The great thing about Cuba is even though its citizens are tyrannized and impoverished, they still have baseball.
Not understanding this, liberal and conservative commentators routinely lament or are astonished by the U.S. sports fan’s disengagement from the politics in his or her own town, state or nation. Sports fans are routinely pilloried on talk radio for their disinterest or outright hostility toward political topics of whatever stripe.
One rationale for frustration with the sports fan is the belief he or she could master a more sophisticated understanding of social and political issues if he or she were willing to carve only a sliver from commitment to the sports phenomenon. Instead, too often the fan is observed to commit to countless hours of memorization of and discussion of the most arcane sports facts and figures, in addition to countless hours, lifetimes, spent on ball-fields, and then the ball-fields of their children. And, about what do they talk with their children? They talk about sports.
The common sports fan will consequently master an impressive compendium of sports information. The fan will also eventually master the polemics of the game – and the capacity for analysis and interpretation of the game – and for vetting commentators’ and participants’ knowledge and understanding of the game. Observers believe such sophistication in the sports world suggests the devoted fan could easily master the basics of the political realm as well – and to the direct benefit of his larger life and that of his loved ones.
But why shouldn’t sport fans be free to devote their lives, intellectual energies, and relationships to grounding in sports. Intellectual rigor in sports is lauded. Athletic pursuits and accomplishments in school are widely celebrated. The knowledgeable and discerning sports fan is esteemed by his children, spouse, and neighborhood.
Sports action, trivia and analyses saturate most channels on cable and radio. Internet sports sites are the only sites more popular than porn outlets. Universally, friends and neighbors talk about sports. Nothing exists outside of sports but a job, romantic relationship or family. The sports fan derives enjoyment, validation, intellectual stimulation, distraction, enhanced relationships, community service (volunteer coaching), and esteem from sports. Sports becomes a cherished avocation, commanding far greater fidelity than most religions.
It could be said the fan lives within a
cocoon of sports. Or, in particular, the fan lives within a cocoon of sports so protective and self-contained it can withstand even the most profound societal or political calamity. Why should the fan worry, then, about external societal or political matters? Why breach the cocoon? Why bother with the particulars of politics, analysis or discourse outside of the cocoon?
Perhaps the sports fan, in a reflective moment, realizes his cocoon lives adjacent to priorities of equal or greater value
Perhaps the sports fan, in a reflective moment, realizes his cocoon lives adjacent to priorities of equal or greater value – family, job and relationships. Despite their status as higher priorities than the cocoon, they nevertheless are outside of the cocoon and accordingly they are in most respects, unprotected from the potentially hostile world outside of the cocoon. Some fans do not recognize this reality until events threaten his or her outside commitments. These fans presumed that because their sports lives were effectively disconnected and protected from the larger world, as in Cuba, the lives of their family and work were protected as well.
Instead, job, family and relationships are unprotected. They are readily transformed – at times harmed - by the societal and political waves of change raging around them. If the weather is mild, certainly, all is well. Family, job and relationships remain stable, unharmed. However, when the waves become choppy and the seas menacing, when there is still time to protect those outside the cocoon, the fan too often remains unwary, unworried, snug and protected, his vision and hearing limited by the walls of his musing.
Surely, when the storm threatens to carry away his family, friends and job, he easily takes notice
Surely, when the storm threatens to carry away his family, friends and job, he easily takes notice – but usually not before that moment. And taking notice, only at that moment, the fan discovers his actions are of no consequence. It is too late. He cannot save his family, friends or job. He cannot protect them from harm. He cannot prevent the devastation of the calamity he might otherwise have prepared for, from harming those dearer to him than any sports cocoon. He sees clearly now, understands, but it is too late.
None of this is foreordained. The fan in the cocoon could exert himself to remain aware of the weather outside, the growing need for caution or action, the need for wariness in any case, in this world. Most often, however, he does not.
Given this, the sports fan’s devotion to sports is not so benign as it might otherwise seem. At minimum, his or her devotion saps energy, crucial energy, that otherwise might be devoted to understanding the political dangers and realities surrounding home and family, to acquiring wisdom about how to confront these dangers, at least inasmuch as he displays wisdom in picking this year’s fantasy football team.
This, then, is the issue at the heart of devotion to sports (or any activity immune from politics – such as baseball in Cuba). Politics, civil discourse, is of no consequence to sports or the sports fan, meaning it brings no appreciable consequence into his life. This is true – it is inarguable really. Politics, however, is of enormous consequence outside the cocoon, to the fan’s home and family. Despite this, the sports fan misunderstands that although politics are irrelevant to sports, and he or she can pursue the sports passion without restraint, politics are more than pertinent to home and family – they are vital – and in this realm outside the cocoon, politics is of enormous consequence.
The increasing regulations foisted upon the fan’s employer depress the fan’s wages
The fan ignores politics at his peril, and at peril of his home, family and job. For example, anti-school choice advocates, now more numerous than advocates for school choice, rob the sports fan’s children of optimal education. The increasing regulations foisted upon the fan’s employer depress the fan’s wages. Increasing tax rates and denuded deductions decrease the fan’s take home pay. Increasing Social Security and Medicare deductions do likewise.
In addition, the inevitable inflation arising from irrational government policies eat away the value of the fan’s wages. Easily obtained government-backed college-loans cause skyrocketing college costs, and decrease the relative value of the fan’s wages. Increasing gas prices (which also increase the cost of anything shipped by truck or plane, i.e. everything), caused by the government’s refusal to allow fracking, pipelines or building of new refineries, devalue the fan’s wages.
The government’s ridiculous policies in mortgage markets (Sallie Mae and Freddie Mac) artificially inflated home prices, leading to devaluing of the fan’s wages. Government schemes, the so-called “Affordable Housing Act,” and others, led to over-heated Wall Street trading of “mortgage-backed securities,” and ultimately the financial meltdown. When this giant “mortgage-backed securities” Ponzi scheme fell apart in 2008, the stock market crashed to 50% of its pre-bubble value – wiping out 50% of the value of CEO pensions, but also mom and dad’s pensions, and the fan’s pension, as well. Recession followed, as expected.
First Bush and then Obama dropped a total of an inflationary 1.5 trillion into the economy, so-called “stimulus” packages
First Bush and then Obama dropped a total of an inflationary 1.5 trillion into the economy, so-called “stimulus” packages, i.e. stellar boondoggles, all of it still failing to show any return on the “investment.” The government nationalized (took control of) the bulk of the car industry and financial institutions on Wall Street, as well as the majority of student loans. Dodd-Frank legislation, purported to tame the financial sector, is now destroying the financial sector - fewer loans, less jobs, less construction, less houses, less safety in pensions. All these distant but highly relevant sea changes depress the fan’s wages or value of those wages.
All these phenomena, these clever country-destroying phenomena, could not have occurred were the thinking public to have been thinking, were the fans not so warmly snug in their cocoons, were they keeping a weather eye out for storms on, or even over, the horizon. It is true that the most costly phenomena begin quietly, mere ripples on a darkening sea, but their catastrophic end-effects are legion, yet still poorly perceived and poorly understood by the public. Home and family are now threatened more than ever before. If the fan maintains a predominant focus on sports, however, he will nevertheless eventually recognize the peril to his home and family – but too often too late.
At greater distance, the government’s degradation of our military places the fan’s home and family at greater risk as well. The U.S. has been gutting its nuclear arsenal, at a time when China and Russia are increasing theirs. Military hardware procurement (planes, tanks, trucks, computers) has been slashed. Personnel slashed. Research slashed. Training slashed. Weapons development slashed.
Yet, we live in a world less secure than any time during the Cold War. What happens when Iran gets the bomb? What happens when Israel is nuked and/or conquered? What happens when backpack nukes are carried into our cities’ skyscrapers by suicide bombers? What happens when North Korea threatens us with nuclear weapons unless we agree to withdraw from South Korea? What happens when China appropriates the South China Sea for itself? What happens when China invades Taiwan?
Yet, even in the coldest of winters, when the fan peeks outside his cocoon, the snow falls, all is quiet, a rabbit hops into the hedge - all is at peace. This is a mirage.
The fan’s distraction prevents him from recognizing the threat of even more direct harm on the home front. What happens when the Government appropriates citizens’ pensions (listen closely to Obama’s recent State of the Union address)? What happens when the IRS targets members of the fan’s political party – perhaps himself? What happens when the NSA targets the fan for analysis, without cause, as it has already done in numerous cases with others, certain analysts having investigated friends and girlfriends? What happens when corruption is so widespread, lies so thick, no one cares – no one holds a Constitution-obliterating imperial anti-American American President to task?
Finally, and most frightening, the fan’s home and family are now subject to the greatest threat to their life and health in the 20th century. They face ObamaCare’s inevitable socialization of healthcare, where the
capricious mischief of only a single bureaucrat can cost a fan the life of his spouse or child – due to denial or delay of drug or procedure or both; where one bureaucrat or a committee can decide the fan or his mother is too old for a kidney transplant, or worse, undeserving of one.
In the near future, we will have no choice
Most fans are not aware – the media certainly hides the fact – close attention is needed – but the citizens of Great Britain and Canada suffer significantly higher morbidity and mortality rates than those cared for in the U.S. Are the Brits less intelligent than we? Don’t they care about their families? About dying? About wellness? Certainly. They simply have no other choice. In the near future, we will have no choice.
Certainly, the innumerable outright lies and false promises are not commented upon
Back home, even prior to the intended eventual single-payer result of the calamitous ObamaCare rollout, ObamaCare has already resulted in profound loss of financial and medical security for 10-15 million Americans, those who lost jobs entirely, or full-time jobs, and/or insurance, and/or could no longer afford insurance. The consequent economic destruction unleashed by ObamaCare is only recently addressed in the Complicit Media, if at all. Certainly, the innumerable outright lies and false promises are not commented upon. Our inattentive and otherwise politically unengaged sports fan remains unaware of such facts, of the inevitable threat. He and his family pay a substantial price for his willful ignorance of the world, this world, outside his cocoon.
Nevertheless, sports fans have been right all along. There is almost no instance in which politics is relevant to the game.
They have been wrong all along as well. In every area outside sports, in particular for home and family, politics is in almost no instance irrelevant.
Sports fans – listen up! Ideas matter. Knowledge matters. Discernment matters. And, yes, sports matter. But in the final analysis there is a vital distinction. Sports can’t take away your family or your country.
