Play Ball

Today is the anniversary of Branch Rickey signing Jackie Robinson to the Brooklyn Dodgers. In 1945 Branch Rickey broke the color barrier in Professional Baseball and signed Jackie Robinson to play for the Brooklyn Dodgers, firing a shot heard 'round the sports world. It opened up a big door of opportunity to blacks, and eventually Hispanics to play professional ball.

Many don't know what a huge fan I am of baseball. Back in the 90s I gobbled Ken Burns "Baseball" voraciously on PBS. I'm a history fan, and hearing tales of Ty Cobb (a true blue racist and hater) and Jackie Robinson and Mickie Mantle pleased me to my toe nails. I drove my then husband nuts talking about baseball history. It was the first time I'd ever been able to cut loose like that and he was a sports/jock type person. Too bad for our marriage he was a basketball aficionado.

I know, you're sitting there, yawning, thinking, Sev, WTF has this got to do with Objectivism? Conservatism? Politics? HELLO?!

Patience, Grasshopper. If I've kept your attention this far it's because you know I connect weird dots. Why stop now?

Anyway, Glenn Beck reminds me a lot of Branch Rickey. Unapologetically religious and driven to do what he sees as the moral, right thing to do. Today, August 28, 2010, Mr Beck is giving a speech at the National Mall. It also happens to be the anniversary of MLKs "I Have A Dream Speech". Apparently GB had no idea of the significance of the date when he booked the Mall for his rally. Seriously, who keeps the dates of speeches given by dead men if they aren't teaching, at that moment, a history class of some kind? If you don't teach history and still know dates like this, I would say that perhaps you keep that information on tap to play a certain card that has been maxed out in the recent past. It also means that you have no real argument, but a temper tantrum.

Let me tell you why the Proglibs (my new shorthand for retards who think you can eat your cake and have it, too) hate and fear Glenn Beck so much. And why they race bait as much as possible to keep their ballot cattle in the Democratic Party pasture.

Glenn Beck is typical of Libertarians. Free-Market and less government. Now, I will show you why it scares people of color and Proglibs. It's a very simply design of dots to connect, and how it relates to Branch Rickey. I almost feel a Discovery Science series coming on, called Connections! No, James Burke already did that, dammit.

Proglibs and people of color fear the free market and less government but from two different sides of the same coin. Proglibs have spent a century telling people of color that they cannot make it on their own, and that the white man makes it impossible to succeed in the free market, because they hold all the power. Only Momma Gubmint can solve all of their problems and they can sit back and let their duly elected representatives provide it all for them.

Same coin, different side.

People of color fear the free market because they've spent over a century of hearing how they are not smart enough or able enough to compete there, and in fact they shouldn't compete at all because White America owes them a living. Almost like Mr. Wickham's damnation of Mr. Darcy in Pride and Prejudice. (See, another weird dot) They like Momma Gubmint's Project Warehousing of them and their budding crack addicts and prostitots. Gubmint Cheddar is tastier because it's free and they can sit back and watch Jerry Springer and have more welfare babies we have to feed... and it's all FREE! Besides, they are owed because they keep pulling the Straight Democratic Party Ticket ballot as all good cattle do when they are told what to do.

This is the entire mindset of so many people sitting in despair that Proglibs have consigned them to. What happens to the cattle who find the grass is really greener on the other side of the fence? They are treated worse than apostates by Mohammedans. But the most hilarious thing? They are called Uncle Tom, the one virtuous man in Uncle Tom's Cabin. I wonder if the Proglibs even realize that Uncle Tom is a badge of honor? I don't think they would know virtue or honor if it ripped their psyche apart during a split second of clarity.

Branch Rickey did not see Jackie Robinson as just a black ball player. He saw him as a ball player of major league talent who should be playing to the best of his ability in the Major Leagues. He made that opportunity for him and Robinson brought his talent. Branch Rickey opened the door, Jackie Robinson held the door open for others to follow. They both own that moment and it is played over every season, day in, day out, on baseball diamonds all over the world, where it is ability and talent that get you to the top, not mediocrity and race quotas.

Blacks do not own Dr. King's message. They do not own the National Mall on August 28th. They do own that they demanded equal rights under the law and got it. After that, nothing they have done has much recommended what the leaders of the civil rights movement tried to do. I doubt that Dr. King seriously thought that hundreds of thousands of blacks, Hispanics and what have you still warehoused in tenements and projects, living in squalor off the public teat was the end all be all of his dream. That's just a new form of slavery of the mind and spirit and I think he would be sickened at where the Proglibs have pastured their ballot cattle.

If you want freedom, true freedom, get off your ass. I don't care what freakin' color you are. Get off your ass, get involved, better yourself. Take it a day at a time, but keep trying. If you quit trying, give in to the despair, then you deserve whatever scraps the Proglibs are willing to throw to you between election cycles. Know that you succeed because of YOUR talents and abilities, not some farcical quota system. If you get into a good college, it better be because of your grades and activities, not because they needed to fill a spot to get federal dollars to fund their womens studies department.

Succeed, exceed, proceed on your merits, not the borrowed merits that will always make you doubt your own abilities and position. Show them that YOU can make it by hard work and brains alone. Because when Proglibs tell you that you need quotas or special programs to get anywhere, the real message is, "You're not smart enough, you're not good enough, and gosh darnit, you don't deserve to be there."

Branch Rickey knew that Jackie Robinson was good enough to be there and he allowed him a venue to show the rest of the world that he was. Don't depend on a Branch Rickey to give you anything, you have to earn the opportunity, but when the opportunity does appear, you will be ready to take it. Just as Glenn Beck was ready when a Saturday appeared open on the National Mall schedule and he took it. I would almost say that Providence had a hand in it, because I don't believe in coincidence that much. I think that Branch Rickey would agree and be there with Glenn.