Posted on 05/07/2012 4:49:13 PM PDT by Sub-Driver
Limbaugh Asks: Will Liberal Media Try to Ban Football? By Matthew Sheffield Created 05/07/2012 - 6:01pm
Rush Limbaugh is wondering if the Left is going to try to ban football.
It sounds like a crazy question, given the massive popularity of both professional and college football all across America, but Limbaugh's question isn't as crazy as it seems. "Compassion" -- and the Left's reflexive Nanny State impulse -- might move the ball in that direction.
On Friday, Limbaugh wondered during his broadcast if well-intentioned liberals, out to make the game safer, might instead be paving the way for it to be banned:
Some of them are leading the charge and don't even know it with the way they're covering the sport. Some of them are leading the charge for getting the game banned and they don't even know it! By the way they're covering it. They're demanding this and demanding all these new safety features, safety regulations, safety rules. Empowering the government to police the game. They're begging for it, and they don't even realize it. They, in their naivete, think they're working hard to make the game safer and so forth, and all they're doing is paving the way for the game to be banned.
They don't even know it.
As if on cue the liberal media demonstrated what Limbaugh was talking about.
First, on ABC News's Sunday program, This Week with George Stephanopolous, guest host Jake Tapper focused on the NFL and the concussion issue, asking George Will, "Is football in trouble, or is this just the media making a muck?"
Second, the Wall Street Journal published an op-ed by "Friday Night Lights" author Buzz Bissinger that, quite seriously called for the banning of college football because college football loses money for many schools and "because college football has no academic purpose."
Weaving those two threads together, today, Limbaugh talked about what he said is a growing threat to the existence of football:
Folks, this is gonna happen faster than I thought. Maybe not an outright ban of the game, but I guarantee you this is gonna happen faster than I thought. It's funny for me. I read a lot of NFL blogs, and they're mostly written by typical liberal media types -- and these guys don't know what they're doing. As they write about this, they are paving the way for fundamental structural changes in this game that will make it not football, while they think they're doing compassionate stories.
For example, they're asking for federal commissions on concussions, "and we'd better have mandatory counseling for every player who retires otherwise they're all gonna commit suicide. For two reasons: A, all the head trauma; and B, people stop cheering for them, and their lives immediately turn meaningless. Every one of them." It's amazing to read this stuff. And I'm sure these guys all think that they're writing and positing with great compassion.
But they are paving the way for people who want to take the risk out of life to move in on football.
It's difficult to imagine Americans going along with government outright banning football, but it's easier to see "compassionate" liberals and trial lawyers gradually destroying the sport through excessive regulation, government intervention and lawsuits, while the sport at the college level, and eventually the high school level, is increasingly assaulted by people who agree with Bissinger, that it serves no education purpose.
On the other hand, changing football to be a minor league and major league system is very different from banning college-age athletes from playing the sport altogether. What are your thoughts, sports fans?
This would be too funny, with all the leftists in the NFL and the NFL Owners Group it would serve them right. Maybe they will learn when you sleep with a dog you get fleas.
Support the leftists takedown of the NFL, it will hasten return to the US Constitution.
I don’t know, but to be fair, by assident I heard this segment and it made me wonder about a lot of other sports.
Mountain biking, where you have people racing through the woods risking skin and broken bones (I have some experience in this arena) and running over defenseless animals like turtles, squirrels and snakes. Only a matter of time before my favorite activity is outlawed. I mean hell, you ever seen what those downhill racers do? Or the Red Bull events in Utah? Somebody is gonna get hurt in those things. Concussions are probably harsher than a broken femur but not a broken neck. That’s gotta be as dangerous as football. A 280 pound linebacker is gonna hurt you, but a 70’ gap jump you fail on, is gonna be just has bad.
Skateboarding. We’ve all seen the YouBoob vids of nitwits failing to grind that handrail, only to end up with their ‘nads smashed against either the rail or the board, or both. Ouch baby, gotta go.
Giving large caliber handguns to unprepared people, especially skinny gals with lowcut tops. The chick always ends up with a black eye or a bloody nose. I say we outlaw that, in the interest of redneck motherhood if nothing else.
Trampolines. Has any good ever come from people using those terribly dangerous devices? Some knucklehead always tries to see what will happen if he jumps off the roof onto one. Or some fool doing a backflip lands on the ground on his head instead of the trampoline. Gotta go.
Think of the chirrens, we need Obama to take action!
I don’t know, but to be fair, by assident I heard this segment and it made me wonder about a lot of other sports.
Mountain biking, where you have people racing through the woods risking skin and broken bones (I have some experience in this arena) and running over defenseless animals like turtles, squirrels and snakes. Only a matter of time before my favorite activity is outlawed. I mean hell, you ever seen what those downhill racers do? Or the Red Bull events in Utah? Somebody is gonna get hurt in those things. Concussions are probably harsher than a broken femur but not a broken neck. That’s gotta be as dangerous as football. A 280 pound linebacker is gonna hurt you, but a 70’ gap jump you fail on, is gonna be just has bad.
Skateboarding. We’ve all seen the YouBoob vids of nitwits failing to grind that handrail, only to end up with their ‘nads smashed against either the rail or the board, or both. Ouch baby, gotta go.
Giving large caliber handguns to unprepared people, especially skinny gals with lowcut tops. The chick always ends up with a black eye or a bloody nose. I say we outlaw that, in the interest of redneck motherhood if nothing else.
Trampolines. Has any good ever come from people using those terribly dangerous devices? Some knucklehead always tries to see what will happen if he jumps off the roof onto one. Or some fool doing a backflip lands on the ground on his head instead of the trampoline. Gotta go.
Think of the chirrens, we need Obama to take action!
For the Children...
Every fun thing I did in my childhood is being banned or regulated.
From bicycling without helmet or knee pads, diving boards, eating junk food, riding in the back of a truck and even farm work is verboten by our overlords.
And forget about sneaking smokes from my parents.
Nope, would't wish to be a kid today for all their video games...
No doubt that the nutrition has gotten better, and the specific training regimens. But the player who is a Line Backer at 6’5” tall, 320 lbs of solid muscle, run a 6.5 sec 40 yards can crush a normal human being. Add the lowered risk for self injury, and these guys can do some serious damage to a human body that is not made for such things.
Start with the equipment, let them lose the face mask, and shoulder pads and a guy’s got to think about self injury too. Make that player ask himself “If I cream this guy how likely is it that I am going to get injured too?”
When you’re well protected like these guys are, the odds of getting injured by your own actions are minimal yet you can practically kill another guy with impunity. Share the risk.
I don’t advocate rules changes in the NFL, like NASCAR did. NASCAR used to be great fun like the racing at my local race track. Now it’s a bunch of expensive pretty boys with too much to lose. It is now un-watchable on TV or in the stands. Bill Elliot, Dale Earnhardt Sr., Darryl Waltrip, Harry Gant, The Allisons, Alan Kulwicki, they raced like they had nothing to lose.
You mean Jimmy The Greek.
I would even look at weight limits....30 years ago there weren’t that many players over even 250 pounds. Size made up for lack of skill, the players back then were much more skilled, but of course, they couldn’t compete with today’s players because they’re just too small. But the games were better to watch back then.
... oops !
I disagree on the Nascar comments.
The overall talent level in Cup is much higher than it was 30 years ago.
The very best drivers may well be equivalent between those eras, but the backmarkers today are much better and the equipment used by the backmarkers is often sourced from the top teams.
Essentially everybody in Cup today who is under 40 yrs old began racing as young children, whereas in the old days, most racers didn’t start until 18 or 21.
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