This nation has no such notion.
Even in my diehard days of watching baseball back in the 70s and early 80s, no amount of loyalty to my beloved Yankees would allow me to look away from the wrongdoing below.
That the game is governed by rules is part of its beauty — as with life when governed by conscience.
I play an aggressive game. I don’t flop. I’ve never been one of those guys
— LeBron James
There was a time when it would be embarrassing for a ball player to feign being fouled on the level of theatrics in King James’ court. You’d be laughed off the court for pulling stunts like that in my day. It’s all the more absurd when you consider that even with the hardest-hitting fouls back in the 80s — nobody flailed about like that on impact.
Never mind Lebron’s built like a Tiger tank.
Tiger Tanks Could Withstand a Dozen Sherman[s]
The only way that so many levels of sham and stupidity could be so easily accepted — is that it was normalized little by little over time.
Ain’t that America
His words are pure fantasy . . .
But it doesn’t matter, because that’s the country we’ve become — where words are empty and you can feign offense to avoid having to answer for anything. As I said in my doc:
It’s astounding how the mind can pull off psychological gymnastics that allow us to believe what we say without any sense of accounting for it.
— Richard W. Memmer: Act V
This man takes no pride in how he wins — and it’s increasingly rare to find anyone who does.
It’s year one (of the [flopping] fine protocol), so you’re not just going to go cold turkey. . . . Guys have been accustomed to doing it for years, and it’s not even a bad thing. You’re just trying to get the advantage. Any way you can get the advantage over an opponent to help your team win, then so be it.
His excuse is exactly in line with how we created a nation that has no shame.
Any way you can get the advantage over an opponent . . .
A lot of that goin’ around
Same goes for this blameless attitude below:
That even with irrefutable evidence on tape, he still threw up in his arms in disbelief. Matters of world-altering consequence have been decided in such ways: Where it wasn’t about what was right, what was true, and what made sense — convictions were calculated entirely based on benefit to the team. If you learned from it — at least that would be something, but America doesn’t roll that way.
How did our country come to abandon principle with such ease? It happened for the same reason that the likes of Lebron and A-Rod lost their way . . .
Decades of “working the refs”
By people like these
And yet America just casually moves on — masking realities with more platitudes in celebration of freedom. I fail to find the liberty in allowing people to engineer your perception.
— Richard W. Memmer: Epilogue
Just like it’s nothing new to go overboard a bit to draw the foul — how politicians and pundits worked the refs in the old days wasn’t as egregious as it is now. The internet and the cable clans paved the way for the onslaught of the utterly absurd. And the decades of conditioning that came before it — set the stage for people to work the refs as they were worked themselves. Now it’s nothing but noise from the endless complaining by one grievance industry grinding against another.
Anything Goes in service of the cause — racing to win without a second of consideration for unintended consequences.
And it shows
The way people play today reminds me of when I would babysit little kids and play basketball with them . . . anytime they got stuck they would just pick up the ball and run as far as they needed to then put it down again when they were ready to attempt a new dribble. I allowed this because they were just little kids learning the game and it was all about fun. No problem.
But now adults pull this crap and have the nerve to act like they have mad skills.
Today’s NBA has been on a steady path of reducing ball handling restrictions to that of toddlers playing on a 3 foot tall nerf court. If that doesn’t personify that things are getting easier I don’t know what does.
I could easily switch the context with almost the same wording to show that’s exactly what’s on in a country of adults behaving like children every goddamn day — selling your souls for politicians & pundits who don’t give a shit about you.
Almost 200,000 views combined to cry foul about how the NBA’s lost its way — but try telling you that you’re all part the same charade, and I’m lucky to get 20. I don’t care about the views — as all I need is one. With the idea I have in mind, the right person is all it will take on an idea that could turn the tide.
I’ve always hated Twitter and when I’m done doing what I gotta do — I’m never goin’ back. Until then, I’m sending out a certain set of messages looking for intelligent life (fiercely independent thinkers who want to solve problems — not endlessly talk about them).
Think of my signals as a poor man’s SETI:
I’ve got an idea — and it’s got teeth
There’s a way we can harness folly from the past for the benefit of the future.
A.K.A. Learning
It’s as outside-the-box as it gets but rooted in timeless truths America made outdated. I’ve already done all the work: I just need a little help in having it land in the right hands. I have a very specific target audience to get this in gear, so it wouldn’t take much. One email could set off a chain of events that could open the door to the kind of conversation this nation’s never had.
To the uneducated, abstract ideas are unfamiliar; so is the detachment that is necessary to discover a truth out of one’s own knowledge and mental effort. The uneducated person views life in an intensely personal way — he knows only what he sees, hears or touches and what he is told by friends.
As the unknown sage puts it, “Great minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, small minds discuss people.”
But more than ever, even the most educated minds act in an uneducated manner in service of their interests — and do catastrophic damage by doing so. Even the best of the bunch are part of the problem they’re trying to solve.
Going by the galaxies filled with rock stars of reasoning across the social media universe — I should have no shortage of people eager to examine my idea and discuss how we could improve on it and proceed. You tell me where those people are and I’ll gladly send out my signals to them.
My idea is simple
Cutting through our Crap is King culture to get you to see it — is not.
Conventional methods have repeatedly failed and won’t put a pinprick in the atmosphere of absurdity suffocating the country. It’s high time to take another approach. If we don’t take a long, hard look at what America has become and how we got here — we will not see a return to some semblance of recognizing reality in our lifetime. As my videographer perfectly put it:
We finally figured out what we were doing by the end
If we don’t change course as a country — we won’t. Mark my words: Your ways will seal that fate.
The NBA implemented an anti-flopping rule almost a decade ago, but it’s rarely enforced. That such a rule was needed in the first place is bad enough, but then they created one with fines that are a joke — since they miserably fail to follow through.
So the saga continues — much like America’s ever-increasing acceptance of the asinine & flagrantly false.
A buffoon befitting of this circus music — that is the legacy he’ll leave behind. He doesn’t concern himself with the future and the harm he does in shaping it.
One Voice Became Two 