All my adult life, I’ve had an aversion to the popular professional sports. It’s not that there is something innately evil about them. On the contrary, if people enjoy participating, and watching, such activities then all the power to them. As long as they are not hurting anybody, have at it I say. But there’s the rub. Professional sports has become eerily similar to religion. Football and basketball in the U.S., and soccer in the rest of the world, are taken far too seriously by their fans.
There was a time when I lived in Denver and a referendum was proposed. Voters were asked if they wished to add an extra one cent per ten dollars in sales tax in order to build a new stadium for the Broncos. I saw this as naked theft by the Broncos and their fans. I went door to door campaigning against the referendum. I put up signs and distributed fliers. The referendum passed. It passed not because people had a deep understanding of personal versus public property. Nor was it because they had an advanced sense of right and wrong. It was an alliance of Bronco fans, who were only interested in advancing their team, and gullible fools who were told it would help the economy.
The Denver referendum is one example of professional sports exiting the bounds of healthy fun and entering the realm of harm to others. Another example is the rioting that takes place all too often after games. Yet another is the use of imminent domain laws to confiscate people’s homes to make way for stadiums. This is why professional sports leaves a sour taste in my mouth.
While vacationing in Egypt, the most common word I heard, other than Allah, was Juventus. Being familiar with Arabic and having studied it, I wondered how it was that I had not come across such a common word anywhere in my studies. It later became clear that this was none other than a famous Italian soccer team. Or maybe Juventus is actually the Son of Allah and its members his twelve disciples. People kill each other for Allah and, no doubt, they kill each other for Juventus.
Islam is another passion I have a problem with. It seems to be almost as popular as soccer and its adherents at least as fanatical. Richard Hoste, in his HBD blog, recently posted this video. One of the comments (on LiveLeak) reads:
Why are the uncivilized people of Sweden so obsessed with making extremely insulting drawings of a prophet of 3 billion people?
let me tell you something. In this video you’re looking at normal everyday Muslims. Did you see the reaction they had for the drawing? Now what happens when the extremists see things like this and actually would want to do something about it? I think Europe would be in deep shit… so why not just stop provoking them?
(Emphasis mine and I fixed the English). I wonder if the person who submitted the comment understands that their being “normal everyday Muslims” is, itself, the problem. If I were in control of Sweden, I would probably deport every last Muslim after seeing that video – and especially after reading comments such as the above.
I wonder if every human society is destined to have a certain proportion of hysterical people and those people naturally gravitate to becoming professional sports fanatics or Islam. Or perhaps professional sports and Islam encourage people to become obsessed and hysterical. I suspect it’s a combination of the two.
Wow. What bloody cowards those Swedes are to sit and just have the police deal with the muslims. As soon as trouble began, everyone of those Swedes including the women should have stood up and rushed those muslims.
This is why things like this are allowed. If everyone stood up for what they believed in instead of allowing the so called experts to run our lives then we would be much better off.
Next time any of you who read this are in a situation like this, stand up for yourselves. Even if you get put in the hospital at least you could actually say you were a man that day who stood up for what he believed in instead of cowering in your seat like a souless zombie.
Sadly, any Swedes who might have intervened would have been prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, branded a “racist” and been subject to Muslim threats for the rest of his life.
But thats the point, if more and more start standing up for themselves and what they believe in then things would change for the better. If enough Swedes stood up for themselves they would put fear into those muslims and they would in the future not be so pre-disposed to beging rioting.
I hate sports. Many kids have their childhoods ruined by parents who w
anqt them to be superathletes. I don’t know much about islam. I generally don’t rely on the media to form opinions on things.
JAY,
I think the comparison between taxpayer-financed stadiums and professional and certain amateur sports as quasi-religion is even more apt than you think. AFAIC, these stadiums aren’t much more than taxpayer-funded temples.
The flier I distributed, against the stadium tax, referred to the stadium as a “church” and the Broncos as “gods”. People found it offensive.
Don’t you think that statement “If I were in control of Sweden, I would probably deport every last Muslim after seeing that video – and especially after reading comments such as the above.” is narrow minided and inflammatory. However it is your5 blog any you are entitle to your views – i just think that as aJew (i am assuming here) – you would be sensitive to sterotyping. Jews are seen as elitist, racist etc etc….. About the sports thing – Taxpapyers should not be subsidising professional teams – however as a sports enthusiast myeself Sport surpasses all religion – Professional sport is forbidden in Islam – seen as the most fundamentalist religion around – yet even muslim countries have professional footballers in their ranks..
Yes, it would indeed be a knee-jerk reaction. And it’s good to have challenging voices on my blog so thanks for contributing.
This hypothetical “Swedish ruler” might easily come to the conclusion that international (especially Muslim) reactions against him would be just as strong were he to deport the trouble-makers as if he were to deport all Muslims. How is one to sort them out? In the meantime, the very existence of his nation is at risk. If I were ruler of Sweden, this video would probably be the last straw for me – the constant rapes of Swedish women by Muslim men would have already laid the groundwork.
The question arises, what would I do, after making the decree, when I saw innocent, hard-working Muslim families who did nothing to deserve this. Part of me would certainly say this decree is a gross injustice. Another part of me would ask, “What is it about the Muslim religion/way of life that breeds so much intolerance toward non-believers? Would not my country be better off without it? What is preventing the children, or grandchildren, of this innocent family to follow the path of jihad?”
You do raise some good points; What I just wrote above was often said about my own people and, indeed, such decisions have wrought much suffering upon the Jews. Even as a Jew, I must ask myself, “were my own people entirely innocent and were those expulsions totally unprovoked?”
Desperate times call for desperate measures. Perhaps, as ruler of Sweden, I would allow some Muslims to remain under certain conditions:
1) They would have to swear, in the name of Allah, that they would never commit aggression against any Swede in Sweden.
2) They would have to limit the number of children they have in Sweden.
3) They would be subject to extreme and harsh punishment if they resorted to crime.
4) They would not be eligible for any welfare benefits.
As a matter of fact, I think the above should apply to all immigrants, not just Muslims (except for the swearing in the name of Allah part).
I hope you’ll continue to debate me. Ma’a salama!