The NFL’s “Deflategate” has made headlines over the last few days. On the surface, it seems silly that so much attention is being given to how many pounds per square inch of air some footballs contained during last Sunday’s AFC Championship game between the New England Patriots and the Indianapolis Colts. The Pats, clearly the superior team, pounded the Colts, winning by a 38-point margin, so no amount of air pressure would have made a difference in the outcome. It was a cold and rainy night, and less air pressure would have made the ball easier to grip in such conditions. Even so, it would not have helped Indianapolis to score another five touchdowns and a field goal to even the tally, even with Luck.
What has made me take notice is how many people think this is ludicrous. “It’s just a game!” they say. “It’s such a small thing!” they claim. “Why does it even matter?” they ask. “It’s no big deal! Everyone does it!” they scoff. But, see, that is the problem! Cheating is “no big deal,” especially when it is minor. It is expected. We can say that there is a decided lack of integrity in America when most people turn a blind eye to “a little bit” of corruption.
However, for a game, just as for a nation, there must be integrity, or it will lose its respectability and ultimately, its raison d’être. While it is a minor rule, it is a one that the NFL and all its teams agreed to, and it is there in black and white for everyone to see. The game officials go to great lengths to make sure it is followed (which implies that someone took extraordinary measures to deflate the eleven balls found wanting in Foxboro). If the NFL desires to maintain itself and not become the laughingstock of professional sports, it must get to the bottom of this scandal and act with a heavy hand against the perpetrators, whoever they happen to be.
Someone in America must uphold the principle of integrity, even if it is “just” the NFL.
Along similar lines, I am constantly amazed by the fact that Americans and Christians either do not know or hypocritically apply the most basic principles of justice: innocent until proven guilty, equity under the law, penalty must fit the crime, non-admission of hearsay evidence, no double jeopardy, no guilt by association, etc. These are principles that are designed to protect the innocent, and if they work for the guilty from time to time, it is the price we pay for standing on the side of mercy. As one of my friends replied to my thoughts on this, the Internet has become central in undermining these principles, becoming a court of common opinion where slander and defamation are commonplace.
In this same vein, I recently heard Dr. Walter E. Williams, well-known economist and professor at George Mason University, say on local radio, “Americans today are hostile to the idea of individual liberty.” Sadly, he’s right. A sound majority of Americans shy away from “allowing” their fellow man to exercise his personal freedoms, and instead, they look to government to legislate whether an act can be done or not.
For instance, most people support restrictions on how a person can use his own property to the point that one can do almost nothing without getting the city’s or county’s permission to do it, usually in the form of a permit (with which the governmental agency extorts one’s hard-earned dollars). The Bill of Rights declares that Americans can bear arms, but a myriad of laws and regulations have severely curtailed this fundamental right. Support for the ironically named Affordable Care Act is another example of people distrusting individual choice, binding the hands of freedom-loving Americans from making their own healthcare decisions.
God Himself gave Israel only ten commandments, and His covenant with them added a few dozen refinements to cover various situations. In all, the Jews counted 613 laws in the entire Torah. Lately, the Washington bureaucracy alone publishes hundreds of new regulations every month, affecting business, industry, and individuals. We have so many laws and regulations restricting our freedoms that one authority has estimated that each of us, going innocently about our daily routines, commits about three prosecutable offenses every day!
It saddens me to see how far we have fallen from our professed principles. We now need a law to regulate every little activity. The Constitution is being shredded daily by our elected officials, and the Bible, the source of much of common law and ethics, is undercut and ridiculed by educators, media, and even some in religion who should know better. The result is a citizenry that has slipped its mooring from any kind of principled living. The country is suffering because of it, and frankly, I see no end to it except in catastrophe.
I hate to be so pessimistic, but that is how unbridled, atheistic individualism ends. Historically, the catastrophe is war, either one of the civil variety or one of conquest, when a stronger nation sees how weak and morally exhausted the self-absorbed nation has become. America may be some years away from this point, but her people are trying their best to hasten there.
