Posted on 09/18/2014 6:42:59 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Beguiled once again from her purpose — to apply to Tom Sawyer’s jam-stealing rump the well-deserved business end of her switch — Aunt Polly falls to ruminating: “Every time I let him off, my conscience does hurt me so, and every time I hit him my old heart most breaks.”
Mark Twain is careful to end The Adventures of Tom Sawyer while Tom is still a boy — “the story could not go much further without becoming the history of a man,” he warns — but with Tom encouraging his pal Huck Finn to quit his ragamuffin ways and return to the care of the Widow Douglas, we might reasonably conclude that Aunt Polly’s mission civilisatrice has succeeded.
In modern-day Missouri, Aunt Polly would likely be in prison for child abuse. That observation is not intended to be a defense of Adrian Peterson, the Minnesota Vikings running back facing two years in prison for overzealously disciplining his four-year-old son, also with a switch. But the fact that Peterson’s parenting is a subject of national comment is a thoroughly 21st-century development.
The media has been uniformly delighted to flaunt its righteousness. Rolling Stone’s Kenneth Arthur wrote that, if NFL commissioner Roger Goodell would not act, the Vikings franchise would not suspend Peterson, and coach Mike Zimmer would not bench Peterson, then Peterson should “do what’s right” and bench himself (the Vikings have since suspended him). At the Boston Globe’s website, Jordan Lebeau calls the new generation aux armes, writing, apropos the many childhood thrashings of yesteryear, “Maybe enough is enough. Maybe we are smarter than our grandmothers. Maybe we can be.” And at the Daily Beast, Amanda Marcotte contributes a representative piece entitled, “The Adrian Peterson Beating and the Christian Right’s Love of Corporal Punishment.”
(Excerpt) Read more at nationalreview.com ...
I would agree the NFL can fire people for bringing disrepute on the game.
But if they care about the child or wife, they would attempt other solutions first. Both AP and RR could have been given the choice to turn their salary for the year into a trust for their victim, and IF they get help and behave properly they will be considered for reinstatement next year.
This is a liberal feeding frenzy and please, giving Biden’s aide a job as a “domestic abuse adviser” is nothing more than a political payoff. This is being used by the politicians to tap further into the NFL’s billions.
They just want protection money, and liberal orthodoxy, and they will destroy football.
Ian needs to look at the pictures. There’s no question Peterson crossed the line, the only question are how far on the wrong side did he go and was it deliberate.
When somebody giving your company $200 million a year speaks they’re gonna listen too. It’s the nature of employment that so long as your “non-office” behavior doesn’t cost the company money they don’t care, but the minute it does you’re out.
When A-B employees start making international headlines for being accused of domestic violence they’ll get fired. There’s nothing hypocritical about understanding the nature of publicity. A-B didn’t complain the NFL has abusers on payroll, they complained the situation wasn’t being handled well and was generating negative publicity that potential of both the NFL and A-B brands. It’s a business, their job is to make money, they see a situation that could impact the flow of cash, they’re reacting.
The NFL has protecting these thugs who more often than not escape the punishment that you or I would receive if we did the same thing.
There is no doubt the liberals want to destroy football, which they are doing bit by bit. Many of the owners are Dems who provide money to the DNC. Rooney is one of the prime examples as is the so-called Rooney Rule.
I predict that the NFL will decline in popularity as the demography of this country changes. We have 45 million foreign born in this country compared to 9.7 million in 1970. In a decade there will be 60 million. Soccer will eventually replace football. As Obama said, if he had a son, he wouldn't allow him to play football.
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