I'd like to see less calls for running people out of town on a rail and more grace extended. I believe that's the way to teach, but I love that Kareem calls out the media and the secret recording.
(via Instapundit)
"Shouldn’t we be equally angered by the fact that his private, intimate conversation was taped and then leaked to the media? Didn’t we just call to task the NSA for intruding into American citizen’s privacy in such an un-American way?
We are creating the expectation of reward for the surreptitious recording private conversations.
Shouldn’t we be equally angered by the fact that his private, intimate conversation was taped and then leaked to the media? Didn’t we just call to task the NSA for intruding into American citizen’s privacy in such an un-American way?
We are creating the expectation of reward for the surreptitious recording private conversations.
The Lefties' most treasured way of catching their enemies off guard.
As with other savages, they're beginning to devour their own.
Mr Alcindor makes a very righteous point in this regard.
Doubtless, he will be on the receiving end of a similar situation for questioning the methods of the RSD.
By reserving and heaping all the wrath, some of it deserved, upon Donald Sterling, and not at least criticizing the ignominious secret recording, we are creating the impression that the end does justifies the means.
Yeah I don't personally like the get-out-the-pitchforks approach. You need to choose your words carefully. Kareem many not care but I'd prefer trying to work with people.
Mark me down as someone who thinks that you should be able to say whatever you want, to whomever you want, at any time you want, about any subject that you want.
I also think that we should allow citizens to discriminate. You shouldn't have to hire someone that you don't like, or wouldn't be a good fit with the other employees that are working for you. It's a free country. If employees of Sterling don't like what he has to say, they should quit.
Well, it turns out Johnson could be taking matters into his own hands. The Hall of Famer is “absolutely interested” in purchasing the Clippers with Mark Walter and the Guggenheim Partners, according to Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports. The same group owns MLB’s Los Angeles Dodgers.
Sterling is going to get offered a dollar for the team. If he's lucky.
Mark me down as someone who thinks that you should be able to say whatever you want, to whomever you want, at any time you want, about any subject that you want
No argument there. The question is should you say everything you want, to whoever, whenever? And if you do, shouldn't you also expect free-market repercussions? Should we be allowed to counter what's said with our own points of view?
Well, it turns out Johnson could be taking matters into his own hands. The Hall of Famer is “absolutely interested” in purchasing the Clippers with Mark Walter and the Guggenheim Partners, according to Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports. The same group owns MLB’s Los Angeles Dodgers.
Sterling is going to get offered a dollar for the team. If he's lucky.
No, if he wants to play dog in the manger, he could end up holding the franchise for ransom.
Allen S - I agree with that too. Just wondering what in this process that's happening do you not agree with?
Maybe you think everyone's reaction is just over the top. I think some of it is, but so far it seems to be playing out the way you would expect or the way it should, IMO. It's not like he's the ONLY person in the NBA who thinks or talks that way in private. He's not Evil Incarnate or the Reason We Are Not Evolving.
But he's a big boy and can pay the piper for his stupidity, no doubt.
So Sterling has been banned for life from the NBA. Kareem is right that Sterling has been a disgraceful owner for a long time, but that is why everyone is anxious to get rid of him now. It is not the response to just one incident but a history of incidents. His survival until now can only be attributed to him having some hold over David Stern, who is now gone.
It's good news for the team, much like the Yankees during Steinbrenner's suspension, the team will now be run properly until a new owner can be installed.
Phx...."accountability?" Please any vestige of that went out the proverbial window long ago when President Clinton took a blow job, in the Oval Office closet no less, from a 20 something intern, and got away with it.
At this point, what difference does it make?
It will be interesting to learn just what, exactly, this "ban for life from NBA activities" entails...about now it sounds like an illegal taking if he is involuntarily separated from his property...aka the Clippers as a franchise. Not too sure ole Adam Silver has that authority.
"In a more recent edition of Folk Devils and Moral Panics, Cohen outlines some of the criticisms that have arisen in response to moral panic theory. One of these is of the term "panic" itself, as it has connotations of irrationality and a lack of control. Cohen maintains that "panic" is a suitable term when used as an extended metaphor. Another criticism is that of disproportionality. The problem with this argument is that there is no way to measure what a proportionate reaction should be to a specific action."
I don't think so, Lem. I'm just saying in response to the idea that it's terrible to fined or fired for saying things that your employer doesn't want to be associated with: that's how it is for ordinary people. If they get caught saying racist things on Facebook, etc., in most states they can be fired - even if those were supposed to be private conversations.
So why should anyone expect it would be different for him?
I'm going to guess there's a whole of contracts potential owners sign in order to buy a team. I don't think it's "your property" necessarily. Maybe more of a franchise with the home office reserving a whole slew of right to themselves.
But we will probably have to wait to know all this for sure. But I'm not buying the property rights argument yet.
There'll be the breaking of the ancient western code Your private life will suddenly explode There'll be phantoms There'll be fires on the road And the white man dancing - Leonard Cohen
Rabel said... You're ignoring the fact that it was a private conversation, off the job with a non-employee.
That was plastered all over the internet affecting the profitability of a league competing for entertainment dollars. And, it wasn't his first time around the rodeo. His previous discussions regarding high priced hookers and where and how he fucked them are classics of the form.
You can argue that this is a pretext, but he has been an embarrassment to the league for a long, long time and now is as good a time as any to remove him. Stern is gone and now so is this cretin.
You're ignoring the fact that it was a private conversation, off the job with a non-employee.
Rabel I here you, but it doesn't matter. Even if your private messages came out against your will, if your boss saw them and wants to fire you because of their content, she can in most states. That's my IANAL understanding anyway. Open to correction here but I don't think so.
If you pick and choose injustices to mourn or not mourn, do you think you are in effect picking and choosing which injustices to allow to go on. Do I have that right?
If you pick and choose injustices to mourn or not mourn, do you think you are in effect picking and choosing which injustices to allow to go on. Do I have that right?
Yes, and that's the situation for all of us. Nobody can mourn all the injustices. No one's that big. You would die of grief.
The Thought Police are here to stay, apparently. And gaining power because we allow.
That's pretty much true. Got a plan? I do. I don't think it will necessarily work or not, but these are impersonal forces that are pushing on us, IMO. It's like cancer, or a car accident. Strategies, not blame, is my code.
phx, I happen to think this example is very personal. Reaching into a private conversation. I'm curious as to what you view as impersonal here.
That said, Ace has a post up about what the bylaws say about Silver's power. It's interesting. I think I'd concede that he has that legal power for public statements. Unlawfully taped private conversation is another matter to me.
I don't give a shit what kinds of names assholes call me. Hell, I was one of the first to publicly oppose the Vietnam War. I'm used to assholes playing defamation games.
It's time to go to war. I'm an artist. I'll find the way.
My plan is to defy the race huckster assholes and force them into an open fight.
My plan is to follow the advice of Pope John Paul II: "Be not afraid!"
How long before they start making everyone take lie detector tests to determine if we have unpopular views.
I've got a real problem that people are profiting over tapes illegally made concerning a private citizen's private conversations. Magic Johnson and his partners (who include Michael Milken, who is a much bigger and more dangerous scumbag than Sterling) stand to make a tidy profit off this.
So, we're going to reward that kind of thing now, all because RACISM!
Here are a list of behaviors the NBA does not consider embarrassing:
Calling for an all black league; Stating that white players are no good; Calling anyone and everyone nigger all the time, just so long as the person saying nigger is a black person; Gambling with know gangsters; Giving dozens of people AIDS; Isaiah Thomas as GM or coach; Supporting dog fighting (lots of players were supportive of Michael Vick); Looking like Paul Mokesky; Shooting free throws like Shaquille O'Neal; Being the worst owner in professional sports for three decades.
Could go on, but I don't see the point. The NBA accepts lots of objectionable behavior, and lots of racist behavior. They're just looking to give Magic Johnson and Michael Milken an NBA team. And that kind of association is despicable.
If we could fire ALL the racists in the NBA, I could probably negotiate myself a pretty good contract as power forward on a one of those teams. If we fired all the rapists, batterers, and other criminals, I'd be on a championship team and probably win MVP.
Agreed. The disgusting thing is what foulness is not embarrassing or worthy of a similar "business decision". An 80 year old guy says racist words, but he also employs lots of Blacks and provides them truly exceptional opportunities, and these Blacks compete for the chance to work for him. He gets the axe, but players who commit crimes like rape, assault, robbery, cheating, and thus actually do hurt the fortunes of Blacks would never be banned, because money. Racial affronts are never serious enough to overcome financial interests and are rarely about much more than money.
ST, your theory sounds highly plausible since it seems like the mistress had been trying for some time to get such a recording, and Magic has been trying to get the team, and he immediately came out swinging about this terrible affront to all Blacks now, even though he has known the guy his whole career. Suspicious timing to it all for me.
The NBA is busy beating it's chest and throwing Sterling under the bus for a private conversation illegally obtained by a person who is accused of embezzlement. Words that are so serious that they demand he divest an 800 million dollar investment that he held for decades at what I am sure will be a bargain basement price in what in effect will be a distress sale.
If the league feels so strongly about this the should buy the franchise at a fairly appraised cost and then resell it. Let them put their money where their mouth is instead of this bullshit posturing.
Fox is reporting that Sterling's mistress recorded more than 100 hours of conversations with him. One hundred hours to find two dozen words with which he could be destroyed. She committed a crime; I hope she is charged.
What do you think NBA players talk about on the practice court, or in the privacy of the locker room? Ant doubt that some of what is said is mysoginistic? Or homophobic, maybe even racist? Those cheering what happened to Sterling need to be very careful.
If Sterling has competent consul and financial advisors he will sell to the highest bidder and sue the shit out of the NBA if they force him to sell to Magic Johnson.
Sterling should be ready to sell the team at the appraised price to anyone other than Magic Johnson.
I would do the same thing that another old racist Jewish guy Lewis Katz did with the Nets. Sell it to a Russian Mafia guy. Hey maybe he could sell it to Vladimir Putin his ownself.
Wait a minute. I just read the NBA Commissioners statements.
He banned Sterling from "going to an NBA game." Can he do that? Can you just ban people from a public performance? I thought there were some laws about that?
Pay close attention to what is happening to the billionaire Sterling...
Because it is exactly what will happen, ere long, to anyone who says that homosexual behavior is sinful, or that marriage is only supposed to be between a man and a woman.
They will be coming after the church for holding politically incorrect views. They have already started with the Obamacare demand that nuns offer birth control and abortion services.
The time will come where they will arrest you on the alter for refusing to perform a sacrament for people who violate the church's doctrine.
Notice how easy it is for phx to laugh off the invasion of Sterling's privacy rights and laugh off the confiscation of his property for holding politically incorrect views. They will have no problem laughing off the same thing if it happens to the church. In fact they will applaud as churches, temples and synagogues are shuttered.
Pay close attention to what is happening to the billionaire Sterling...
Because it is exactly what will happen, ere long, to anyone who says that homosexual behavior is sinful, or that marriage is only supposed to be between a man and a woman.
If we fired all the rapists, batterers, and other criminals, I'd be on a championship team and probably win MVP.
With that porn stache? No chance. This ain't the Seventies anymore! Although at least yours is good. That guy from Gonsaga a few years back, his stache was terrible.
Sterling was complaining about two people in particular appearing with his ho on instagram: Magic Johnson and Matt Kemp, who is an employee of Johnson's on the Dodgers.
Johnson works with the very wealthy Guggenheim Partners group. Who have at least $800,000,000 of Michael Milken's money. (He has to do something with it since HE has been banned for life from Securities trading. You know how hard it is to carry a few billion in cash around in your wallet? He's got to do something with it.)
So it's like that line in "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly": One bastard goes in, another comes out!
Because it is exactly what will happen, before long, to anyone who says that homosexual behavior is sinful, or that marriage is only supposed to be between a man and a woman.
I am happy to see Sterling go because the title of worst owner in the league now defaults to Jim Dolan. That bastard ruined one of the greatest sources of entertainment in my life. The Knicks have been unwatchable for a decade. I am now praying that there is some scandal in Dolan's life that will push him out as well.
I am happy to see Sterling go because the title of worst owner in the league now defaults to Jim Dolan.
I don't like the way Sterling is going, but to Hell with him as an owner. He has actually managed to be a worse owner than Hugh Culverhouse, and I didn't think that was possible.
Leagues ought to have some standards that owners have to meet. If they can't win at least occasionally, they ought to be replaced. Dan Snyder, I'm looking in your direction. Woodie Hess, you need to get the arteries unclogged and win or sell the damned team already.
And Jim Dolan of the Knicks ... how fucky awful is that guy? The NBA only works for the betterment of four teams (the Celtic, Lakers, Knicks and whoever has the player with the biggest contract with Nike)*, and even with that the Knicks can't put a decent team in Madison Square Garden. What a fucking travesty.
* Actually, the NBA's favoritism to four teams at the expense of everyone else is why the Association is dead to me. I'm only wasting time on this story because of larger considerations.
But I am no fan of the cult of surveillance and denunciation.
The Knick's problem for the past several years has been that Dolan built the team around Carmelo Anthony, a player who scores a ton of points, and is absolutely useless if you want to win a championship.
I may cease watching NBA games altogether after this sordid affair. The cable bill needs to go anyway. I don't want to go back to banging out code in an office or a cube to pay that bill.
Icepick said... ARM, what's your opinion of sports franchises getting sweetheart deals from various governments for arenas, stadia and such?
It is interstate competition much like the competition between Texas and California for manufacturing. I guess they do the numbers and decide whether or not the deal is a winner for the state but I don't like it. Crony capitalism is bad for everyone. New York has been pretty resistant to these deals in recent years presumably because the teams can't get better overall deals in other states.
Okay, the business of professional sports has brought ARM and I together. I guess it's time to batten down the hatches, as this most likely preludes the End Times.
I think Larry Johnson had the best idea. The NBA is 80% black, 30% of their fan base is black - so what do they need with Old white boys like Silver, Stern, or Sterling? What do they add? Except to skim off the profits?
The black players should form their own league, with black owners. In 5 years everyone would be watching it, not the NBA.
You see the problem with the Knicks is exactly what ARM said. The dependence on the pure athletic ability of Carmelo Anthony in isolation plays like you get on the schoolyard. You know black basketball.
Instead of passing the ball and playing defense. You know white basketball.
I hope and pray that Jim Dolan sells the team but for entirely different reasons.
However he is far from the worst owner of a sports franchise in New York. Nobody is worse than the Wilpons. Nobody. Not Sterling. Not Hitler. Not Stalin. Not nobody.
Hey, once the black superstars went to the new "black owned league" the white supporting players would go along. You could even give Larry Bird a team, just for diversity sake. They could call it the "Washington Generals".
Trooper York said... I hope and pray that Jim Dolan sells the team but for entirely different reasons.
However he is far from the worst owner of a sports franchise in New York. Nobody is worse than the Wilpons.
When I first moved to New York I fell into following the Knicks, the Mets and the Jets. The Knicks were a genuinely enjoyable team during in the Ewing/Oakley/Starks era. The other two teams have been miserable. If you count wins per expenditure then Mets are the worst team in baseball. I began following the Jets during the Rich Kotite era because I enjoyed watching the after game press conferences during the 1 and 15 season, which were classics. I knew what I was getting into with that one.
I have not heard anyone call Silver on his lying sack o' shit comment. He used the classic Claude Rains line when he said "I have known Donald Sterling for 20 years and I was shocked to hear this."
I'm outta touch w/ the majority here. He owns a franchise. If I own a McDonald's franchise and spew hateful shit that makes it to the press McDonald's has every right to tell me to sell the franchise.
Yes, there is a lotta slime involved. Sterling is a scumbag, so is his girlfriend and it appears his wife is borderline. There are no heroes. Stern protected his fellow tribe member for decades. Silver, another member of the tribe gets this dumped on him months into his tenure. Then, as mentioned previously, Silver does the "I was shocked" fucking lie. Sterling had to go IMO.
You want to kick out bad owners? What about the G.S. warriors?
What about Joe Barry Carroll? or Chris Webber? Or not being a real factor in the NBA playoffs for almost 40 years?
Felt sorry for the Knicks in the 80s/90s - some good talent, but never at the Celtic/Bulls/Piston level. And Patrick Ewing - Ugliest guy in the NBA. Good player though.
Maybe I'm an old guy, but I lost interest in the NBA after MJ left. The NBA hit a peak in the mid 70s, went into a decline in the late 70s, then you had Magic, Bird, MJ, Barkley, Stockton, Malone, Thomas, Rodman, et al. The dream team in 1992 remember that?
Once upon a time, liberals would say things like, it's when you defend the indefensible that you fight the battle for liberty that matters. You know, like that scene in "The American President" where President Michael Douglas says, "defend flag burning -- defend that!"
rcocean said... Maybe I'm an old guy, but I lost interest in the NBA after MJ left. The NBA hit a peak in the mid 70s, went into a decline in the late 70s, then you had Magic, Bird, MJ, Barkley, Stockton, Malone, Thomas, Rodman, et al. The dream team in 1992 remember that?
I lost much of my interest in the game when I couldn't play any more. I really felt old when I had to stop playing basketball, it was the only team sport that I ever really enjoyed playing. I could have kept going but I kept injuring myself and it stopped being much fun.
Still, if Dolan sold the team I would probably watch again, but I am not watching the Knicks until that happens. I have thought about switching allegiance to the Nets but my heart is not in it.
Sure Father. I just think a lot of us don't think he really is in all that need of defense. You'd be on much better ground if you had stuck to a defense of the First Amendment, although I think you'd lose that argument, too.
He's gonna get a big book out of the deal, a divorce, and a slew of new girlfriends. I'd bet a million dollars the fine is nothing more than a pittance to this guy. He might even live another ten years to enjoy it.
We should be thinking of the souls of those losing their lives in tornado alley. Sherman will be okie-dokie.
Fr Martin Fox said... Once upon a time, liberals would say things like, it's when you defend the indefensible that you fight the battle for liberty that matters. You know, like that scene in "The American President" where President Michael Douglas says, "defend flag burning -- defend that!"
Funny, liberals don't say that anymore.
Not sure what you are saying here. I think he has a right to say the most awful things he can think of about blacks and how Israelis treat black Jews if he wants. If he is censured it is only because 75% of the billionaire NBA owners club decides to censure him. I doubt he cares what I think.
I never liked basketball, even a kid. I like tackle football much more and enjoyed volleyball in school.
I don't believe I've ever watched an entire BB game either live or on TV. I did have a grad school roommate who used to love to get stoned and watch pro basketball. It never caught on for me.
Can you name anyone associated with Sterling, the NBA, the NAACP, or high end prostitutes who came out of this scandal with their reputations unmarked......If the girl friend has 100 hours on tape, the guess here is that she's probably holding back some even worse stuff. She probably gets to keep the cars. Everyone's a loser, but she made money on the deal........His rant seemed more idiosyncratic and wandering than hate filled. What he was actually convicted of--ie discrimination in rental housing--is a far more flagrant foul than asking your girlfriend not to post pictures with black superstars on Instagram. That's a problem peculiar to billionaires.
" I just think a lot of us don't think he really is in all that need of defense."
I don't think anyone here is trying to defend him or is concerned with him. It's the rest of us and the principles we hope protect us from whores in our beds and our institutions that we are worried about. If you can have your personal conversations with your lover secretly taped, sold and then used to damage you and possibly defraud you, without consequences, then nobody is safe except the extremely boring.
How do the legal and social precedents set in this case affect others who won't have the advantages of Mr. Sterling?
I.e., someone being forced out of business because of a private conversation made public?
Father, I just assume that's a social precedent. I think the legal precedents in this case have long since been set. But maybe someone who knows better can correct me.
I suppose the equivalent to being forced out of business for the "disadvantaged" would be losing their job. I think that's been a longstanding policy in any case. Nothing really new here in this poor man's sufferings.
The implications that we don't have much of a personal life anymore are unfortunately also practically settled business. Poor all of us. Maybe we should all be more supportive of Edward Snowden.
This is hardly a crisis for America's poor or marginalized, Father. At least IMO.
The idea of a Freedom of Speech protection is that only government had the ability to effectively shut you up. With our brave new technology, that protection is not enough to protect even your private intimate speech. I suppose the government could engineer such a scenario to get around the First Amendment, and I'm sure they have.
The implications that we don't have much of a personal life anymore are unfortunately also practically settled business.
This "everything is settled" mantra is really irritating.
No, nothing is settled. Everything depends on what we do.
Standing up to the race hucksters, ridiculing them and refusing to play the "You're a racist" game would go a long way toward taking away the huckter's power.
Well, I am shocked that the focus has been on a girlfriend taping a boyfriend. In my biz that was quite common. Do you folks live in Mayberry? Shit, Aunt Bea used to tape Floyd when they were doing the nasty in the backroom of the barbershop.
ndspinelli said... Well, I am shocked that the focus has been on a girlfriend taping a boyfriend. In my biz that was quite common.
I am curious about this. It is still not clear who released the audio clips. I imagine the GF is in deep shit legally just for making the recordings, even if she didn't release them. I know the law differs between states on this, not sure what CA law is.
bagoh20 wrote: If you can have your personal conversations with your lover secretly taped, sold and then used to damage you and possibly defraud you, without consequences, then nobody is safe except the extremely boring.
How does this fundamentally differ from the frog-boiling environment of today's NSA surveillance? Or do we all hope that we're not important enough to be on anyone's radar?
Speaking for myself, YES I get it and have gotten it for years now. Most of my life I have lived and worked in communities where I am the minority. On both sides of the planet. In all my experiences I have found the stances taken by the activists and purported experts did NOT match the realities I experienced every day.
Once upon a time I wondered what I was missing? Then it occurred to me I was missing nothing, the experts (almost always from out of town or from a ethnic minority contingent within the town) were merely serving their own interests. Truth was never part of it.
Examples are the Sunni predominant CAIR operating in a predominantly Shiite community and Sharpton's NAN trying to speak for all blacks as if all blacks are exactly the same.
A hero of mine, if I am allowed to have one, would be USMC General Victor Krulak who famously said: "You cannot defeat an idea with a bullet. You can defeat an idea only with a better idea." That was his rationale for the Combined Action Program (CAP) in Vietnam where regular Marines were embedded as small units, with Vietnamese soldiers as part of the unit, in various villages.
In short, my opinion is that you don't learn much just looking in from outside. I've given up trying to persuade activists of random errors in their stances. I don't even listen anymore.
I was listening to the Sports Station in NYC and the little liberal pipsqueak Evan Roberts was going on and on about how none of the owners would vote against forcing Sterling to sell. The next step will be to demonize and force the people who vote against taking away a franchise because of "speech." I mean they don't have the right to think that. They need to be destroyed and lose their jobs like the dude at Mozilla.
Edit your thoughts. Free speech is as Murphy's dick.
Bah. Some of you righties are contradicting yourselves on this issue. You want corps to be deregulated but you don't want them to have the right to hire or fire whom they want. You want everyone to have free speech but you're pissed off that people are exercising it when it comes to Sherman.
I think it's more complex than that. Consider three recent cases: The Duck Dynasty scenario, the Brendan Eich saga, and the Sterling story.
In the Duck Dynasty scenario, GLAAD activistic pressure company executives into "punishing" the patriarch for off-color remarks. There was a substantial public outcry and the patriarch was reinstated on the show. There corporate decision was "wrong" in court of public opinion and GLAAD got egg on their face which they probably didn't mind because they're used to taking it on the chin. That case was analogous to the Chick-fil-a fiasco a while back.
In the Brendan Eich story, the company fired an executive and the decision stuck. Because Eich was not a celebrity, he was at a distinct disadvantage compared to Robertson because he, like, Robertson, probably enjoyed more sympathy in the public eye (depending on where one lived).
But neither the Eich case nor the Robertson case involved trying to fire the owner of a franchise. As Spinelli pointed out here, Sterling owns a franchise which is part of something larger and there may be something in the contract which allows the NBA to nullify something as well as sanction, but still he's a larger fish than Eich and Robertson were in their respective ponds.
Sterling may still come out ahead if he persists in litigation against the forces which brought him down. There are sinister forces at work there too.
♫ Some of those at work forces, are the same that spurn crosses. ♫
153 comments:
A lot of good points.
One thing I noticed, SD seems to be a town where the Lefties vote dry and drink wet - not only Sterling, but Filner.
Or maybe it's that soft bigotry of low expectations coming out.
"Shouldn’t we be equally angered by the fact that his private, intimate conversation was taped and then leaked to the media? Didn’t we just call to task the NSA for intruding into American citizen’s privacy in such an un-American way?
We are creating the expectation of reward for the surreptitious recording private conversations.
...they aren't playing for Sterling...
Who's paying their salaries?
"Welcome To The Finger-Wagging Olympics."
No doubt and indeed.
Lem said...
Shouldn’t we be equally angered by the fact that his private, intimate conversation was taped and then leaked to the media? Didn’t we just call to task the NSA for intruding into American citizen’s privacy in such an un-American way?
We are creating the expectation of reward for the surreptitious recording private conversations.
The Lefties' most treasured way of catching their enemies off guard.
As with other savages, they're beginning to devour their own.
Mr Alcindor makes a very righteous point in this regard.
Doubtless, he will be on the receiving end of a similar situation for questioning the methods of the RSD.
By reserving and heaping all the wrath, some of it deserved, upon Donald Sterling, and not at least criticizing the ignominious secret recording, we are creating the impression that the end does justifies the means.
That's been the Lefty MO for a century.
Yeah I don't personally like the get-out-the-pitchforks approach. You need to choose your words carefully. Kareem many not care but I'd prefer trying to work with people.
"Love of the Victim is an attempt at a non-deist recreation of religious feeling,"
Same here.
Mark me down as someone who thinks that you should be able to say whatever you want, to whomever you want, at any time you want, about any subject that you want.
I also think that we should allow citizens to discriminate. You shouldn't have to hire someone that you don't like, or wouldn't be a good fit with the other employees that are working for you. It's a free country. If employees of Sterling don't like what he has to say, they should quit.
Well, it turns out Johnson could be taking matters into his own hands. The Hall of Famer is “absolutely interested” in purchasing the Clippers with Mark Walter and the Guggenheim Partners, according to Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports. The same group owns MLB’s Los Angeles Dodgers.
Sterling is going to get offered a dollar for the team. If he's lucky.
Mark me down as someone who thinks that you should be able to say whatever you want, to whomever you want, at any time you want, about any subject that you want
No argument there. The question is should you say everything you want, to whoever, whenever? And if you do, shouldn't you also expect free-market repercussions? Should we be allowed to counter what's said with our own points of view?
NBA To Make Announcement On Donald Sterling Investigation...
ESPN spotted Spike Lee in the front row.
Lem said...
Well, it turns out Johnson could be taking matters into his own hands. The Hall of Famer is “absolutely interested” in purchasing the Clippers with Mark Walter and the Guggenheim Partners, according to Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports. The same group owns MLB’s Los Angeles Dodgers.
Sterling is going to get offered a dollar for the team. If he's lucky.
No, if he wants to play dog in the manger, he could end up holding the franchise for ransom.
Read again what I said, phx, and you'll be able to answer your own question.
Donald Sterling is banned and fined 2.5 million.
Adam Silver apologized on behalf of the NBA
Adam Silver is campaigning to force Sterling to sell.
Allen S - I agree with that too. Just wondering what in this process that's happening do you not agree with?
Maybe you think everyone's reaction is just over the top. I think some of it is, but so far it seems to be playing out the way you would expect or the way it should, IMO. It's not like he's the ONLY person in the NBA who thinks or talks that way in private. He's not Evil Incarnate or the Reason We Are Not Evolving.
But he's a big boy and can pay the piper for his stupidity, no doubt.
Adam Silver seems visibly shaken making the announcement.
'I'll let the lawyers specify what violation covers the banning of Donald Sterling'
I was thrown by the privacy aspect - "your private life will explode."
But that's the way it is now. Accountability may not be a bad thing when it comes to some of these big catz.
I haven't really figured out the right or wrong of that for myself though. Just following my gut. My gut says "Pay the Piper, dude!"
Still, you have to be ready to forgive even before people ask to be forgiven, sometimes.
Overkill. But you never know when someone's going to make a scapegoat out of you.
So Sterling has been banned for life from the NBA. Kareem is right that Sterling has been a disgraceful owner for a long time, but that is why everyone is anxious to get rid of him now. It is not the response to just one incident but a history of incidents. His survival until now can only be attributed to him having some hold over David Stern, who is now gone.
It's good news for the team, much like the Yankees during Steinbrenner's suspension, the team will now be run properly until a new owner can be installed.
I wonder if there is some way to assess a fine to John Kerry for his racist comment.
Nah.
But seriously, what Sterling said/how he apparently thinks is despicable. YOU WILL BE FINED FOR YOUR WORDS/THOUGHTS is a little scary.
Pfeh. I don't support that. Love wins. Shame never does.
Phx...."accountability?" Please any vestige of that went out the proverbial window long ago when President Clinton took a blow job, in the Oval Office closet no less, from a 20 something intern, and got away with it.
At this point, what difference does it make?
It will be interesting to learn just what, exactly, this "ban for life from NBA activities" entails...about now it sounds like an illegal taking if he is involuntarily separated from his property...aka the Clippers as a franchise. Not too sure ole Adam Silver has that authority.
YOU WILL BE FINED FOR YOUR WORDS/THOUGHTS is a little scary.
I say a lot scary.
That's quite a precedent Mr. Silver has set, if it holds up.
But banning him for life AND fining him 2.5 mil? Why not just gather a little firewood, put a stake in the ground, and do it the old fashioned way?
YOU WILL BE FINED FOR YOUR WORDS/THOUGHTS is a little scary.
What's new? Ordinary people face that on the job all the time.
"A moral panic is an intense feeling expressed in a population about an issue that appears to threaten the social order.
Criticism of Moral Panic Theory...
"In a more recent edition of Folk Devils and Moral Panics, Cohen outlines some of the criticisms that have arisen in response to moral panic theory. One of these is of the term "panic" itself, as it has connotations of irrationality and a lack of control. Cohen maintains that "panic" is a suitable term when used as an extended metaphor. Another criticism is that of disproportionality. The problem with this argument is that there is no way to measure what a proportionate reaction should be to a specific action."
What's new? Ordinary people face that on the job all the time.
So, you are saying that do to Sterling's position he is not ordinary... Sterling should be treated extraordinarily?
I don't think so, Lem. I'm just saying in response to the idea that it's terrible to fined or fired for saying things that your employer doesn't want to be associated with: that's how it is for ordinary people. If they get caught saying racist things on Facebook, etc., in most states they can be fired - even if those were supposed to be private conversations.
So why should anyone expect it would be different for him?
The NBA is firing him because he's an embarrassment to them. That could happen to any of us who said really ugly things and got caught.
I see your point, phx, but fined is different than fired, and in this case, losing property that you own for something you said.
It will be interesting to see how the legal process works.
Ok, I understand.
This incident reinforces that trend then.
The trend being...
I'm going to guess there's a whole of contracts potential owners sign in order to buy a team. I don't think it's "your property" necessarily. Maybe more of a franchise with the home office reserving a whole slew of right to themselves.
But we will probably have to wait to know all this for sure. But I'm not buying the property rights argument yet.
PHX,
You're ignoring the fact that it was a private conversation, off the job with a non-employee.
The Facebook comparison does not hold up. You seem like the Facebook type, so I know that you know this.
phx said...
What's new? Ordinary people face that on the job all the time.
As well as random drug testing, personal searches, wage theft, etc. Serfs in everything but the name.
The trend being...
There'll be the breaking of the ancient western code
Your private life will suddenly explode
There'll be phantoms
There'll be fires on the road
And the white man dancing
- Leonard Cohen
The fine is based on their bylaws... the banning? that's where the disproportionality... the excess comes in.
Rabel said...
You're ignoring the fact that it was a private conversation, off the job with a non-employee.
That was plastered all over the internet affecting the profitability of a league competing for entertainment dollars. And, it wasn't his first time around the rodeo. His previous discussions regarding high priced hookers and where and how he fucked them are classics of the form.
You can argue that this is a pretext, but he has been an embarrassment to the league for a long, long time and now is as good a time as any to remove him. Stern is gone and now so is this cretin.
You're ignoring the fact that it was a private conversation, off the job with a non-employee.
Rabel I here you, but it doesn't matter. Even if your private messages came out against your will, if your boss saw them and wants to fire you because of their content, she can in most states. That's my IANAL understanding anyway. Open to correction here but I don't think so.
phx,
Sterling doesn't have a boss. He's an owner.
Let's hope he takes the NBA to the cleaners. He's an old guy and he may not think it's worth it.
I hope he does it out of principle to bring the witch hunters to their knees.
I agree it's probably disproportionate - although maybe ARM is right.
In either case, oh well. I got a long list of injustices to mourn today. He's pretty far down.
Sterling doesn't have a boss. He's an owner.
Trust me. The NBA is his boss.
It's time for all out war with the racism hucksters.
I'm down.
It's time for all out war with the racism hucksters.
What's with the "all out war" people today? Full moon?
I like a good fight.
Especially for a good cause.
Driving hucksters like ARM and Meade into the bushes seems like fun to me.
Who gives a fuck about racism?
Clive Bundy raises cows.
He doesn't raise black people.
I point this out for the morons in the crowd who can't quite put this together.
If you pick and choose injustices to mourn or not mourn, do you think you are in effect picking and choosing which injustices to allow to go on. Do I have that right?
If you pick and choose injustices to mourn or not mourn, do you think you are in effect picking and choosing which injustices to allow to go on. Do I have that right?
Yes, and that's the situation for all of us. Nobody can mourn all the injustices. No one's that big. You would die of grief.
Everyone picks and chooses. Even if they don't admit it.
You can say 'All injustices are wrong' which I agree with, but that's not the same thing.
Just asking. Mourn may not be apt here.
The Thought Police are here to stay, apparently. And gaining power because we allow.
The Thought Police are here to stay, apparently. And gaining power because we allow.
That's pretty much true. Got a plan? I do. I don't think it will necessarily work or not, but these are impersonal forces that are pushing on us, IMO. It's like cancer, or a car accident. Strategies, not blame, is my code.
phx, I happen to think this example is very personal. Reaching into a private conversation. I'm curious as to what you view as impersonal here.
That said, Ace has a post up about what the bylaws say about Silver's power. It's interesting. I think I'd concede that he has that legal power for public statements. Unlawfully taped private conversation is another matter to me.
I've got a plan.
I'm a free man. Nobody has control over me.
I don't give a shit what kinds of names assholes call me. Hell, I was one of the first to publicly oppose the Vietnam War. I'm used to assholes playing defamation games.
It's time to go to war. I'm an artist. I'll find the way.
My plan is to defy the race huckster assholes and force them into an open fight.
My plan is to follow the advice of Pope John Paul II: "Be not afraid!"
How long before they start making everyone take lie detector tests to determine if we have unpopular views.
I've got a real problem that people are profiting over tapes illegally made concerning a private citizen's private conversations. Magic Johnson and his partners (who include Michael Milken, who is a much bigger and more dangerous scumbag than Sterling) stand to make a tidy profit off this.
So, we're going to reward that kind of thing now, all because RACISM!
Here are a list of behaviors the NBA does not consider embarrassing:
Calling for an all black league;
Stating that white players are no good;
Calling anyone and everyone nigger all the time, just so long as the person saying nigger is a black person;
Gambling with know gangsters;
Giving dozens of people AIDS;
Isaiah Thomas as GM or coach;
Supporting dog fighting (lots of players were supportive of Michael Vick);
Looking like Paul Mokesky;
Shooting free throws like Shaquille O'Neal;
Being the worst owner in professional sports for three decades.
Could go on, but I don't see the point. The NBA accepts lots of objectionable behavior, and lots of racist behavior. They're just looking to give Magic Johnson and Michael Milken an NBA team. And that kind of association is despicable.
If we could fire ALL the racists in the NBA, I could probably negotiate myself a pretty good contract as power forward on a one of those teams. If we fired all the rapists, batterers, and other criminals, I'd be on a championship team and probably win MVP.
The decision to remove Stirling is a business decision. Hard to argue with that. He has been bad for business.
Agreed. The disgusting thing is what foulness is not embarrassing or worthy of a similar "business decision". An 80 year old guy says racist words, but he also employs lots of Blacks and provides them truly exceptional opportunities, and these Blacks compete for the chance to work for him. He gets the axe, but players who commit crimes like rape, assault, robbery, cheating, and thus actually do hurt the fortunes of Blacks would never be banned, because money. Racial affronts are never serious enough to overcome financial interests and are rarely about much more than money.
This was an extortion game played out with Magic Johnson and Stirling's mistress as co-conspirators.
The precedent is set.
Any kind of criminal attack on a person deemed "racist" is justified.
Stirling's character is irrelevant.
You may be next.
Personally I don't give a shit what Kareem thinks.
I want to know how Lew Alcindor feels about this shit.
ST, your theory sounds highly plausible since it seems like the mistress had been trying for some time to get such a recording, and Magic has been trying to get the team, and he immediately came out swinging about this terrible affront to all Blacks now, even though he has known the guy his whole career. Suspicious timing to it all for me.
The NBA is busy beating it's chest and throwing Sterling under the bus for a private conversation illegally obtained by a person who is accused of embezzlement. Words that are so serious that they demand he divest an 800 million dollar investment that he held for decades at what I am sure will be a bargain basement price in what in effect will be a distress sale.
If the league feels so strongly about this the should buy the franchise at a fairly appraised cost and then resell it. Let them put their money where their mouth is instead of this bullshit posturing.
"The decision to remove Stirling is a business decision. Hard to argue with that."
They had other options besides the death penalty.
This happen too quickly for those to have been pursued.
This was a public lynching. They could have strung him up privately and then thrown him in the river chained to a cotton gin fan.
Possibly that was in poor taste.
Fox is reporting that Sterling's mistress recorded more than 100 hours of conversations with him. One hundred hours to find two dozen words with which he could be destroyed. She committed a crime; I hope she is charged.
What do you think NBA players talk about on the practice court, or in the privacy of the locker room? Ant doubt that some of what is said is mysoginistic? Or homophobic, maybe even racist? Those cheering what happened to Sterling need to be very careful.
And RIP 1st amendment.
If Sterling has competent consul and financial advisors he will sell to the highest bidder and sue the shit out of the NBA if they force him to sell to Magic Johnson.
This shit smells to high heaven.
Sterling should be ready to sell the team at the appraised price to anyone other than Magic Johnson.
I would do the same thing that another old racist Jewish guy Lewis Katz did with the Nets. Sell it to a Russian Mafia guy. Hey maybe he could sell it to Vladimir Putin his ownself.
That would be craptastic!
Just imagine all the stuff they have Putin saying on tape. Hee.
Wait a minute. I just read the NBA Commissioners statements.
He banned Sterling from "going to an NBA game." Can he do that? Can you just ban people from a public performance? I thought there were some laws about that?
@Trooper
The Russkie commies would have been hard pressed to produce a quicker kangaroo trial and public denunciation.
What's next? Bullet in the back of the head in a basement?
I mean can the Yankee owners ban Met fans from attending their games?
Can you ban bookies? Pornographers?
Child Molesters? Criminals of any type?
Can the NBA Commissioner ban all felons from attending an NBA game? Can the NFL Commissioner ban all felons from playing in an NFL game?
Or is it only people caught saying racist stuff?
How does this work? What is the new rules?
I mean there is one indisputable proof that for all of his statements Donald Sterling is not really a racist.
If he was really a racist he would own a hockey team.
Pay close attention to what is happening to the billionaire Sterling...
Because it is exactly what will happen, ere long, to anyone who says that homosexual behavior is sinful, or that marriage is only supposed to be between a man and a woman.
Yes, they are coming after the Church, Fr.
It's time for me to attend to my practice as a Catholic. I'm not doing a very good job there.
Just as it was in the battle against communism, the Church appears likely to be the only effective institution left standing and willing to fight.
Remember the words of Pope John Paul II: "Be Not Afraid!"
You are exactly right Father.
They will be coming after the church for holding politically incorrect views. They have already started with the Obamacare demand that nuns offer birth control and abortion services.
The time will come where they will arrest you on the alter for refusing to perform a sacrament for people who violate the church's doctrine.
Watch and see.
Notice how easy it is for phx to laugh off the invasion of Sterling's privacy rights and laugh off the confiscation of his property for holding politically incorrect views. They will have no problem laughing off the same thing if it happens to the church. In fact they will applaud as churches, temples and synagogues are shuttered.
Fr Martin Fox said...
Pay close attention to what is happening to the billionaire Sterling...
Because it is exactly what will happen, ere long, to anyone who says that homosexual behavior is sinful, or that marriage is only supposed to be between a man and a woman.
That's been going on for the last 40 years.
Anita Bryant ring any bells?
If we fired all the rapists, batterers, and other criminals, I'd be on a championship team and probably win MVP.
With that porn stache? No chance. This ain't the Seventies anymore! Although at least yours is good. That guy from Gonsaga a few years back, his stache was terrible.
bagho is the Wendall Ladner of Lem's blog.
Look it up.
That's Wendell Ladner!
Sorry.
Sterling was complaining about two people in particular appearing with his ho on instagram: Magic Johnson and Matt Kemp, who is an employee of Johnson's on the Dodgers.
Johnson works with the very wealthy Guggenheim Partners group. Who have at least $800,000,000 of Michael Milken's money. (He has to do something with it since HE has been banned for life from Securities trading. You know how hard it is to carry a few billion in cash around in your wallet? He's got to do something with it.)
So it's like that line in "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly": One bastard goes in, another comes out!
Marion Barry said it right.
LOL @ the Wendell Ladner reference!
I knew you were an ABA fan like me Icepick.
Because it is exactly what will happen, before long, to anyone who says that homosexual behavior is sinful, or that marriage is only supposed to be between a man and a woman.
Father Fox nails it.
I actually went to a Miami Floridians game back in the day!
Yes, Ladner died while flying, still young and virile. I expect to do the same someday.
More people need to be like me. I don't watch pro basketball and would never go to a game.
Problem solved.
I feel the same, but for different reasons about pro hockey. Get rid of the fighting.
I am happy to see Sterling go because the title of worst owner in the league now defaults to Jim Dolan. That bastard ruined one of the greatest sources of entertainment in my life. The Knicks have been unwatchable for a decade. I am now praying that there is some scandal in Dolan's life that will push him out as well.
ARM pushes a button. I don't know how hot it is however.
Who's a knick fan here?
I am happy to see Sterling go because the title of worst owner in the league now defaults to Jim Dolan.
I don't like the way Sterling is going, but to Hell with him as an owner. He has actually managed to be a worse owner than Hugh Culverhouse, and I didn't think that was possible.
Leagues ought to have some standards that owners have to meet. If they can't win at least occasionally, they ought to be replaced. Dan Snyder, I'm looking in your direction. Woodie Hess, you need to get the arteries unclogged and win or sell the damned team already.
And Jim Dolan of the Knicks ... how fucky awful is that guy? The NBA only works for the betterment of four teams (the Celtic, Lakers, Knicks and whoever has the player with the biggest contract with Nike)*, and even with that the Knicks can't put a decent team in Madison Square Garden. What a fucking travesty.
* Actually, the NBA's favoritism to four teams at the expense of everyone else is why the Association is dead to me. I'm only wasting time on this story because of larger considerations.
Who knew that crappy sports franchise ownership could bring me and ARM into agreement on anything.
ARM, what's your opinion of sports franchises getting sweetheart deals from various governments for arenas, stadia and such?
I'm a Knick fan.
But I am no fan of the cult of surveillance and denunciation.
The Knick's problem for the past several years has been that Dolan built the team around Carmelo Anthony, a player who scores a ton of points, and is absolutely useless if you want to win a championship.
I may cease watching NBA games altogether after this sordid affair. The cable bill needs to go anyway. I don't want to go back to banging out code in an office or a cube to pay that bill.
Icepick said...
ARM, what's your opinion of sports franchises getting sweetheart deals from various governments for arenas, stadia and such?
It is interstate competition much like the competition between Texas and California for manufacturing. I guess they do the numbers and decide whether or not the deal is a winner for the state but I don't like it. Crony capitalism is bad for everyone. New York has been pretty resistant to these deals in recent years presumably because the teams can't get better overall deals in other states.
Okay, the business of professional sports has brought ARM and I together. I guess it's time to batten down the hatches, as this most likely preludes the End Times.
And speaking of intolerance....
Now the sentence has been read, I'm hoping for a long and extended trial which bankrupts the girlfriend among others.
Execution first, trial afterwards.
I think Larry Johnson had the best idea. The NBA is 80% black, 30% of their fan base is black - so what do they need with Old white boys like Silver, Stern, or Sterling? What do they add? Except to skim off the profits?
The black players should form their own league, with black owners. In 5 years everyone would be watching it, not the NBA.
You see the problem with the Knicks is exactly what ARM said. The dependence on the pure athletic ability of Carmelo Anthony in isolation plays like you get on the schoolyard. You know black basketball.
Instead of passing the ball and playing defense. You know white basketball.
Just sayn'
I mean what do they need except a small BB arena, a BB, and a TV camera?
Build it, and they will come - Ralph Kramden.
I hope and pray that Jim Dolan sells the team but for entirely different reasons.
However he is far from the worst owner of a sports franchise in New York. Nobody is worse than the Wilpons. Nobody. Not Sterling. Not Hitler. Not Stalin. Not nobody.
Rc is on fire tonight.
The sarcasm is strong in this one.
It is. an interesting morality tale, isn't it?
Sterling's life wouldn't have been disrupted if he had only honored his marriage commitment. But he didn't. And look what happened.
Hey, once the black superstars went to the new "black owned league" the white supporting players would go along. You could even give Larry Bird a team, just for diversity sake. They could call it the "Washington Generals".
I had Knick season tickets for more than twenty years. Since Red Holzman.
It has been a lot worse than it is now.
You had to be there for the Bob Hill era to know how bad it can get.
I don't mind hockey and basketball, but they don't do anything for me.
Trooper York said...
I hope and pray that Jim Dolan sells the team but for entirely different reasons.
However he is far from the worst owner of a sports franchise in New York. Nobody is worse than the Wilpons.
When I first moved to New York I fell into following the Knicks, the Mets and the Jets. The Knicks were a genuinely enjoyable team during in the Ewing/Oakley/Starks era. The other two teams have been miserable. If you count wins per expenditure then Mets are the worst team in baseball. I began following the Jets during the Rich Kotite era because I enjoyed watching the after game press conferences during the 1 and 15 season, which were classics. I knew what I was getting into with that one.
I have not heard anyone call Silver on his lying sack o' shit comment. He used the classic Claude Rains line when he said "I have known Donald Sterling for 20 years and I was shocked to hear this."
I'm outta touch w/ the majority here. He owns a franchise. If I own a McDonald's franchise and spew hateful shit that makes it to the press McDonald's has every right to tell me to sell the franchise.
Yes, there is a lotta slime involved. Sterling is a scumbag, so is his girlfriend and it appears his wife is borderline. There are no heroes. Stern protected his fellow tribe member for decades. Silver, another member of the tribe gets this dumped on him months into his tenure. Then, as mentioned previously, Silver does the "I was shocked" fucking lie. Sterling had to go IMO.
I wonder how the two hotshot fund managers who paid one half billion dollars last week to buy the Milwaukee Bucks are feeling tonight?
You want to kick out bad owners? What about the G.S. warriors?
What about Joe Barry Carroll? or Chris Webber? Or not being a real factor in the NBA playoffs for almost 40 years?
Felt sorry for the Knicks in the 80s/90s - some good talent, but never at the Celtic/Bulls/Piston level. And Patrick Ewing - Ugliest guy in the NBA. Good player though.
Maybe I'm an old guy, but I lost interest in the NBA after MJ left. The NBA hit a peak in the mid 70s, went into a decline in the late 70s, then you had Magic, Bird, MJ, Barkley, Stockton, Malone, Thomas, Rodman, et al. The dream team in 1992 remember that?
But its all just gotten too same old, same old.
Those were the great NBA years, the sterling years.
Once upon a time, liberals would say things like, it's when you defend the indefensible that you fight the battle for liberty that matters. You know, like that scene in "The American President" where President Michael Douglas says, "defend flag burning -- defend that!"
Funny, liberals don't say that anymore.
rcocean said...
Maybe I'm an old guy, but I lost interest in the NBA after MJ left. The NBA hit a peak in the mid 70s, went into a decline in the late 70s, then you had Magic, Bird, MJ, Barkley, Stockton, Malone, Thomas, Rodman, et al. The dream team in 1992 remember that?
I lost much of my interest in the game when I couldn't play any more. I really felt old when I had to stop playing basketball, it was the only team sport that I ever really enjoyed playing. I could have kept going but I kept injuring myself and it stopped being much fun.
Still, if Dolan sold the team I would probably watch again, but I am not watching the Knicks until that happens. I have thought about switching allegiance to the Nets but my heart is not in it.
Sure Father. I just think a lot of us don't think he really is in all that need of defense. You'd be on much better ground if you had stuck to a defense of the First Amendment, although I think you'd lose that argument, too.
He's gonna get a big book out of the deal, a divorce, and a slew of new girlfriends. I'd bet a million dollars the fine is nothing more than a pittance to this guy. He might even live another ten years to enjoy it.
We should be thinking of the souls of those losing their lives in tornado alley. Sherman will be okie-dokie.
Fr Martin Fox said...
Once upon a time, liberals would say things like, it's when you defend the indefensible that you fight the battle for liberty that matters. You know, like that scene in "The American President" where President Michael Douglas says, "defend flag burning -- defend that!"
Funny, liberals don't say that anymore.
Not sure what you are saying here. I think he has a right to say the most awful things he can think of about blacks and how Israelis treat black Jews if he wants. If he is censured it is only because 75% of the billionaire NBA owners club decides to censure him. I doubt he cares what I think.
I never liked basketball, even a kid. I like tackle football much more and enjoyed volleyball in school.
I don't believe I've ever watched an entire BB game either live or on TV. I did have a grad school roommate who used to love to get stoned and watch pro basketball. It never caught on for me.
My only concern in all of this is the changing legal standards of privacy which I'm glad KAJ mentions.
Can you name anyone associated with Sterling, the NBA, the NAACP, or high end prostitutes who came out of this scandal with their reputations unmarked......If the girl friend has 100 hours on tape, the guess here is that she's probably holding back some even worse stuff. She probably gets to keep the cars. Everyone's a loser, but she made money on the deal........His rant seemed more idiosyncratic and wandering than hate filled. What he was actually convicted of--ie discrimination in rental housing--is a far more flagrant foul than asking your girlfriend not to post pictures with black superstars on Instagram. That's a problem peculiar to billionaires.
" I just think a lot of us don't think he really is in all that need of defense."
I don't think anyone here is trying to defend him or is concerned with him. It's the rest of us and the principles we hope protect us from whores in our beds and our institutions that we are worried about. If you can have your personal conversations with your lover secretly taped, sold and then used to damage you and possibly defraud you, without consequences, then nobody is safe except the extremely boring.
The "discrimination in housing" thing seems to be a reference to not wanting to rent out his property to gang bangers.
Geez, what an odd idea!
bagoh20 said...
nobody is safe except the extremely boring
and the accountants shall inherit the earth.
Phx:
How do the legal and social precedents set in this case affect others who won't have the advantages of Mr. Sterling?
I.e., someone being forced out of business because of a private conversation made public?
It's funny how often these things take turns that induce expressions of shock: golly, who coulda thought that would happen?
Wait and see...
@Fr. Fox: For one thing, it's gonna make life harder for a ho. Sugar daddies are gonna be wary, at least for a while.
and the accountants shall inherit the earth.
You've been pretty hot to trot over the defamation/denunication game over racism, ARM.
You're not happy with the result? You didn't see this coming?
Are you going to cease with the idiot defamation/denunciation game?
Somehow, I don't see that happening.
How do the legal and social precedents set in this case affect others who won't have the advantages of Mr. Sterling?
I.e., someone being forced out of business because of a private conversation made public?
Father, I just assume that's a social precedent. I think the legal precedents in this case have long since been set. But maybe someone who knows better can correct me.
I suppose the equivalent to being forced out of business for the "disadvantaged" would be losing their job. I think that's been a longstanding policy in any case. Nothing really new here in this poor man's sufferings.
The implications that we don't have much of a personal life anymore are unfortunately also practically settled business. Poor all of us. Maybe we should all be more supportive of Edward Snowden.
This is hardly a crisis for America's poor or marginalized, Father. At least IMO.
The idea of a Freedom of Speech protection is that only government had the ability to effectively shut you up. With our brave new technology, that protection is not enough to protect even your private intimate speech. I suppose the government could engineer such a scenario to get around the First Amendment, and I'm sure they have.
The implications that we don't have much of a personal life anymore are unfortunately also practically settled business.
This "everything is settled" mantra is really irritating.
No, nothing is settled. Everything depends on what we do.
Standing up to the race hucksters, ridiculing them and refusing to play the "You're a racist" game would go a long way toward taking away the huckter's power.
Well, I am shocked that the focus has been on a girlfriend taping a boyfriend. In my biz that was quite common. Do you folks live in Mayberry? Shit, Aunt Bea used to tape Floyd when they were doing the nasty in the backroom of the barbershop.
@spinelli
I'm not shocked by anything a mistress would do for revenge. Believe me, I've seen it all.
What is shocking is how the racism hysteria plays out when a mistress uses it for revenge...
And how eager we are to string up the heretic. The heretic status attached to the racism accusation is an absurdity.
ndspinelli said...
Well, I am shocked that the focus has been on a girlfriend taping a boyfriend. In my biz that was quite common.
I am curious about this. It is still not clear who released the audio clips. I imagine the GF is in deep shit legally just for making the recordings, even if she didn't release them. I know the law differs between states on this, not sure what CA law is.
I learned that lesson the hard way, nick.
Though I do laugh now when I think back to how I tried to hit on the chick who turned out to be the PI my ex-gf hired to follow me.
Racism hysteria is bullshit.
I keep waiting for the light to go on, and for sensible people to cease reacting to the weekly racism outrage.
This witch hunt long ago went completely bonkers.
bagoh20 wrote: If you can have your personal conversations with your lover secretly taped, sold and then used to damage you and possibly defraud you, without consequences, then nobody is safe except the extremely boring.
How does this fundamentally differ from the frog-boiling environment of today's NSA surveillance? Or do we all hope that we're not important enough to be on anyone's radar?
ChipS, Ouch!! Sorry dude. I had a woman PI work for me. She was very attractive but I never took those cases for her to work.
Hey, I got some nice 8x10 glossy candids out of the deal.
ST said...
Aren't you guys getting this?
Speaking for myself, YES I get it and have gotten it for years now. Most of my life I have lived and worked in communities where I am the minority. On both sides of the planet. In all my experiences I have found the stances taken by the activists and purported experts did NOT match the realities I experienced every day.
Once upon a time I wondered what I was missing? Then it occurred to me I was missing nothing, the experts (almost always from out of town or from a ethnic minority contingent within the town) were merely serving their own interests. Truth was never part of it.
Examples are the Sunni predominant CAIR operating in a predominantly Shiite community and Sharpton's NAN trying to speak for all blacks as if all blacks are exactly the same.
A hero of mine, if I am allowed to have one, would be USMC General Victor Krulak who famously said: "You cannot defeat an idea with a bullet. You can defeat an idea only with a better idea." That was his rationale for the Combined Action Program (CAP) in Vietnam where regular Marines were embedded as small units, with Vietnamese soldiers as part of the unit, in various villages.
In short, my opinion is that you don't learn much just looking in from outside. I've given up trying to persuade activists of random errors in their stances. I don't even listen anymore.
Spinelli, now you're just talking shit. Everyone knows that was Goober in the back room with Floyd.
Now Gomer was straight. Lots of stories about that legendary stud. They always end like this:
"Gomer! That's not my bellybutton!"
"And that's not my finger. Surprise! Surprise! Surprise!"
I was listening to the Sports Station in NYC and the little liberal pipsqueak Evan Roberts was going on and on about how none of the owners would vote against forcing Sterling to sell. The next step will be to demonize and force the people who vote against taking away a franchise because of "speech." I mean they don't have the right to think that. They need to be destroyed and lose their jobs like the dude at Mozilla.
Edit your thoughts. Free speech is as Murphy's dick.
That is to say Free Speech is as dead as Murphy's dick.
Auto correct rejected Murphy's dick. It must be lesbian or something.
Bah. Some of you righties are contradicting yourselves on this issue. You want corps to be deregulated but you don't want them to have the right to hire or fire whom they want. You want everyone to have free speech but you're pissed off that people are exercising it when it comes to Sherman.
I think it's more complex than that. Consider three recent cases: The Duck Dynasty scenario, the Brendan Eich saga, and the Sterling story.
In the Duck Dynasty scenario, GLAAD activistic pressure company executives into "punishing" the patriarch for off-color remarks. There was a substantial public outcry and the patriarch was reinstated on the show. There corporate decision was "wrong" in court of public opinion and GLAAD got egg on their face which they probably didn't mind because they're used to taking it on the chin. That case was analogous to the Chick-fil-a fiasco a while back.
In the Brendan Eich story, the company fired an executive and the decision stuck. Because Eich was not a celebrity, he was at a distinct disadvantage compared to Robertson because he, like, Robertson, probably enjoyed more sympathy in the public eye (depending on where one lived).
But neither the Eich case nor the Robertson case involved trying to fire the owner of a franchise. As Spinelli pointed out here, Sterling owns a franchise which is part of something larger and there may be something in the contract which allows the NBA to nullify something as well as sanction, but still he's a larger fish than Eich and Robertson were in their respective ponds.
Sterling may still come out ahead if he persists in litigation against the forces which brought him down. There are sinister forces at work there too.
♫ Some of those at work forces, are the same that spurn crosses. ♫
Oh and I consider that last lyric to be an improvement on the original if you think about it.
Post a Comment