At midnight Thursday, the doors of opportunity will open for the much (and deservedly so) ballyhooed NBA free agency class of 2010. For teams like Chicago and Miami, it is a chance to cement themselves as one of the league favorites (if not the league favorite) for next season. For Cleveland, it is the only chance to remain relevant in the NBA landscape. And for Toronto, well, there’s really nothing too look forward too (hint: Chris Bosh isn’t coming back.)
Archive for June 2010
Rational Politics Chapter Nine: National Sovereignty
Our sovereignty, in my opinion, depends less on our borders then on the rights and responsibilities we enjoy and live up to within. If we live by the principles that are at the core of our nation, then America exists. In as much as American ideals, principles, and rights exist outside of our borders, America exists outside of our borders.
History Repeats Itself
We are hampered, as ever, by our own contradictions. As we try to install central government in a nation that has never had a succesful central government, we fight the trappings of central government at home. As we fight to remove the bipartisan corruption evident in our democracy, we are asked to work with an Afghan leadership consumed by graft. America is engaged in Afghanistan to deny comfortable training grounds to Al Qaeda, but the terrorist organization needs no headquarters to operate. In many ways, we are fighting a rat infestation in our barn, by burning one of the hay bails inside.
Academics, Athletics, And The NCAA
The NCAA has long been the entity charged with governing the bulk of intercollegiate athletics. Over the last 3 decades, and driven by the rise of cable sports, the job of governance has gotten to be quite a challenge. The organization, which is not a government entity, has been sued and slandered, conned and cheated, mistreated and manipulated. But the NCAA has done itself the greatest damage. In its rush to integrity; in the very push to safeguard the pure motives of college sports, the NCAA has compromised its own purpose.
The War On The Working Class
For years, America has been treated to a steady attack on poor people. When bad things happened over hill and dell, you could bet that poor people were the cause. White poor people in Appalachia, brown poor people in the Southwest, and black poor people everywhere; were there was crime, despair, or peeling picket fences, there was poor people. Poor people, it seemed, where poor because they didn’t like work. Poor people were poor because they were lazy. As with many arguments, there were, and are, nuggets of truth to the claims. Some percentage of the poor, perhaps even a significant percentage, were and are lazy. But much of the focus on the poor was of a political nature.
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