Amoral media, lowlife fans, spoiled athletes and beer...... important lessons ..
Two recent events in the world of professional sports offer important insights into American life today.The NFL story concerns an ad ABC TV showed before Monday Night Football to promote its hit show "Desperate Housewives." As described by USA Today, the ad "showed towel-clad actress Nicollette Sheridan trying to entice Philadelphia Eagles star Terrell Owens to skip the game. He agrees as she drops the towel and rushes into his arms." ABC and the NFL have apologized.
The NBA story concerns the worst American sports riot in memory. At the Detroit arena, members of the Indiana Pacers ran into the stands and fought with fans after fighting with Detroit Pistons players.
Three important lessons:
First, let's finally stop repeating the false notion that big business has conservative values. Big business has no values. Big businesses are concerned with making money for their stockholders. Nothing else matters to publicly owned companies.
Liberals perpetuate the falsehood of big business as conservative for three reasons: They have a materialist view of the world (just about everything is explainable by economic status and motives; it aids in getting people to vote Democrat); many people resent the amorality of big companies; and it seems to counter the argument that the major news media are liberal -- "How could the news media possibly be liberal when they are all owned by large corporations!"
If ABC or Fox or any other network could increase ratings by showing an orgy during "Captain Kangaroo," they would.
Second, it is yet another example of how deep the values divide in America is that liberal commentators overwhelmingly ridiculed concern with ABC showing the raunchy promo right before televising the widely watched Monday Night Football game. From The New York Times sports pages to USA Today's editorial page, there was annoyance with those who objected to the promo, not with the promo itself.
For example, many liberal commentators offered the novel idea that if the football player -- or Janet Jackson -- had been white, few would have objected. The only other liberal annoyance was that a woman was portrayed as a sex object. Nothing about protecting children or the concept of public decency.
Liberal opinion makers tend to have little regard for an issue that deeply concerns most conservatives -- how high or low the decency level of public life is. That is why liberals are more likely to be apathetic toward public cursing as well as to public displays of sexual behavior. Indeed, they consider it the height of conservative hypocrisy for Republicans to order an R-rated movie in their hotel rooms, or curse privately and then object to such behaviors when done publicly.
Yet the difference (which is lost on some conservatives as well) is enormous, aside from what children will see. For those -- conservative or liberal -- who do not see the difference between public and private behavior, I cite the simple example of a man relieving himself. In private it is perfectly appropriate; in public it is highly inappropriate.
In all liberal societies, people are losing a sense of what is appropriate. For most liberals today, the issue of appropriate behavior pales in comparison to prescription drug prices and other economic concerns. That is why Janet Jackson's breast baring at the NFL Super Bowl and the ABC promo are no big deal to most liberals. Yet, to most social conservatives, they represent a society in decline. If you wanted a clear values difference, that is about as clear as it gets.
Third, regarding the fan-inspired riot in Detroit, it is widely believed that alcohol played a major role in the fans' behavior -- such as screaming obscenities at players and throwing objects at them. The availability of alcohol at sporting events despite the fact that fan behavior obviously deteriorates as games progress and self-control weakens is another example of big business putting profits above everything.
But there is a deeper lesson.
From the beginning of the crusade against tobacco I have argued that the war against tobacco was a sign of a morally confused, if not morally lost, generation. That this generation chose to make war on smoking (which is dangerous to one's health but leads to no evil) rather than on alcohol (which accompanies most child abuse, spousal beatings, acquaintance rape and other violent crimes) was almost all one needed to know about the elite's changed moral priorities since the last crusade against a vice (Prohibition).
When I was a kid, people got dressed up to go to ballgames, and the worst words fans screamed were "you're a bum" or "kill the ump." But, of course, many people smoked. Today there is no smoking even at outdoor stadiums, but many fans scream obscenities and routinely act like lowlifes. This is because we have substituted preoccupation with smoking for preoccupation with cursing. We have, in short, put concern with health over concern with character.
One can learn a lot about life from sports. Unfortunately, however, as far as professional basketball and football are concerned, the lessons to be learned are largely negative.
Maybe we should stay home for a while.
-Dennis Prager
Got something to say?
Start your own discussion
20 comments
"I also think there has been a decline in people's sense of humor which leads to a lot of phoney moralizing. Personally I found the TO skit to be hilarious and not at all in bad taste for an adult oriented show that's after 9 pm. It was no more in bad taste than the Desparate Housewives show itself...."
I don't think MNF is an exclusively adult oriented show to many families.
Most people were shocked by the promo, since MNF had never done anything like that before. I'm sure there were a lot of youngsters watching (I wasn't watching because I never tune in before 9:15 PM because I am interested in football, not Al Michaels' bullshit).
I don't think there is anything phony about people objecting to being ambushed.
If someone is turned off by "Desperate Housewives" they can decide in advance not to watch that show.
What is important is whether fleecing the taxpayers for a particular scam helps or hurts the strip club customer. That is the analysis that really counts.
WASHINGTON - Not long ago Washington, D.C., Mayor Anthony Williams and the city's political elite held a triumphant press conference announcing the return of baseball. League officials began counting nearly $500 million in public subsidies.
But City Council Chairman Linda Cropp has halted the bandwagon. She proposed that the city shift the stadium to a less expensive site and find private financing.
The screams of journalists and politicians who feared losing their subsidized box seats could be heard across the city. After all, sports stadiums are among the most common form of corporate welfare. Around the country wealthy sports moguls routinely mulct local taxpayers.
The District of Columbia 'won" a bidding war for the Montreal Expos by promising to construct a $440 million stadium, one of the most expensive ever. But total projected costs already have ballooned to $530 million. And author Charles C. Euchner warns: "Count on that cost ballooning past $600 million or more. Public works projects invariably run over budget by at least 25 percent."
There's more, however. To address complaints that he was neglecting community needs, Williams proposed a $450 million "tax-increment financing" district to fund libraries, recreation centers, and schools. On top of that he has offered some $70 million in goodies to buy council votes.
To finance the project Williams would divert existing revenues and impose a gross receipts tax on business. Williams proclaimed that "our residents will not be asked to pay one dime of tax dollars toward this ballpark," but people - customers, employees, and owners - actually will bear the burden.
The primary justification for looting taxpayers to construct sports cathedrals is economic development. Yet in D.C. you will have a hard time finding an economic renaissance sparked by RFK stadium, which hosted the Redskins for years.
Still, if you plop down a $500 million edifice, some economic activity might sprout up nearby. But the money doesn't magically appear ex nihilo.
People attending an evening game and buying hot dogs aren't going to a movie and restaurant near home. Subsidized stadiums rearrange rather than create spending and development.
In fact, if you include costs as well as benefits - and the studies commissioned by stadium supporters tend to ignore all inconvenient facts - sports facilities are a bad deal. Write economists Dennis Coates and Brad R. Humphreys: "The presence of pro sports teams in the 37 metropolitan areas in our sample had no measurable positive impact on the overall growth rate of real per capita income in those areas."
But that's not all. Incredibly, the two economists found "a statistically negative impact on the level of real per capita income."
The economic multiplier from sports entertainment is less than for non-sports entertainment. That means stadium dollars generate less secondary economic growth than money spent elsewhere.
Williams, when confronted with the Coates-Humphreys study, published by the Cato Institute, complained: "I can't imagine why, with all the things happening in the world, the Cato Institute would take the time to analyze the impact of baseball in Washington, D.C."
But the better question is, with all of the economic and social problems facing the District of Columbia, why is Williams devoting so much energy to enriching pampered sports franchise owners? Why is a stadium more important than new business investment, improved health care, higher paying jobs, enhanced crime prevention and better schools?
Washington, D.C., politicians have reason to heed chairman Cropp's call. In September voters upended three incumbents, all supporters of the Mayor's stadium boondoggle. Nearly 70 percent of city residents oppose public financing of the stadium.
Would killing the subsidy deal mean no franchise? "Baseball is very unhappy about this," says Mark Tuohey, chairman of the D.C. Sports & Entertainment Commission. Sports moguls expected city officials to do a permanent genuflect while delivering the goodies.
In fact, the nation's capital city remains a desirable location. But if the owners go elsewhere, life will go on. Says Cropp: "I don't want baseball to leave, but I want to do what's best for the District."
What's best for the District of Columbia, and other communities across the United States, is to end the sports gravy train. The message should be simple: You want to own a sports franchise? Then be prepared to pay for the stadium that goes with it.
-Doug Bandow is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute.
Yet polititions for some reason push for new stadiums and sadly usually get their way. It is amoral.
What an incredible waste it was to tear down a young Veteran's Stadium.
If the taxpayers weren't fleeced for a new stadium, then they'd be fleeced for some other special interest like helping the drug cartel keep prices sky high.
If the free market was allowed to work, cocaine would be selling for around the price of coffee. And, can you imagine the price of marijuana? It is a freaking weed!!! It'd be selling for about fifty cents a pound.
Or perhaps the taxpayers could be better fleeced by paying police officers to go to strip clubs to feel up strippers and try and entrap them in some two-bit crime. Then the taxpayers could be fleeced some more to pay for a corrupt court system and new prisons.
Anyway, fuck the taxpayers. What I'd is just a tiny percent of all the new money this two-bit government keeps creating. I'd make Bill Gates look like a pauper. :) Then I'd pay the big league politicians to pass laws here and there letting me steal even more $$$. You think I could pay these crooks to build a new stadium? :)
As far as my comment about the difference between civility and morality, I think in many ways our society is more open and honest today than it used to be, and that's an increase in morality not a decrease. There's no question that morality has changed, just as it does in every generation, but I find it a stretch to call that a decline even though most people in my generation would do so. But then I find the routine depiction of violence on TV and movies to be the real pornography - I 'd much rather have my kids watch people making love than killing each other, but that seems to be an unfashionable view. Then again, I think our society's fear of public nudity is absurd. But that's just my opinion.
If anyone is interested in reading more of this garbage here's a link:
http://www.townhall.com/columnists/denni…