Posted on 09/18/2014 7:18:43 AM PDT by shortstop
I know what domestic violence looks like.
Hell, I know what it tastes like. It’s the salty taste of blood after you get popped in the mouth. The odd aroma of iron as it dries on your lips.
The swirling dizziness when you bounce off a wall or take a swat to the head.
The breathless, convulsing, burning sting as you dance across the room or writhe on the floor while the belt lashes you.
The belt or the Hot Wheels track or the wooden spoon.
Or the switch or the leather strop.
It is the thundering curses downstairs at night when they come home from the bar, the throwing of furniture and the heavy thud of bodies against the wall or the floor.
It is the crack of a gunshot and the flash of emergency lights against your bedroom wall.
It’s running, at age 13, to get a filet knife from your tackle box so that you can go out to the yard, where he is throttling her on the grass, and sob that if he doesn’t get off your mommy you’re going to kill him.
And three years later he’s on her again and for the first time you throw him to the ground and it’s the last time you sleep in your childhood home.
I know what domestic violence looks like.
And I can still feel it with the tip of my tongue, where a tooth chipped more than 40 years ago when I got cuffed into the porcelain sink board.
I know what domestic violence looks like.
And I hate it.
But I don’t understand what’s happening now.
In an odd, coordinated attack, progressive politicians and activists are dog piling on the NFL. They have decided to ruthlessly attack America’s favorite sport.
It seems part shakedown and part politics – a way to extort protection money from the league, and to galvanize Democratic female voters in the run up to an important midterm election.
It’s being done in the name of fighting domestic violence, but it is a very selective fight.
For example, angry activists have insisted that football players accused of domestic violence be suspended by their teams and the league. Those same activists have said that the league needs to have a stronger policy against domestic violence. They have also called for the firing of the NFL commissioner.
Yet they have been completely silent about women’s professional soccer.
Hope Solo, a prominent women’s professional soccer player, is awaiting trial now on domestic violence charges.
Yet she is not suspended.
She has not been criticized.
Her league is not under attack.
And nobody has said that her commissioner should go.
Which makes no sense.
A domestic violence arrest is a domestic violence arrest. And unless there are different rules for white women – like Hope Solo – than for black men – like the accused football players – then the double standard makes no sense.
Neither, really, does the attack on the NFL.
When grouped by demographic cohort – namely age and race – and compared with individuals from similar demographic cohorts who don’t play football, repeated studies have shown that NFL players are more law abiding than their non-football-playing peers.
Another oddity is the determination that the NFL must be the domestic violence battleground. The league comprises an infinitesimally small fraction of the American population, and yet strictures being urged upon the league are not being proposed for the society as a whole.
For example, if a football player is charged with domestic violence and loses his career, why doesn’t an architect? Or a lawyer or an electrician or a waitress?
And if members of Congress are going to demand this standard for the NFL, how about for themselves?
It makes no sense.
For some reason, the progressive Left is scapegoating professional football.
I think it’s for money – notice that all the activists are now saying the league must invest in changing the culture. That means give the activists money. Create a controversy, and solicit donations to make the controversy go away. It is a scheme perfected by Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton.
I also think it’s meant to fire up women voters, something Democrats do every two years in the weeks before an election.
I also think it’s hypocrisy.
For example, when a beer company threatens to pull its sponsorship money from the NFL over domestic violence, it’s hard not to laugh. The truth is, beer consumption correlates with domestic violence far more than football does, and many terrible acts of domestic violence have been committed by people who have beer on their breath.
The fact is, at its root, this isn’t about domestic violence. It’s about a financial and political agenda. It is a feeding frenzy of group condemnation.
While out in the real world, domestic violence is all around us. And it doesn’t always fit the stereotype the current focus seeks to reinforce. Women are horribly victimized by domestic violence, but so are men. In fact, repeated studies show that women are more likely to commit acts of domestic violence against men than men are against women.
This isn’t a woman’s issue. It is a morals and values issue. It is a human issue. It doesn’t matter what’s in your pants, it matters what’s in your heart.
And evil people who would do violence in the home must be warned and denounced. We must all recoil against domestic violence.
But we must not exploit it to advance a financial or political agenda.
I don’t know what the progressives have against football and the NFL. But they shouldn’t pervert an ongoing national tragedy to benefit themselves.
Fighting domestic violence isn’t about fighting the NFL, it’s about calling people to be better, and protecting their victims when they don’t.
I know what domestic violence looks like.
But I don’t recognize this side show.
Ahh, Thank you so much - for posting this/ for writing this, Mr. Lonsberry.
I believe the left hates football because it is a man's game. More than that it is a training ground for 3 dimensional warfare. It involves strategy, air campaigns, ground campaigns, power ratings, deception, mobility, and force on force.
Little girls might play football when they're at an age where they outsize their male age cohort peers, but that is soon forgotten when the issue becomes men.
Football is about men being men and training for war.
And that is why 'concussions' are an issue and why parents are encouraged not to let their little boys play. It's why soccer is the preferred alternative.
The left doesn't want men around if it comes to battle.
I looked up Hope Solo, expecting to find a lesbo domestic incident. It was her sister and nephew she smacked around.
Few people know that professional women’s soccer even exists. It’s not on anyone’s radar.
Obvious reason for that. Super star athletes (especially the NFL) are given free passes and their crimes are often overlooked (Yeah, Ray Rice. I'm talking about you.)
Fact is, the NFL has refused to clean up after itself. Now they must respond to the social outrage and act like professionals.
Who wrote this article? The president of the NFL Players Union?
Me too. A female soccer player that’s not a lesbian? What are the odds?!
I remember when Mike Tyson was smacking around his wife. That was a given.
The left wants to destroy football so that the fields can be turned over to the third worlders for soccer.
American football is fascinating precisely because of its similarity to war. Take that away and you take away the fascination.
I’m beginning to think I’m the only person on FR who enjoys soccer.
“I believe the left hates football because it is a man’s game.”
I think they think it is a man’s game and so they hate it. But I’m not sure the modern era NFL can really be a man’s game. If it was, all that swishy celebratory prancing and chest slapping displays for mundane plays wouldn’t be tolerated. The jerks would be self-policed by the cool players. But that doesn’t happen, they can’t or won’t.
FReegards
It makes perfect sense when you realize what they are up to.
It's not about domestic violence. Or violence of any kind.
It's about energizing the female vote for November. That's all it is.
Christie Rampone (FKA Christie Pearce) comes to mind. Married with two young ones. Her dad was an all-sports athlete at the next shore high school south of us, our Thanksgiving day football rivals. I sort of watched her grow up from a distance, she’s my older son’s age.
Domestic violence is horrible. Beating anyone is terrible. So, that is why there is a law against assault. And battery.
Domestic violence laws are simply about control. Control over men and women by the courts and government. They have nothing to do with morality, justice or preventing violence in the home.
I agree with you. Real “domestic violence” should be treated as assault under the law (imho).
And, while we’re on the subject of bad marriages, why isn’t adultery considered reckless endangerment?
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