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?
