Saturday, October 20, 2012

GOP, IRS abet U.S. sports socialism

You know, I might not be against rampant U.S. sports socialism if all the rabid Red State Republican sports fans out there would just acknowledged how much of their personal self-esteem and enjoyment was tied up in government-funded schools, with teams filled with government-supported minority athletes -- minorities whom they fear or despise in most other contexts.

Take any Red State you want, and on any given Sunday you'll see bumpkins who barely graduated high school proudly wearing the local college sweatshirt, cursing at minority athletes and overpaid coaches on the TV in the local sports bar, all provided to them thanks to the local publicly-funded college team.  

Furthermore, it's a mockery of Republican-Christian notions of "charity" to say that mandatory, tax-deductible donations to a schools sports program in exchange for select seats is some kind of charitable "donation."  We've let Republicans pervert our tax code to this extent.  These so-called boosters of charity are neither charitable nor Christian.  

This is yet more evidence that our country has become dangerously obsessed with sports (and it wasn't always this way): watching a bunch of poor minority athletes competing for a one-in-a-thousand slot in the professional athletics lottery for our selfish enjoyment, subsidized by Joe Taxpayer.  Shame on us!

Read a damn book, take a walk, play a sport yourself, spend time with your family, get a hobby!  Sports socialism reveals the core of America's hollow, atomized, sedentary popular culture.  


By Gilbert M. Gaul
October 18, 2012 | McClatchy Newspapers

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