Many people have expressed their dissatisfaction with the BCS system of college football bowl games and the manner of deciding what team is the national champion. There seems to be more complaints about the system now than there was when it was a combination of coaches and sportswriters that determined the best team.

The expression that “it would take an act of Congress” to straighten out the current system has been used in jest. No longer. According to The Wall Street Journal it seems that Congress now wants to get into the act and produce a bill to force the football colleges to have a playoff system that Congress establishes. They have held hearings and both conservative and liberal Representatives want a new law, from Joe Barton to Gene Green, both from Texas.

Maybe it’s a Texas thing. Football is big there, close to a religion.

But is there nothing that government doesn’t want to get involved in? They have messed up just about everything else, now they want to politicize college football.

I guess this should come as no surprise and government run colleges will likely go along with it, dragging the private institutions along with them.

This is part of a larger trend. More and more we are seeing that broadcasts of football games are interlaced with political commentary. Some of it is quite subtle and some is blatant.

It starts with the idea of supporting our troops, turning into support for the government’s policy in the war on terror, which has dragged on for three years longer than our combined involvement in World Wars I and II — and we still can’t find Osama bin Laden.

The worst example of politicizing the game is the recent support of the NFL for volunteerism through government, showing Obama “playing” football on the White House lawn, catching the ball thrown by New Orleans Saint star quarterback Drew Brees. Obama didn’t drop the ball or his smile. The stagecraft of the piece was masterful, and reminiscent of the build up in totalitarian states for the leader de jour, selling two thoughts at once: get involved in government programs and love the leader.

The socialist movement must involve itself in all aspects of life and control them; to not do so can leave a bastion of people who may come back to haunt them, and organize to stop the socialist juggernaut. This includes sports, its participants as well as its following. Since fans so love their sports heroes, the sports scene must come under government control.

Now an act to control the college playoff process may not seem like much, but when it is put in place with all the other controls by government, with this process continually growing, it can become a factor in the process of controlling sports entirely by government. One has to ask the question: Were will it all end?

There is no constitutional prerogative for government to be involved in sports. A politician’s involvement should be limited to purchasing a seat at the stadium like the rest of the fans.
 

Art Thompson is CEO of The John Birch Society.
 

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rprew said:

Make note of number 1 - ATHLETICS! The following excerpt is from a file on "Communist Rules for Revolution" and were obtained by the armed forces in Düsseldorf in 1919: A. Corrupt the young, get them away from religion. Get them interested in sex. Make them superficial, destroy their ruggedness. 1. Get people's minds off their government by focusing their attention on athletics, sexy books and play and other trivialities. 2. Divide the people into hostile groups by constantly harping on controversial matters of no importance. 3. Destroy the people's faith in the natural leaders by holding the latter up to contempt and ridicule. 4. Always preach true democracy, but seize power as fast and as ruthlessly as possible. 5. By encouraging government extravagance, destroy its credit, produce fear of inflation with rising prices and general discontent. 6. Ferment unnecessary strikes in vital industries, encourage civil disorders and foster a lenient and soft attitude on the part of the government toward such disorders. 7. By specious argument cause the breakdown of the old moral virtues: honesty, sobriety, continence, faith in the pledged word, ruggedness. 8. Cause the registration of all firearms on some pretext with the view of confiscation of them and leaving the population helpless. Does there seem to be a parallel of thought here to the present trends of action in the United States?

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December 07, 2009
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DDW said:

	rprew Once again, you are 100% correct. I would add that it seems all the asylums have been emptied and the inmates are now running the government at all levels.
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December 07, 2009
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