Political & Religious Commentary
Politics is Where the Competing Moral Visions of a Society Meet and Struggle
The Great American Blood Sport
By Tom Walsh
I once listened to a sales trainer speak on understanding the customer. He was rolling along quite nicely in his speech, when he paused, muttered quietly, while fumbling his papers and then looked quite embarrassed.
“What are you thinking right now?”, he asked “Are you thinking, ‘Look at that idiot. What can he teach us, when he can’t even find his place?’ Or are you feeling some empathy?” “Well,” he continued, “I hope so, because empathy is what I want to talk with you about today.”
In the Great American Blood Sport, we make mere mortals into gods and then draw and quarter them as soon as we discover they are sinful human beings just like the rest of us.
Jim Baker was a beloved televangelist before an affair brought down the entire PTL network. Americans re-elected Ronald Reagan by the largest landslide in history before turning on him after Iran-Contra. OJ Simpson delighted us running through airports and on the gridiron, before his trial became our daily entertainment. And now character assassination is the weapon of choice in the civil war between the red and the blue states.
Regardless of the shark-infested waters our brave hearted Mel Gibson will now have to swim through; the behavior of Americans will say much more about us than it will ever say about him. For he never was a god, and we all cease to walk on water the minute we take our eyes off Jesus.