The unspoken contract
Link here. Beautifully written, and encompasses very clearly why there is a growing revolt across America. The so-called elites are treating like scum the ordinary people that make their elite status possible, and the ordinary people are getting fed up with it.
People are tired. They’re just tired of constantly being told they’re racists when they have no idea what they’ve done wrong. They’re trying to keep the mortgage paid and get the kids through school and have enough money for Christmas presents and keep the cars out of the shop and lose that extra fifteen pounds and afford health insurance and maybe even take the family to a beach somewhere once a year. They love America, they love the flag, they support the troops and they are racking their brains to figure out what they can do to remedy the problem these rich, physical specimens seem to have with the country. If someone would just tell them what to do, most of them would gladly do it. But a blatant disrespect of something their grandpas and uncles and fathers and brothers fought and died for …is a breach of the unspoken contract.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Link here. Beautifully written, and encompasses very clearly why there is a growing revolt across America. The so-called elites are treating like scum the ordinary people that make their elite status possible, and the ordinary people are getting fed up with it.
People are tired. They’re just tired of constantly being told they’re racists when they have no idea what they’ve done wrong. They’re trying to keep the mortgage paid and get the kids through school and have enough money for Christmas presents and keep the cars out of the shop and lose that extra fifteen pounds and afford health insurance and maybe even take the family to a beach somewhere once a year. They love America, they love the flag, they support the troops and they are racking their brains to figure out what they can do to remedy the problem these rich, physical specimens seem to have with the country. If someone would just tell them what to do, most of them would gladly do it. But a blatant disrespect of something their grandpas and uncles and fathers and brothers fought and died for …is a breach of the unspoken contract.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Well, that explains why I gave up major league baseball during the 1996 strike. At the time I was pissed off that I had to choose between the millionaire owners and the millionaire players. The “Illusion Clause” was violated. I made my choice: the thousandaire fan.
I had enough trouble affording the 20 game plan season tickets and already was buying my seats in the cheaper sections. Finding time to get away 20 times a season was getting hard, too, because work was taking up more time as I worked harder. I didn’t have an off-season to recover, either.
So I stopped buying tickets to major league games and only go whenever someone else is buying. That is less than a dozen games in the past 20 years. I can remember three games, and probably went to three more, but definitely not a dozen games.
I had that reaction without being called a racist or otherwise being told I have done wrong.
Now when I go to baseball games, they are local minor league games. It is smaller crowds and different entertainment, but it is affordable and the players make about as much as I do. Or less. Much less. But their talents and skills are sub-par for major league play.
Now I can see that the major league guys broke the unspoken contract, back in 1996. If they won their strike, then I had to pay more. They didn’t care about me. They just cared about making even more money than their original more-money-than-I-made. I didn’t really care that they were rich; talent, skill, and hard work deserve reward, but they just seemed greedy at my expense. It was no longer worth the time, money, and effort to go see their games anymore. I can’t remember the last time that I even watched a game on television.
Now I don’t care about them, and that doesn’t bother me at all.
Plus they get a comfortable, low stress off-season.
Edward, you and the link express the feeling(s) I have also had over the last few days and years. Although I did not give up on the Major League in ’96, I did in the 2000’s … it just sort of faded away. And, as with you, I’m no worse off – probably better.
I’ll hear the scores or maybe watch a play on the TV news (that has declined as well) but there is no feeling for it anymore, no desire. I used to listen to the home town Pittsburgh Pirates on the radio on weekends as I worked on the various repairs and maintenance items around the house – (the things that the players have done for them. In fact they never know the mower broke or isn’t running right since they never see the view from the handles.) I find my time is better spent listening to podcasts of John Batchelor, Motley Fool or others. These make me think, not keep me entertained.
With the kneeling “NF-who” players and their timid owners/management, I come to a new sport that may fade away. I suspect I’ll be better again. Turning off the Steelers will be harder – this was (I suspect the past tense is correct here) a “different” type of organization. The Rooney family still lived on North Side, a tougher Pittsburgh neighborhood where they ({and my parents) grew up. The stories of Dan Rooney taking the end of the line at chow and others stories of “home town” goodness seem to be less and less. I suspect the “NF-who” may put forth a set of First Responder or Military “Appreciation Days” or some other effort to regain lost fans. I think it’s too late for me. They broke the Contract. With the “slap in the face” of their kneeling and “NF-who” management not just allowing it but supporting it, my subconscious has become the conscious realization that the “Game” is just that – a game, and it no longer matters. It really never did -or shouldn’t have. (Maybe it was wasted time and effort watching and cheering?)
It’s time to spend this valuable time on better things… the Contract is broken. IT is time to broker my value in the Contract -my time and attention – on better things: my family and friends.
Apologies for the stream of consciousness…
CMcL
People are tired. They’re just tired of constantly being told they’re racists when they have no idea what they’ve done wrong.
“I accept no unearned guilt.” Loosely from Ayn Rand and how I deal with this unwarranted name calling.
Hat tip to Regie.
Ironically, the NFL itself, is a Non-Profit organization and they pay no taxes. And they make taxpayers, pay for their new stadiums.
Major League Baseball as well, has a specific exemption to the antitrust laws, it’s a government sanctioned Monopoly.
The media spin attempt to change the NFL kneeling controversy and the general assault on Trump:
What are we hearing now?
1. The president is telling the NFL kneelers that they can NOT protest as they please and exercise their First Amendment rights.
No. The president is not telling them they can not protest as they please, he is pointing out that their protest is inapproriate in the context of executing it during the national anthem. They can do as they please there is no law that says they can not, other than their leagues rules that they apparently are flexible on due to their fear of their players and the selective enforcing them, they all can execute their First Amendment rights when ever and where ever they like. But that does not mean that the result of the exercise of their rights there will be no consequences of the negative kind. This is a common confusion that some people and the media are now promoting.
2. The president called out the NFL kneelers because he was denied an NFL franchise. While I can easily imagine Trump doing so, that does not mean that his comments are not timely and pertinent. The actions of the NFL players that choose to protest during the playing of the anthem are seen by many football loving Americans as un-American and disrespectful, period. No one needed Trump to create this genuine visceral American reaction, he just verbalized it.
3. Puerto Rico is Trumps Katrina!
Short term Puerto Rico is a zombie movie, long term it will probably work out very well with all of the infrastructure being rebuilt by FEMA and the Federal Government. This political loud noise that is being attempted by Democrats obviously serves three purposes. 1. Tag Trump as being incompetent, 2. Trump hates Puerto Rican’s, and 3. People will die because of number 1 & 2. People are likely to die, but its going to be because of the difficult logistics and the chaotic conditions on the ground rather than indifference.
This is obviously a difficult situation caused by a very powerful hurricane that in time will be stabilized and it will improve day by day, no quick fix here.
Every black player who took a knee disrespected every single black solder who ever served. From the buffalo solders to the Tuskegee Airmen to those serving with distinction now.
It seems many who kneel with Kaepernick forget why he started this,
“I am not going to stand up and show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color.”
Granted blacks were treated deplorably in the past but today, not so much.
They forget statistics. More whites are shot by cops. More whites are in jail. The only thing they “beat” whites in is per capita incarceration rates.
I blame much of this on a social attitude.
I witnessed it myself.
A young biracial boy raised by his white mother, father in jail, was my neighbor. Great kid. Collage was in his future.
Until his father got out of jail. Then I literally heard him tell his son to stop talking and acting like a white man and to stop studying that white mans stuff in school. And sadly he was no longer allowed to hang around with all his past white friends like my son and all the other kids in the neighborhood. Eventually his father moved him out of his mothers house and into a ghetto housing project.
The last anyone heard about him was that he was selling drugs on the street and unemployed at 22.
pzatchok wrote: “The last anyone heard about him was that he was selling drugs on the street and unemployed at 22.”
A self propagating problem. Why go to the effort of solving your own problems when you can blame others and make them feel guilty? Since you didn’t solve your own problem, and nobody can solve it for you (even government hasn’t done so in half a century of trying), you get to continually make others feel guilty for your own shortcomings.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o7Pst_3xlX0 (11 minutes, “Bill Whittle: SJW, SURPRISE!”)
I have the gift of not having somebody else to blame (Hillary Clinton blames everyone else, for instance). That requires me to fix my own problems and live with the limitations that my previous decisions have left me with. My decisions, not anyone else’s. My fault. My fix. My improved life.
However, I will never be president, because I didn’t take that route. I will never publish the great American novel, because I didn’t go learnin’ me no good writin’ skills (plus am am willing to boldly split infinitives and end sentences with prepositions — kind of). I — and Walter Kistler — will never fulfill the dream of starting my own successful rocket company because I thought the correct route to that goal was different than it turned out to be. Elon Musk (literally an African American), Robert Bigelow, and Jeff Bezos chose the correct routes for fulfilling that dream. Ironically, the correct route was not to work in the aerospace field and learn how to do it but to gain wealth in some other field and use the wealth to self-fund the company. Kistler learned the hard way that finding outside funding is a serious problem.
Others, however, fail to make the effort and, rather than change the future, blame a past that cannot be changed. I cannot fix the past. You cannot fix the past. They cannot fix the past.
The downtrodden Irish moved on from the discrimination against them, fixed their situation by themselves (no riots, no Irish Lives Matter movements, no taking a knee), and now live better lives for it. The Japanese went from internment camps, during which time many lost everything they had, fixed their situation, and live better lives. The NFL players honed their talents and skills, fixed their own situations, and then broke the unspoken contract by taking a knee.
Rather than show the rest how it is done, the NFL players play at being Social (In)Justice Warriors while allowing their former neighbors to “stop talking and acting like a white man and to stop studying that white mans stuff in school,” to stop hanging around with all their past white friends and all the other kids in the neighborhood, to move into a ghetto housing project, and to end up “selling drugs on the street and unemployed at 22.”
Then they unjustly blame you and me for their former neighbors’ poor decisions.
We know better, and that is why we are so upset with them.
The Irish, the Japanese, and others discovered that there is yet another unspoken contract, one of encouraging success in their friends, families, and neighbors. This is what is meant by “giving back” to the community. The NFL players have broken that contract, too, when they chose to cast blame rather than reach out with encouragement. Rather than give back, they choose to gripe about what they can help fix. It is the difference between Alejandro Villanueva and the other Steelers. Villanueva does not cast blame, does not take a knee, and honors the unspoken contract.
Chris,
Thanks for your story. It is a good stream of consciousness.
Rousseau’s primary thesis was the social contract, and it informed the Founders. Institutions violate it at their peril, as newspapers and Hollywood have found out. Perhaps the Left should recall the last scene in ‘Tora, Tora, Tora’.
I didn’t read the article.
I’m not racking my brain. And I’m not going to do a damn thing differently because an idiot said or did something stupid. I can’t fix stupid and anyone who tries to is grabbing their ankles.
I love this country and the rich history of its founders whose writings and actions were touched and inspired by God’s hand and whose principles caused them to take on an extremely hard life that would have been MUCH easier had they paid the tax and in essence bowed to the crown.
I can be kind to idiots and I can lay into them and make them mad. I’m not sure which one changes minds better. But I WILL NOT COW!!!
It’s sort of like asking a man who is dedicated to protecting the sanctity of choice of what, where and how to speak and the safety and the freedom of himself and his family to give up anything and everything that leftists and other useful idiots (aka those who are unaware of what they are supporting but go along with it because they identify with a fill in the blank grievance) demand of him. And worship those who he gave it to.
Individual liberty is what fools like caepernick or however it is spelled for example are opposed to. And it is worth fighting for and history has shown it is worth dying for.
When you have to live in fear of who might be offended or who might drag you into court there’s not much freedom of speech. It’s really not that free. And most people i meet are tired of it. We are tired of the latest princess saying that they’re offended. BE offended BUT SHUTUP!!!
Gene Shipp: You really should read the article. You restate its point very well, but the author made his point artistically, with philosophical depth. It will enlighten you about why your point here is right, on a deeper level.
Yes, this piece is well done.
Here we have a not well done false equivalency that points out how if you are a white Christian you do not properly understand Mr. Kaepernick and his message.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/heres-what-many-white-christians-fail-to-understand-about-the-nfl-protests_us_59cbbd56e4b02aef6cd6a031?utm_source=zergnet.com&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=zergnet_2098942&ncid=txtlnkusaolc00000895
The author compares when Tim Tebow, a white Christian, knelt after a successful touch down (Not during the national anthem) and Kaepernick, a black Christian (?), doing the same during the national anthem. Two very different things (In my white mind anyway).
Is this issue really about being black or white? Or being Christian? Why can’t it just be about being an American and being respectful during a moment when a particular patriotic song is played in the lead up to the playing of a game?
Freedom of speech is not free and it does not come without consequences.
In America how you live is your choice. No one can make it for you. No one can force you.
If you choose to live in a slum its inevitably because of your own choices.
You chose to live in a run down dirty house. Clean it up and paint it. Its cheap.
You choose to be an addict. Yes while on those drugs its not your choice but you do sober up once in awhile and then it is your choice.
You choose to not get a full education. Study.
And you choose to blame others for your own failures.
Related:
If someone continuously funds organizations that are plainly Leftist (Promoting Marxist doctrine) in their orientation, what does that say about what that person wants more of in the world?
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/oct/5/nfl-players-union-teamed-george-soros-fund-leftist/
(Colin Kaepernick plainly aligns with Leftist / Marxist thinking as evidenced by his protests and the visual messaging he wears and his alignment with Black Lives Matter.)
Soros’s Foundation For Open Society consistently funds these movements, ergo George Soros must want Leftist / Marxist agenda to prevail and that must be how he defines his version of the “Open Society” he wants to exist.
I would say that if Soros contributed to the Heritage Foundation and constantly aligned himself with similar organizations that he was a more Conservative minded philanthropist and wanted more of that kind of thinking and policy in the world. I think that is reasonable thinking.
Some people are confused by these overt messaging programs that Soros spends his money on. Are you confused as to what George Soros wants more of in the world?