IT’S ONLY A GAME, ISN'T IT?

While I don’t follow sports to any degree, I will stop on a channel that’s offering up either Boise State or the Seahawks.  I like football, but am certainly not a devote’.  But lately, whether or not you’re into the NFL, all you get is Rodger Goodell, who is snagging more air time than any of the local candidates for the upcoming mid-terms.  And he’s neither publicly elected, nor has nearly the effect on our daily lives as do those we’re about to send to congress.

So why all of the fuss?  Oh yea, one of the players, Ray Rice of the Baltimore Ravens, displayed a little bad behavior while riding in an elevator.  (How’s that for understatement?)  It seems that he and his then fiancé’ were having a bit of a discussion – to include her spitting on him – when he took matters into hand and decked her cold.  Worse yet, he then tried to drag her like an unboxed ragdoll out of the elevator, and when approached by one of the hotel staff, told the man that she had just passed out from being drunk.  The video showed otherwise!

Whether Rodger Goodell either did or didn't view the video that he either did or didn’t get was the question of the hour as the story came to light.  He had the chance to come forward and make known what he should have surely figured would be bandied about by the media.  But instead, he chose silence over common sense, either due to a strong desire to protect his sport or a misguided need to minimize the predictable hailstorm of criticism.  Either way, he did the wrong thing, and so we've been hearing all about it above the fold for days on end.

Now, not only is Mr. Rice worthy of prison and other sanctions fitting for those who partake in domestic violence, but we also have to wonder about his now wife’s judgment for not tossing back his ring and running for the first exit out of the relationship.  (Just a little hint here Janay, if he’ll lay you out once, he’s probably going to do it again in the future!)  These sorts of things are often a dance between victim and abuser, with both battling their internal dragons that eventually manifest in severe bodily injury or even death.

Anyway, regardless of the status of their marital issues, this whole mess has wound up in Mr. Goodell’s lap, and the going bet is on a laborious media trial, where good ole’ Rodger has to make copious public apologies, eventually stepping aside to prove that the NFL is gentle and caring.  All the while, the ratings won’t suffer a bit … even though Ray McDonald, Greg Hardy, A.J. Jefferson, Robert Reynolds, Dez Bryant, and who knows how many others have been charged with the same.

Worse yet, there’s Ike Turner, Bobby Brown, James Brown, Ozzy Osborne, Pamela Anderson, Tommy Lee, and Sean Penn … oops … wait … they aren't in the NFL, they’re entertainers!  Well then, I want either Bob Iger or the head of Warner Brothers to step forward and give us some big apologies, to include a clear and concise domestic violence policy for Hollywood.

That’s ridiculous, you say?

Look, here’s the chase.  Domestic abuse is horrible, no matter who commits it.  From the good ole’ boy in a “wife beater” on cops, to Hope Solo, the goalie for the U.S. Women’s Soccer Team.  If you batter your significant other – or even insignificant ones as well – you should spend some time with some real abusers in the local pokey.  There’s no place for this sort of behavior, and it’s irrelevant as to your status in the world of sports or entertainment.

But is it the responsibility of the venue to police their own?  The answer there is a definitive, “Yes!”

Is it a private matter between the police, the victim and the offender?  Again, yes!

Does any of this matter in regards to the ratings?  Here, the answer is essentially “No”.  When it comes to entertainment, being entertaining is far more important than being a reasonable human being.

Our culture values celebrity, and if you can make the team or the “A-List”, behaving badly only grows your popularity while your publicist grows older quickly.  Anymore, it seems as if scandal is a resume’ enhancer, and even if you do get caught with a house full of bloody pit bulls, you’ll only have to serve a little jail time, winding up back in the limelight as Quarterback for the Jets.

Oh, and just a side-note here, while we were watching the drama of Ray Rice, did anybody notice that Putin has still not recalled his troops from the Ukraine?  I suspect there’s much greater consequences in that battle than the one over whether Condi will get her chance to replace Goodell.

Somewhere along the way of tearing crosses off of both public and private edifices, we seem to have missed the point that there really is a need for morality in today’s culture.  It’s not that we should politically espouse any given religious doctrines.  I’m all for the basic separation of church and state.  But the Constitution has been so warped that, “shall make no law respecting an establishment,” has become outright abolishment in regards to God, and we’re now reaping the consequences of this obliteration by winding up with a culture devoid of even so much as public decency.  Without collective morality, really, what’s wrong with what Mr. Rice or any of his cronies did?  According to situational ethics, it suited his purpose and surely stopped her from continuing the argument … or consciousness, for that matter!

It’s the proverbial slick incline, and once you start supplanting what’s right for what’s entertaining, you get the unscripted cast of Cops on your doorstep.  Gone is the baby, bathwater, tub, bathroom, and presently so much as the plumbing in the whole darned house!  Progressivism keeps telling us that sanctioning gay “marriage”, abortion on demand, rampant ongoing welfare, and any other aspect of what once was considered shameful, will make us feel good about ourselves for being so inclusive.  Thus, by moving or erasing the lines of descent behavior, we now have no boundaries by which to keep our citizens from handing out a “KO” to their supposed loved ones.

Then again, maybe if we started bringing morality back into our schools, our homes, and most of all, our personal lives, we wouldn't need to demand that sports leagues fire their offenders.  They would already accept the moray that real men don’t hit women!  I’m not necessarily advocating prayer in schools, but the Pledge of Allegiance might be a good start.  We could then teach our children that self-expression must be subjugated to self-control, and we could even hang the wooden paddle back above the chalkboard, with the hope there’s an even bigger one waiting at home.  If we want our fellow Americans to act civilized, we might just begin by teaching civilization instead of indoctrinating our youth with a common core of pseudo self-actualization.

Of course, according to the ACLU, NARL, NOW, ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, MSNBC and all of the other acronymic activists, my sort of antiquated thinking is just plain barbaric, and certainly not progressive.

Yup, in the end, Rodger will likely keep his job, and personally, I will continue to watch my Seahawks whenever I have a free afternoon.  I’ll certainly vote in this upcoming election, hoping but doubting it will make a difference, and the atheists will surely have another tablet of commandments expunged from public view in fly-over country.

And sometime soon, a young man, likely with a new wife and infant child, will give up his life on some God-forsaken battlefield in a faraway land; all so that you and I can keep watching the NFL.  Heck, it’s just entertainment anyway, isn't it?