I didn't want to ruin a blog post commending the data mining of 538 sports (which I'm glad exists for their statistics) but I can't let this paragraph in that article go without commenting:
Indeed, perhaps the question of how the NFL should “police” its players is the wrong analogy entirely. This situation may be more akin to tort law than criminal law: If the NFL is capable of reducing any harm its players are causing — whether through harsher suspensions or other policies targeting behavior — it may have a legal (or at least moral) duty to do so.
So after presenting the data, the author, Benjamin Morris, suggests that in light of the fact that sex and domestic abuse cases are relatively high (compared to other NFL crimes) within a relatively low crime pool (compared to the national average) that the NFL may have a legal duty within the law of torts to take some sort of action to lower the number of sex/domestic abuse arrests.
SAY WHAT?!
Tort law is just the fancy legal name for laws involving a tort which is (typically) payment of damages to a victim. Presumably the author has in mind torts of negligence (as opposed to intentional torts or torts of strict liability which even more obviously wouldn't apply here). Now, I don't presume to know many of the state and federal tort laws, but color me skeptical that there is a good legal case to be made that the NFL can be successfully sued for damages if its players commit sexual or domestic abuse crimes, that is, when its players ALREADY commit fewer of these crimes than the national average.
And it's just absurd to think that "if the NFL is capable of reducing any harm its players are causing" that this is a sufficient condition to make the NFL a tortfeasor. If the mere capability to reduce any harm is sufficient to justify tort negligence, then pretty much anyone and any organization could be successfully sued for negligence.
Yet another case of the media allowing PC-sensibilities to disorient the mind. Again, might the explanation for the sex/domestic abuse statistics be better explained by the culture of the players who happen to be in the NFL rather than any willful negligence on behalf of "BIG Sport" or the Evil Corporation? Might it not be more reasonable to sue the liberal media for victimizing the general public with their willful stupidity?
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Unlike my ancient predecessor, this Tullius hasn't had his hands chopped off. With hands attached I offer my thoughts on philosophy, religion, politics, and whatever else I find worth mentioning. I'm conservative religiously and politically (with libertarian leanings). I value reason and freedom but also traditions and "Oldthink." I relish being on the wrong side of history when history is wrong--part of a philosopher's job is to be unpopular. (Views given here may not represent my employers')
Tullius, you & I have discussed such things ad nauseum, and you know that I've little to say outside of four-letter words screamed at a fever pitch...but I'll share some autobiography nonetheless.
ReplyDeleteI used to be quite the political hound...Always in the news, always reading political magazines, always UP ON THE LATEST. As of five or six years ago, no more. I couldn't take it. Or, I should say, my blood pressure just couldn't take it. I'd read some nonsense in the morning over coffee, and simply couldn't get it out of my mind for the rest of the day. The Obama election sealed the deal for me...I just couldn't handle it anymore. If it wasn't the lib-lefties castigating the entire spectrum to the right of Upton Sinclair, it was righties tripping over themselves to "prove" that they weren't racists and...Well, I was sickened. And remain so. I got out of the kitchen, so to speak.
But I left the kitchen and swore that I'd remain on my couch, in front of a good sports game. And now I'm finding no respite from the politicization of everything, including my beloved football. Peter King of SI began his Monday Morning QB column lamenting the current "crisis," more or less telling people that if they decided to never watch football again, he wouldn't blame them...
Au contraire, Mr. King. It is not the players...it is not The League...it is not the sport...no, Mr. King, it is YOU and YOUR LIKE which makes me never want to watch sports again. It's not about the game, no not about A GAME at all. It's a platform for you, the reporter-not-taken-seriously-because-you-cover-a-game-and-not-REAL-life-matters-like-war-and-politics-and-global-issues, to demonstrate your leftwing street cred for all to see, for all to hear...And if it's not Mr. King, it's Bob Costas, the oh-my-God-conscience-of-sports-reporters, calling on Dan Snyder to rename his team in virtue of the "obviousness" that "Redskin is a slur" (which, apparently, was not any sort of problem before 2013, mind you).
I am tired of this, man. So very very tired of it. The last place I ever want there to be politics is in sports. Sports are entertainment, sports are escapist...and yet these PC-enslaved morons won't even leave IT alone, the most sacrosanct of domains outside of Church itself.
The fact is, I'm close to being done. Officially. Forever.
If things don't change soon, I'm becoming a hunter and killing stuff for fun...
Your comment might warrant a post of its own in the future (for one, I'd hate to see you victimized such that you start killing things for fun).
ReplyDeleteMonash, I feel exactly the same way. I'm close to being done too. I can barely watch a post-game or pre-game analysis, let alone SportsCenter, which really is a misnomer now. Pre-games and post-games are less and less about the games.
ReplyDeleteYesterday I turned on pre-game of the Atlanta v. Tampa Bay game to see James Brown in a sit down interview with Lovie Smith, talking about Smith's take on the current "crisis" in the NFL. The tv was off about a minute later.
I'm sick of other NFL stuff too though. I'm sick of the pink campaign, I'm sick of the gimmick uniforms. I'm sick of the pregame glitzy stuff, dancing around, smoke tunnels, changing the rules for tackling, blocking and hitting. I wish they could have all the cameras for a football game in place, with all the cameramen, but with no commentators, no sideline reporters. Just unfiltered video streaming.
I'd take up hunting with you, Monash, but I think I live in a state where squirrels' lives are more valued than people's lives.