why Feminists Care: So feminists huh? Yep. Why are feminists out to get Roger Goodell fired. Basically, it’s a Hail Mary pass.

Feminism is dead. Its influence on the culture has all but disappeared. No one follows its doctrines. No one gives in to its demands. It has become nothing more than a cult peopled by a handful of lesbian professors, journalist chickies who got famous in the 1990s, and public policy (read: lobbyist) groups. No one else subscribes. Even the young college women who claim to be feminists tend to see it as little more than a label, like wearing a Che Guevarra t-shirt.

Ordinarily, feminists disdain football and athletes and men. They have zero interest in the NFL. So why do they care now? Do they really care about these 3 to 4 women who have been the most recent victims of domestic violence by NFL players? Hardly. The reason feminists care is that they see this as an opportunity to regain their relevance. If they can bring down Goodell, supposedly for not acting strongly enough against domestic violence, then they can send a shockwave of fear throughout the corporate world and every weak CEO out there will impose their ideas as a precautionary matter. Naturally, those same CEOs will then lobby Congress to pass laws that impose the same rules on their competitors. In effect, in one big sweep, feminists will get things they have been wet-dreaming over for decades. But to do that, they need to defeat Goodell. Evidence that they understand this is that they keep rejecting his attempts to install their policies; they need his head, not his agreement. Goodell doesn't seem to understand this yet, that feminists need to bring him down to win and they will never accept his olive branches.

You Can't Please Liberals: In addition to the raw politics I just discussed, there is another factor the NFL needs to consider. You can't please liberals with liberal solutions.

Liberals are short term thinkers. Right now they are outraged at these big meanies who beat these poor women... actually, they are outraged that the NFL didn't stop these big meanies. Hence, they want a zero tolerance policy to make sure this never happens again. But wait a few months until 60 Minutes does a story on how Ray Rice is broke and how his wife feels abused by "the system" for killing their family’s income to punish Rice for something she didn't think needed to be punished. Or wait until they report on all the young guys who got banned based on false evidence from angry ex's or from blackmailers or "racist cops." Just wait as our liberal friends all tear up and start to scream about the NFL and it's unfair, indiscriminate policy which is ruining the lives of so many young black men without total proof they actually did anything! Damn you, NFL! And it won't ever occur to them that this is the consequence of their demands for zero tolerance. Instead, they will shift the blame to the cold-hearted NFL for implementing their own ideas.

This is the problem with trying to please liberals. Some are politically motivated and aren't looking for solutions, they are looking for political victories. The proof of this is how disinterested they are in the NFL's efforts to implement changes to their policies, by their grievances suddenly all being tied together no matter how unrelated (e.g. "greed" and "domestic abuse") and by their focus on the wrong people as the bad actors. And even if you give them what they want, they will be back with a grievance based on the problems their own solutions caused without a shred of acknowledgement that they are at fault for what happened.

The NFL really has mishandled this. What they should have done is immediately appoint a committee to investigate this and to "effect changes." Then you tell the committee to wait a year or so before reporting. That is how you pull the energy out of an issue and kill it. The one thing you don't do is try to piecemeal a solution as liberals try to use your efforts to score points.

13 comments:

Kit said...

I agree about the self-righteousness, this crap has gone on for years and now everyone is acting shocked, shocked, that it is happening. It is onanism.
I'm looking at you, Peter King.

USS Ben USN (Ret) said...

Well said, Andrew!
I despise sanctimonious prigs of any stripe.
And it disgusts me that so many of the sports anchors and reporters are telling lies for personal gain and to feel morally superior.

For instance, many of these leeches have said that domestic violence is "epidemic" not only in the NFL but in our entire society.
First of all, per capita, there are less criminals in the NFL than there are in the general population.
Secondly, although domestic violence is a problem it's certainly not an epidemic in the NFL or in our society in general.

Lefties and feminazis are simply using the NFL as a platform and many of the sports announcers and writers are helping them ruin football.
The NFL top brass and Goodell have made it worse by trying to appease them and they have also allowed PC in the door.

If Goodell doesn't wise up soon, and this includes the team owners and all the movers and shakers in the NFL, then we may very well see the beginning of the end of everything we love about pro football.

There's nothing the freakin' lefties ain't willing to destroy to appear as if they are our moral superiors and for advancing their destructive agendas.
Damn A-holes take the fun outta everything they touch!

KRS said...

Andrew - as you say, this certainly has nothing to do with violence and the bias reaches far below the NFL.

We just recently had a middle school kid make a helmet to helmet contact in a game and go to the ER. He'll be alright, but all the local news channels went into a frenzy, trying to tie it in to the NFL stories on concussions, spouse abuse, etc.

By contrast, one of my wife's best friends has a daughter who plays soccer. She's had to have both knees operated on - one of them twice. She's 15. Soccer injuries are increasing just as we are focusing on American Football, where no trend is shown. I have a daughter with a friend who plays Lacrosse with pins and screws in her bones, but she won a scholarship, so as long as they have enough fasteners at the local Hader Hardware, she's good to go until she graduates.

Injuries go along with contact sports - even ones like baseball, where contact is minimal. I nicknamed my son "Target" because he will not get out of the way of a bad pitch - he stays until the last second on the off chance he can hit it. It's not smart, but I can't help but admire him.

I can't count the number of times I kissed the dirt in a game, but that's mostly because I wasn't very good at anything.

People need to get over themselves - sure, I know these are just opportunistic attacks, but they work only because our society has become too wussified. These people would have been laughed off the screen when I was a kid.

Suck it up.

Kit said...

KRS,

Your comments on the injuries in soccer and lacrosse tell me this might be less a symptom of a society becoming "wussified" and more of national media taking a couple of high-profile incidents and making it into an epidemic and local media stations, eager to look relevant, follow suit by reporting minor local incidents as further proof of this "epidemic".

Similar to the "Summer of the Sharks", where in the summer of 2001, a couple of shark attacks made media headlines (not much in the news that summer) and the media began screaming about an "epidemic" of shark attacks.

Later someone looked at the numbers and found that there was increase in shark attacks over the summer. In fact, the number of shark attacks in 2001, 76, was actually lower than it was in 2000, 85.

The media reports on several incidents, sees its reporting of several incidents as an increase in occurrence of said incidents, and screams "EPIDEMIC!" without ever thinking to check the numbers.

Critch said...

Stop recruiting thugs...that might help some...When I was in high school some tackle could rip your arm off and Coach would tell you to "Walk it off."

AndrewPrice said...

Kit, I'm truly sick of it. These people are dripping with self-righteousness over an issue they never cared about until it became popular to care about it. Now they are out there advocating the most insanely asinine stuff and accusing anyone who doesn't agree with them of not caring. I hate liberals.

AndrewPrice said...

Thanks Ben! I totally agree.

Lefties and feminazis are simply using the NFL as a platform and many of the sports announcers and writers are helping them ruin football.

This is exactly what is going on. This has nothing to do with the NFL except that the NFL is letting itself be turned into a club these people want to use to beat the rest of society.

And you're 100% right about there not being an epidemic. The NFL "epidemic" involves 3-4 players out of 1,600 current players. That's about 0.5% of the NFL population. Some epidemic. In fact, doesn't that tell us that the idea that 75% of women will be victims of domestic violence is utter, utter, utter fantasy? Yes, yes it does.

AndrewPrice said...

KRS, "Target" lol! That's funny.

I agree completely. Any time you play a contact sport of any sort, even a "non-contact" contact sport like basketball, injuries will happen. The laws of physics require it. And even if you banned contact of any sort, you would still see busted knees, bad backs, and freak injuries. That's because the human body just can't take those kinds stresses very well.

Your point comparing the helmet to helmet hit against the soccer injuries is very accurate. Liberals are waging a war against things like football because they don't like the values the game teaches. It doesn't fit their "everything is ok just as it is" mentality. It also is a direct link to the values of America's past. So they do their best to neuter it at every point. Yet, at the same time, they ignore the things they complain about when they appear in other contexts.

AndrewPrice said...

Kit, That's true. The media is very good at creating "epidemics" where there aren't any, and it's not always intentional so much as them just following the leader to stay relevant and then trying to one-up each other.

AndrewPrice said...

Critch, That zeroes right in on the issue actually: these people aren't aiming at the athletes, nor do they care about the thugs, they are only interested in using the NFL itself to get their ideology implemented.

Keep in mind, the same people who now see an epidemic of domestic violence from four recent incidents have totally ignored the guys who beat up innocent people, shoot people, rob people, distribute narcotics, etc. There is an arrest of an NFL player about every 10 days, yet they don't care about that because they aren't really interested in cleaning up the NFL... they just want this issue implemented.

USS Ben USN (Ret) said...

I think many lefties have a visceral hatred of football because it's so uniquely American.
Consider this excellent article by CHFF:
http://www.coldhardfootballfacts.com/content/natural-spirit-combat-football-violence-healthy-vital-to-american-character/24102/

As you say Andrew, most libs don't like the values that football teaches.
Unfortunately, perception, or the wrong perception, pushed by the liberal media can change things for the worse.

But fortunately, I don't think most Americans, including some self-described libs are buying it.
If anything, it's backfiring.

I know Goodell wants more women to watch but most women don't agree with the feministas or hysteria mob that wants a hangin' right now.

My wife didn't think much of the NFL but after being married to me awhile and catching glimpses of games she grew to love it.
Especially after she understood the game.

I can't tell you how thrilled she was when the Seahawks won the superbowl!My condolences to Bronco fans. :)

The problemos, will Goodell and NFL bigwigs listen to the vast majority of fans or continue down the road to flag football with no contact whatsoever and a new "awareness" campaign every week?

Anthony said...

*Shrugs* I see less reason to worry about the NFL than some of you guys.

The public and advertisers seem satisfied with the NFL's moves (haven't heard anything about ratings being down and if they were down I am sure someone would be shouting it from the rooftops).

The perpetually fringe offended won't forgive, but on their own they don't matter.

The Occasional Contributor said...

Andrew, Rush Limbaugh has been stating the same thesis for years. While you don't appreciate his style, he has proven spot on in quite a few of these movements. Ahead of the curve if you will.

It's not about solving problems, it's about the Benjamins. "Contribute" money to this ir that liberal cause so they can "study" the problem further, and then they will provide cover for you when other lib groups start screaming for your head. So, the NFL will fund a few hundred leftist fools for another year or so, and all this will be forgotten.

"Nice business you got there. Hate to something bad happen to it!"

Post a Comment