Watching Football as a Father

I am having a rough start to what is normally my favorite time of the year.  From the end of the Super Bowl each season until the start of the new football season in September I go through the sports-viewing equivalent of hell as seven months of NASCAR, golf, tennis, 6-hour long baseball games, lacrosse and every other boring event is put out for my viewing displeasure.

 

I must say, I would rather read the vomit bag during a flight to Afghanistan than read the sports pages during this miserable 210-day ordeal.

 

So, this month should mean great joy for me.  College and NFL football is in full swing and the temperature here in Central Florida has fallen to a downright crisp 90 degrees.

 

And yet, I am not happy.  In fact, my stomach hurts and some of my thoughts about football are going through a painful evolution.

 

This is because, for the first time, one of my sons is playing organized football.    This is not his first time playing football, but for the past several years it has been confined to the backyard or some other field where he and his friends play a friendly game of tackle football.

 

Now he is the starting quarterback for his school's junior varsity team.  He is still playing on real grass.  He is still playing tackle football.  But....it is not very friendly.  In fact, it is often downright ugly.

 

Some of you might be thinking, "What a wimp you are!"  After all, football is supposed to be violent.  I know this.  I played six years back in Oklahoma and was good enough to get a couple of small college scholarship offers.  I was a running back and I loved the contact - all of it - even when it was brutal.

 

Yet, yesterday I stood there watching my son take a helmet-to-helmet shot that caused his arms to go numb.  He laid on the ground for what seemed like an hour before wobbling back to the bench.    He did not tell his coach about the hit to the head so the next thing I know he is back in the game.  I was not about to be one of "those parents" and yell to pull him out.  He had told me on the sidelines that he felt "o.k" and I figured he was done for the day. 

 

Three plays later he is on the ground again with an injured ankle.

 

Meanwhile, the other players during the game against a ......hold on to your seat....Christian school  were repeatedly flagged (and sometimes not) for late hits, unsportsmanlike conduct, facemask penalties and more.  They celebrated these late hits and then had the nerve to pray after the game.  Perhaps they were praying that they would not be struck down by lightening for being hypocrites.

 

Anyway, that night I was out in my game room flipping back and forth between the Ravens - Browns NFL game and the Stanford-Washington college game. 

 

More than once I saw huge hits - players getting "blown up" and the crowd went wild.

 

For the first time in my life I found myself looking at these fans and saying, "What are you celebrating?"

 

Maybe this is a bit of an overreaction but in some ways I wonder if we are not much different from the people who sat in the stands watching lions eating some unlucky fellow.

 

I welcome your thoughts...

Say it again, Mitt!!!!

In case you missed it, today Mitt Romney is in trouble for something he said about Obama supporters.  The clip is provided below.

Now that this video is out there for all to see, today's newspapers are filled with Mr. Romney's crawfishing.  He is now attempting to argue that his words were not well thought out or were not "elegant" - whatever that means.

To that I say, "Please stop it!"

Mr. Romney, it is time for you to realize that you are most likely going to lose in November.  In football language, it is fourth and 21, you are at your own 13 yard-line with 8 seconds to go and you are losing by 7 points.  It is time to throw a Hail Mary and see if you can pull out a miracle.

The miracle in this case will be convincing Independents out there that your words, captured in this Youtube clip, are what you believe. 

To be honest with you, as a Libertarian, I needed to hear these words.  I have not been excited about your candidacy for one minute.  Now, if what you said here is what you believe, and if it suggests a manner in which you would run the country, I am more inclined to vote for you instead of writing down "Ron Paul" once again.

So, on behalf of those of us who are not excited about you, please keep saying this.  Do not apologize.  In fact, you need to say it more, say it louder and say it in a way that people like me will actively support you and try to convince others to do the same.

Remember, Mr. Romney, you told the truth so do not apologize for this. 

Embrace it and throw the Hail Mary!

Obama worshippers need a history lesson on economics

I thought you might enjoy my Op-Ed from the September 15th Orlando Sentinel

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On Thursday, Rollins College adjunct professor of international affairs Stephen W. Day informed us in his Sentinel guest column why we cannot ask the question, "Am I better off today than I was four years ago?"

 

Day joined the long list of liberal apologists who teach in America's colleges and universities by selling the flawed notion that President Obama inherited an economy that he could not possibly save in just four years and that our president is doing great things to ensure long-run prosperity if he can only finish the job we allowed him to start in 2009.

 

Incredibly, Day compounded this flawed argument by lecturing Sentinel readers on the dangers of American selfishness. In his words, "Voters today understand that we endure the Great Recession together, so we must find our way out of this mess together. ... We must stand as a nation, united behind a president who has an effective economic plan…"

Hogwash.

Like Day, my fall classes began a couple of weeks ago. Unlike Day, my students are hearing something completely different.

I disagree with Day's reasoning that we have gone through such a horrific economic crisis that no president could turn things around in four years. Must we be constantly reminded that the period from 1973 to 1980 was worse than the recent Great Recession? During that time, oil supply shocks, income-tax rates as high as 70 percent and growing government spending and regulations led to a new word — stagflation — in the economics dictionary.

Stagflation, the combination of unemployment and inflation, is the worst reality any economy can face. During the post-Arab oil embargo through 1980, the U.S. experienced near 20 percent stagflation rates. For 1979-80 it was more than 20 percent. At the height of the recent 2007-2009 recession, we never came close to 15 percent.

In 1981, President Reagan passed the Economic Recovery Tax Act, which lowered income taxes up and down the income scale by nearly 30 percent. At the same time, Reagan supported Fed Chairman Paul Volcker in his efforts to fight inflation as Volcker pushed interest rates to historically high levels.

After a severe recession in 1982, caused by a prime interest rate of more than 21 percent, Reagan's major income-tax reform, combined with accelerated deregulation of American industry, the American economy roared back to life. It grew by historically high rates from November 1982 until the fall of 1990. At that time, this was the longest peacetime recovery in our history.
It should be noted that Reagan's policies were similar to those taken by John F. Kennedy in the early 1960s and Bill Clinton in the 1990s.

Kennedy's income and corporate tax cuts remain, as a percentage of the GDP, the largest in history and were followed by a booming economy in the 1960s.

I show my students that the last six years of Bill Clinton's presidency — with large cuts in capital gains taxes, the creation of tax-friendly investment vehicles, welfare reform, controlled government spending and brilliant international trade polices — helped the 1990s become the most prosperous decade in our history.

Day fails to understand that we did not go into the Great Recession together. We went into it as individuals. My personal economic picture has nothing to do with him. Changes in my income, alterations in the value of my home and the decisions I have to make to help guide my family through tough economic times are all personal decisions. I do not belong to a group that must share in good and bad times. I am not compelled to work with my fellow man. I am only obligated to serve my fellow man. If I serve him well, my personal economic fortunes will reflect that. If I fail, it is not on Day to pull me out of what I created.

 

I would invite Day to explore further the real evidence of Obama's economic policies and those of his predecessors who were successful in guiding meaningful and substantial economic growth.
The facts are clear. When you ask the men and women of America why they are not creating more jobs, you will not find anyone saying, "Well, this has just been too big of a recession to end quickly." You will find them saying that Obama's plans to increase personal and investment income taxes, his costly health-care legislation and the rising tide of regulations have made it nearly impossible to make any plans that include job creation.

The sooner we all learn this, the faster we can make the necessary changes in Washington, D.C.

Will any Democrat be in Heaven?

In case you missed it (video provided below), Senator Richard Durbin was asked in an interview with Fox News why the word "God" was left out of the 2012 Democratic platform.   

I am not sure if Fox News was trying to show up the Democratic Party or not by interviewing Durbin on this subject. 

Yet, the interview did make me wonder, will we see any Democrats in heaven?

Lets take a look at what modern Democrats believe to be true and what policies they support.

First, Democrats support abortion rights.  O.K., so do many Libertarians.  Libertarians and Democrats who support abortion "rights" argue that a women owns her own body and has the right to put an end to an unwanted pregnancy.

Tell me please - has the scientific community come to a consensus on when life begins?  No, it has not.  Therefore, it is possible - not from a religious point of view, but strictly from the standpoint of biology - that life begins at conception.

If it is possible that life begins at conception, it is possible that ending a pregnancy is ending a life.  If that is the case it is called killing a living human being - something covered in the Old and New Testaments.    Even if you do not believe in God, you can argue that since our Constitution protects the right to life, every abortion is a violation of a person's natural, rather than God-given right to life, and therefore is a criminal act.

Second, Democrats support using the law to take money away from one person to give it to another.  I have seen countless "Christian" Democrats argue that Jesus taught us to be our brother's keeper and therefore welfare payments satisfy Christian doctrine. 

Tell me please, where did Jesus say it was o.k. to use force to gain the resources that are funneled to "charitable" acts?  He never said it was morally right to steal (using force to take property from someone) in order to pay for the care of our brothers.  Stealing is also covered in Holy Scriptures and it is not justified anywhere.

Third, Democrats support forcing children to go to schools they are zoned for.  Zones are artificial borders created by force (law) that prevents free, emancipated adult human beings (parents) from sending their child to the school they choose. 

Take a look at the worst schools in America.  They are not Catholic, secular private or home schools.  All of the worst schools are in areas where children are forced to go to the local monopoly for an "education".  This increases - dramatically - the odds that those children will become poor as adults.  Once they become poor as adults they are invited to become slaves to the welfare state that was also largely created by Democrats (see FDR and LBJ).  They might also end up in prison as a result of being poor.  Come to think of it, most of America's prison population is made up of men with no father at home.  The fatherless men trend accelerated after the welfare state was created.

Ending human life, theft, educational slavery, destroyed families....

How do you get to heaven on that foundation?

One Victory at a Time...

Some good news to report (yes, I know, that is rare from me).

Today a young lady came up to me after class and told me that she is four months pregnant, lives with her parents and was preparing to sign up for WIC (taxpayer-financed food subsidies).  She told me that her dad said, "I did not raise my kids to live off of the government."

She also told me that after hearing more about Bastiat, James Madison, the meaning of The General Welfare Clause and so forth, that she has decided not to sign up for WIC.

In her words, "I have money, there is no reason for me to sign up."

Hope is a good thing....