Monday, January 11, 2016

Steelers Win! (Or what happens when the Rule of Law is flushed down the toilet)

Yes, there are any number of other matters I can post on.  But that ugly Steelers – Bengals game Saturday night was such an object lesson, I cannot let it pass.

There was already a lot of longstanding, deep-seated hostility between the two teams before the game . . . not unlike conservatives and Leftists, and Obama and almost half the country.  And there is a long history of NFL favoritism towards the Steelers, not unlike the favoritism of Obama’s Feds towards favored client groups and against Red States.

Before the game’s defining moment, authorities, namely Steelers’ coaches, had already committed at least one enormity, namely pulling an opposing player’s hair.

What was the defining moment you ask?  Steeler Ryan Shazier’s brutal head-to-head spearing of Bengals running back Giovani Bernard.  It was an obvious illegal hit (which broadcaster CBS anchors said was legal.  Sycophant news media anyone?), but it was not flagged.  The Bengals and their fans were justifiably angry about that.

But then matters got even worse.  Steelers coach Mike Tomlin challenged the ruling that the Bengal player was down on contact before he fumbled the ball.  (When you are knocked unconscious by a dirty hit, fumbles can happen.)  He won that challenge.  So not only were the Steelers not penalized for the illegal dirty hit, they were rewarded by being given the football.

Does that not sound too familiar? IRS scandal before the 2012 election anyone? Obama rewarding those violating our borders? Etc. Etc.

Back to the game, at that point, the anger in the stadium exploded.  Really the NFL should be thankful there was not a riot then and there.

The Rule of NFL Law, if you will, was not being enforced in that key incident except when it benefited the Steelers.  That may not have been the referees’ intent.  But it was most certainly what they did.

Those who watched the rest of the game know the result - it got ugly, very ugly. Unequal justice and undermining the Rule of Law invites that. And the Bengals got too ugly for their own good.  Yes, that next to the last flag against the Bengals for Burfict's cheap and dirty shot to the head had to be thrown.

But what about that last flag when turned a possible Steelers win into an easy FG win?  Steelers Assistant Coach Joey Porter was on the field mouthing off at Bengals players.

Now Joey Porter and the Bengals have a long history of hate between them.  And Porter has long been a bad actor back to his days as one of the NFL’s dirtiest players (which speaks volumes about the Steelers that they made him a coach).  And he should not have been on the field mouthing off at the Bengals in the first place.  That should have been flagged.

Bengal Pacman Jones, himself not the cleanest or coolest player in NFL history, lost control and shouted back, bumping (probably inadvertently) an official in the process.  He, not Porter, gets flagged, putting the Steelers in easy FG range.  End of game.

Yes, there is a lesson here for those of us who are provoked by the disregard of the Rule of Law in this county.  We have to be smarter and better than them.  The Bengals were not smart.  They lost.

So this travesty of a game was practically an exercise in unequal justice and making a mockery of the rule of law and in demonstrating the ugliness that can and likely will happen as a result.

And, yes, things could get uglier in this country.  That it hasn’t yet speaks volumes about the peaceful nature of real Americans.  As a whole, we are not hotheads like certain Bengals. 


But Americans do have their limits as our English friends found out.  Let us pray the Rule of Law is peacefully restored.

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