December 12, 2014

Personal Foul, Blow to the Head

by Steve Dana

Earlier this week, the NFL announced that it had adopted new behavior standards as it related to domestic violence for football players in the league. Who would have ever thought that would come about? After all the trauma, It seems there is a bit of good that came from Ray Rice slugging his girlfriend in that elevator because it got the public discussion started. I’m happy that the NFL finally got off the dime and did the right thing.

I was amused watching the television commercials as those former and current football players struggled with their “NO MORE” thoughts. Each of those guys that struggled, must have known personally friends or team mates who were beating their wives or girlfriends and kept quiet about it. And now that Ray Rice is caught on tape they are moved to action. What does that say about those guys? I guess we should count our blessings and be happy that something is now happening to address domestic violence.

When you think about it, the rules on the field have been steadily evolving to address violence in the game because the league didn’t want to jeopardize their performers and their product. You couldn’t hit the quarterback in the head, but it was apparently okay to beat your wife away from the game.

It occurred to me that the idea wasn’t just a good idea for the NFL; every organization in the land should be going through a similar internal analysis to make sure they are at least aware of the possible abuses from their members and further that they were willing to take action to correct it.

Professional sports all have image issues they need to protect so it will be interesting to watch how Major League Baseball, the National Hockey League and the NBA respond.

How many times have you heard about abusive police officers, fire fighters or other public figures (let alone a professional athlete) and thought there must be some mechanism in place to put those guys in jail for their crimes? Professional athletes don’t have a corner on the domestic violence market, they are just a bit more visible than a lawyer, a beer truck driver or a realtor.

As a society we must adopt the “NO MORE” mantra to address domestic violence everywhere we find it. There is absolutely NO EXCUSE for abusing a girlfriend, a wife or a child.

And, like the NFL we need to determine whether there are other penalties abusers must endure besides jail time. If it’s appropriate that a ball player is prohibited from plying his trade as a penalty, shouldn’t an abusive doctor, lawyer, teacher or realtor have his license suspended or revoked for unprofessional behavior if criminal behavior isn’t enough.

Professional associations, organizations and unions need to examine whether being a member is a right or privilege. Certainly public employees should be held to a high standard.

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December 3, 2014

America – The Land of Opportunity or Entitlement?

by Steve Dana

It never ceases to amaze me that millions of people from other countries want to come to America, the United States of America because of the opportunities, freedom and liberty that our country represents. Untold thousands of them are willing to literally risk their lives to come here illegally for a chance at a better life. Not the guarantee of a better life, but a chance at a better life. I can’t help but feel privileged to be an American.

The thing I admire about the immigrants is their courage to face the unknown; the only hope being that there would be the opportunity to work hard and be successful as in “the American Dream”. What an incredible motivation.

As you can probably tell, I’m a big proponent of “the land of opportunity” here in the USA. I can’t say that opportunities don’t exist in other countries, but the entrepreneurial attitude in America is special.

At the same time a significant segment of our population continually alleges that they are being held down, prevented from being successful “by the man”. Most often, the “man” is white men.

I don’t doubt that they have good reasons why they feel that way, but I wonder which “man” is really holding them down. I think sometimes that the industry of civil rights activists would be severely damaged if those people in the down-trodden communities discovered that they were being held down by their own leaders. Think about the quality of life of the Reverend Al Sharpton and the Reverend Jesse Jackson and other “leaders” in poor black communities, how many of them are poor black men? The leaders all seem to be doing well.

From an anecdotal perspective it appears to me that the communities that have received the most government assistance (supposedly to raise poor black people out of poverty) for the longest time (40 or 50 years) are the ones still in the worst condition. It is from my observations that I conclude that the type of assistance they are getting isn’t the type that produces the stated goals of the programs. Opportunity is the answer. Even in minority communities opportunity prevails. Just look at the kids who have athletic ability and make it out of the ghetto in sports. Or, look at the ones who have other obvious artistic ability like musical talent. Keep in mind that talent alone doesn’t get you out. Those athletes and musicians worked their butts off to be successful. They did take what they had and develop it enough to get to a higher level.

There is no question that a percentage of the population in any ethnic group will be victims and another percentage will be victimizers. I’m not just pointing my comments to black communities; the same thing is true in Hispanic, Asian and White communities as well.  The vast majority of them will do what they must to not be the victims; they educate themselves and work their butts off.

Just as the immigrants who come to America don’t come with the intent of being a burden to society, but are victimized by the system (good or bad), native Americans can also be victimized. That’s native with a small n; Americans who have been here for generations.

That’s not to say that they can’t overcome that victimization because there are millions of examples of black Americans who work their butts off to get out of their personal ghetto and be successful along with white, brown and yellow Americans who have overcome their own challenges.

I don’t live in a minority community so my comments are just observations from the outside. I do know immigrants who have come to this country both legally and illegally and they are all hardworking people dedicated to being contributing members of American Society not looking for or expecting anything but an opportunity to show what they can do.

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September 11, 2014

Domestic Violence, a Plague on the Land

by Steve Dana

The National Football League just announced that they were hiring former FBI Head Robert Mueller to investigate who knew what and when in the Ray Rice domestic violence case.

It is my understanding that the investigation has nothing to do with whether Rice was guilty of anything since the video tape shows him slugging the woman, knocking her out cold on the elevator.

The focus of the Mueller investigation is the NFL itself. According to some news sources, the NFL was delivered the video months ago and it was reported that at least one person thought to be either an NFL executive or an assistant to the executive viewed the tape and commented on the content.

The outcry centers on whether the NFL knew long ago that Rice was a wife beater and willfully chose to ignore it because Ray Rice was a high profile player for the Baltimore Ravens.

Roger Goodell was asked when the NFL learned of the video and he said it was Monday of this week (September 8, 2014). Goodell was asked more than once to make certain he was sure he knew the importance of his answer. He then clarified that “to my knowledge, we did not know” or words to that effect.

Should we care when he knew? I don’t care, do you?

The moral outrage pushed by the press is laughable. Everyone knows businesses protect their image and make every effort to keep their dirty laundry out of the public eye.

For me, this is just another case similar to the NBA’s handling of Donald Sterling. Moral outrage over Sterling’s bigotry. If the press was actually doing their job every day, they would have turned up stories about racism, bigotry and domestic violence as it happened rather than weeks later.

The NBA knew Sterling was a bigot, but the video tape forced them to act out against Sterling because they didn’t want to be viewed as tolerant to bigotry. The truth is, rich guys like Sterling are all a little quirky and as a group NBA owners accept the quirks in each other because they don’t want their own to be exposed.

Once again, in the NFL case, the press is working to make a story. In this case they are focusing on the NFL cover-up rather than the substance of the event; domestic violence.

For me, I’m concerned about whether a crime was committed when Rice slugged the woman. If that was a crime and Rice wasn’t arrested then I’m concerned about the law enforcement agency with jurisdiction in the community where the crime took place. They had the tape, did they do their job?

If the event wasn’t viewed as a crime then what SHOULD be done? Is there a distinction between domestic violence that is criminal behavior and another type that is not criminal behavior? Is it okay to hit your girlfriend a little? At what point does slapping her around become a crime? At what point does it become unacceptable behavior even if it’s not a crime?

The issue of domestic violence in our country is wide spread, not just in the NFL. In this case, we are looking at a high profile football player who punches his girlfriend. A case where the girl friend absolutely refuses to press charges against Rice, a man who she married after the beating.

So is the important issue that should be investigated, the NFL, and whether they knew or didn’t know or whether domestic violence is acceptable behavior in our society regardless of the profession or line of work.

A “women’s” organization pointed out that more than fifty cases of domestic violence against professional football players have been filed with the courts without much more than a peep from the NFL. Seemingly, the NFL condones bad behavior because they choose to do nothing about it when they learn it exists.

It appears that the NFL came late to moral outrage.  But without a formal investigation, they kicked Ray Rice out of the league. The Baltimore Ravens canceled Rice’s contract and released him. All of this took place without an investigation further than the one where the Ravens suspended Rice for two games. That would suggest that at least the Ravens knew the real substance of Rice’s behavior from the beginning and felt that two games was appropriate punishment. Then changed their mind when clear evidence showing Rice slugging the woman became public. What was the two game suspension for?

Keep in mind that they don’t kick players out of the league for clearly criminal acts. Drug dealing and homicide gets you jail time, but then you come back.  Suspension for a short time, maybe. Ray Rice was kicked out… permanently.

If Americans want to be outraged about domestic violence then let’s do it right. Let’s look at baseball players, basketball players and hockey players. Then we should look at policemen, firemen, lawyers, doctors and beer truck drivers. The issue of domestic violence isn’t an issue unique to any one line of work; it’s everywhere. The question is how important it is in society and how tolerant we are when we find it.

The problem in our country is we have lost our morality. We’ve become a country that accepts bad behavior because it takes too much effort to stand up for the right thing(s). Ultimately, this is one of the flaws that will bring our country down.

How much bad behavior can we tolerate?

When you know the guy you work with beats his wife or girlfriend, you assume some of his guilt if you don’t do something to stop it. The time when you kept your mouth shut and mind your own business has passed. If we expect society to deal harshly with domestic violence or drug use or any other criminal behavior, it has to start with each of us standing up and demanding that we start at the grass roots level and work out way up from there. Or we can start at the top and demand that our leaders perform to a higher moral standard and work down. Either way we have to start.

I don’t view Ray Rice any different than I do a police officer who beats his wife.

Demanding that Roger Goodell be fired is ludicrous. I don’t even care if Goodell was flat out lying.  Absent a conduct policy in the NFL that is enforced like the drug use policy, it’s up to the individual teams to deal with cases. It certainly suggests that a discussion is warranted at the highest levels in every sports organization to determine their tolerance or willingness to act regarding bad behavior.

Sadly, I’m not holding my breath. Just look at professional organizations for lawyers and doctors. When they know there are members of their profession who are of questionable moral standing, they just keep their heads down and their mouths shut because they don’t want to speak up and strip a fellow of his or her ability to make a living. Bad behavior is accepted practice.

School teachers, fire fighters, policemen, accountants, stockbrokers… you name it; bad behavior is acceptable behavior.

Unless we stand up and demand better at a local level.

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July 23, 2014

What Exactly is IMMIGRATION REFORM?

by Steve Dana

As tens of thousands of illegal aliens cross our southern border ILLEGALLY, the frustration of Americans from multiple political points of view is growing by the day. At the same time, there is increasing finger pointing in the Congress as Senators and Representatives posture and hand wring and ultimately do nothing.

Sadly, that is what the Congress is most likely to accomplish…nothing.

Just the other day, our good friend Governor Rick Perry from Texas decided to do something and called up the National Guard to begin patrolling the Texas border with Mexico to stem the tide of illegal crossings. He can make the case that it’s a public safety issue for American citizens where the Federal Government is failing to step up.

Elected officials and American citizens alike are growing weary of the flood of citizens of other countries attempt to enter our country illegally and everyone is demanding the government do something. I don’t get the sense that what they want is to debate IMMIGRATION REFORM. I get the feeling that they want border security.

It seems that if every other country in the world can secure their border, we should be able to secure our border. I believe that if when you enter Mexico illegally, they put you in prison; we should at least reciprocate. In fact, most if not all other countries in the world enforce significantly more stringent penalties for illegal entry than the United States of America. Is that negligence or ignorance?

And, it is my understanding that we have laws in place providing for similar penalties for illegal immigration into the US.

If we can agree that sovereign countries have an obligation to secure their borders for a variety of reasons, our country should be doing it at whatever cost it takes. In the scheme of our national budget, the cost of securing our borders would be insignificant. It’s clear we don’t have the will to do it.

Part of the problem in our country stems from the fact that for many years our agriculture industry relied on foreign migrant workers, primarily from Mexico to come into the US to work but we didn’t keep track of them too well and many of them stayed. Actually, millions of them stayed.

I would say that is more than a little problem.

So the popular buzz word around the country for the past years has been IMMIGRATION REFORM. The thought being that IMMIGRATION REFORM would solve THE problem. Forgive me for being stupid, but what exactly is IMMIGRATION REFORM supposed to be? It seems the definition of IMMIGRATION REFORM should be understood by all parties so that when we use it in a public meeting we all have the same expectations.

Since I don’t know whether we can ever agree on what IMMIGRATION REFORM should be, I would opt to understand what current immigration laws say and enforce them. First to secure the border and then when that job is done begin the process of determining the fate of the millions of ILLEGAL ALIENS that have entered our country ILLEGALLY over the past thirty years. I believe we had an amnesty for illegals in 1986 when President Reagan signed the Simpson-Mazzoli Act that was supposed to be coupled with securing the border, the Congress just failed to fund that part of the deal. Amnesty came. Enforcement never did. Forgive me if I’m not willing to take their word for it again.

There is no doubt that our country has been the melting pot of the world as people from every corner of the globe have already immigrated to the US through our legal portals, a fact most of us are proud of, so I’m not suggesting we shut the door, just require that foreigners who want to come, do so through legally outlined means.

Imagine what would happen if we applied the current de facto Mexican border system of immigration for all foreigners who want to come. If some in this country want to throw the doors open for as many Hispanics as can cross in the dead of night, do they feel the same way about aliens from every country? What happens to our country then?

I wonder what would happen if a drug dealer or a bank robber asked the courts to apply the same legal standard to his crime as our country does now with criminals who enter our country illegally? Remember entering Mexico or Canada or China illegally will land you in prison.

If you are convicted of a felony, you forfeit your right to vote or own a firearm. Certainly people who enter this country illegally should be treated like the criminals they are in some ways so that society can acknowledge that there are penalties for criminal behavior even if we don’t actually put them in jail. That would be my idea of an essential component to IMMIGRATION REFORM.

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