Interesting article on the Clarett ruling. I'll comment before perusing your comments.
One major disconnect I see here has to do with not recognizing (or accepting) the distinction between morality and legality, that is the difference between what is right and what is definable and therefore legislatable.
I may've started thinking in this sort of fashion after following some links from I think Adam's blog to discussions between various people on homosexual marriage; it had been brought up by the State of the Union address. Distilling, it was argued at one point that while there may be nothing wrong with homosexuality, homosexual relations and homosexuals living together in a marriage-like union, this is none of the government's business. That is the State sanctions marriage between a man and a woman because it benefits the State by increasing conservatism (someone with no-one else to worry about is generally going to be more radical than someone with a family to take care of) and because when a man and woman live together children tend to happen.
That is to say one could believe gay marriage to be moral but still be opposed to it being State sanctioned; these are distinct if not totally separate issues. Personally I find the argument (I wasn't trying to create a strawman) to be off - I think it would benefit the State (long-term even) to sanction homosexual marriage in the same ways it benefits the State to sanction heterosexual marriage - but I've already gotten way off topic.
Because what I'm saying there is not leaving the distinction I'm after crystal clear; there is also a difference between what benefits the State and what the State can reasonably support legally.
And that was one of the things I noticed in reading through the Roe decisions, even if I still haven't finished Blackmun's court opinion. The justices are not deciding what is right, they are deciding what the law says. Or, some would argue quite convincingly, justices decide what they think is right and then try to make it look like the law agrees. In some ways I find this terrible but I also think that there needs to be a check on the will of the people. That is I lack confidence in mobs, rabble and groups described using less biased terminology; sure, eventually problems will be dealt with and work themselves out, but I'd prefer to avoid the ugly periods if at all possible.
That is while I find Rehnquist's dissent reasonable, I find it a strikingly odd issue to confront in this manner. And this is a weird situation to find myself in; I expect, rather, to be the one reasoning dispassionately while horrible things are happening.
Working my way through this (really, I'm on my way to the Clarett bit, you'd forgotten, hadn't you), while I would prefer the entire nation to be unified - taking my stance (allowed unconditionally up through say 4 months, and thereafter only to save the mother [this statement thrown together on the spot, don't take it as all that rigorous]) of course - not everyone else would agree. And that's the whole fucking ballgame, isn't it. My personal version of morallity is immaterial to everyone else, just as everyone else's personal version is immaterial to me. So, I now conclude/understand, there may be some benefit to having the various states having their various laws. The various nations have their various laws but it takes quite a bit for people to really get up and change nations. Changing states is easier.
There still would be crusaders travelling around trying to stop horrible things (abortions happening or abortions being denied) and lots of rides out of state, but, well, we have that now, really.
Note: It's fun airing out your dirty laundry, isn't it. I'm merely semi-publically working my way through various issues and points of view with which I'm not familiar/etc. I'm not sure what purpose this has for y'all - I'm sure much of this sounds simplistic/ridiculous - but if it's not clear from years of message board posts and email that that is of little concern to me I'm not sure what I can do to shore that one up for you. For those truly troubled by this I suggest a long-winded drunkard's-walk style discourse on the state of the NFL, it's working well for me (but alas no, I am not the slightest bit intoxicated, I merely made the mistake of falling asleep at like 6pm, waking up at 11pm not feeling well and not being able to fall back asleep due to intestinal issues, reading a third of a Heinleinnovel and then turning on the computer to see what's new on, uhh, that thing I won't mention, what with tickets going on pre-sale today and tomorrow.)
I agree that KG and Labron are not harming the NBA. The article mentions Kwame which isn't a bad angle, but, well, the problem is not isolated individuals, as is suggested in various ways.
The problem is the pay jump from college sports to pro sports is enormous. College students are not paid. They may get free tuition and maybe room/board (I have no idea, exactly, what is allowed) but even the minimum salaries in the NFL and NBA are (a) more money per year, and (b) in currency. That is if you're not interested in attending classes free tuition is as worthless to you as a free salsa bar is to me (well sometimes I see an wonderful onion/cilantro mix in a salsa bar; but to keep the comment valid let's define "salsa bar" as only containing tomato and/or guacamole based offerings).
I like college sports. No, I love college sports. For me it goes NCAA Football, MLB, NFL, NCAA Basketball, NBA, NHL. [Ok, if I could watch more soccer that is shot (camera-wise) well, that would be ahead of the NBA and maybe even NCAA Basketball even with the Tournament. And the NHL could easily move past the NBA as well, it's just that my history is much more basketball oriented than hockey oriented.]
Ok, now that that's taken care of, allow me to start again: I love college sports. But the system is very troublesome. People are being exploited with the implication of future riches at a later level, on a further stage. Information on the huge cuts from high school to college and then college to the pros is available, and people aren't being forced to participate. But the future riches are being implied or atleast inferred and the problems are ignored. Unless or rather until you get cut.
Exploitation of the stupid and/or gullible and/or starry-eyed happens all the time; people who are pissed off at those that they see as exploiters are slowly collected. And in various ways comeuppance occurs.
To change my method of attack, I'm not sure it is reasonable to blame bad shooting in the NBA on immaturity, with that immaturity blamed on players leaving college early.
The article Matt linked says this "When the NBA began tapping high school, league management thought fans would be too stupid to notice the decline in quality of play. But everybody has noticed, which is why the NBA's popularity is falling."
This is even more ridiculous, the quality of play won't decline if you bring in better players sooner. Also, the Steelers are competing for the Rams fans (maybe bad examples, they're not mine), they just hope that too many teams don't go out of business. Similarly the NBA is competing with NCAA Basketball for fans - LaBron is drawing people to Cleveland games rather than college arenas - but the NBA doesn't want the NCAA to die.
MLB has it differently, there is college baseball but I follow it about as much as I follow minor league baseball. The focus is on the MLB, with the occasional flyer on those that are expected to make it big in the MLB.
The article also says: "Judge Scheindlin's decision dismisses quality of play as irrelevant: 'The NFL has not justified [Maurice] Clarett's exclusion by demonstrating that the [draft age] rule enhances competition.'"
Here is a nice legality/morality distinction. That quote does not mean that quality of play is irrelevant (to the case.) It means that the NFL has not demonstrated that quaility of play is relevant (to the case.)
It is ridiculous to say "The NFL continues to be the number-one sport by every measure ... foremost because quality of play is so high." I would not consider the quality of play in the NFL to be "so high." Higher than College, yes. But not objectively high. There is a lot of ugly, ugly football out there. In fact, much of football is ugly. It's just that occasionally there is the exciting play, an exciting final 2 (or 5) minutes of the half that makes up (or, doesn't make up) for the atrocious first 28 (or 25) minutes - missed field goals, more punts than first downs, etc.
What I'm avoiding - other than trying to sleep - is any overarching comment on Clarett being allowed in to the NFL, and those that would presumably follow.
One reason is that, well, I don't know, legally, what to think. And I don't care, really. Decay is an odd, very biased term. Rising and falling depends a lot on which dimensions your watching. And also those who run NFL teams have a lot invested in the status quo thus in this field they'll tend towards conservatism which should buffer changes and allow me to adjust slowly or drift away just as slowly. There's too much shit in this world worth consideration anyway.
And also I can't see huge masses of 18 year olds coming to the NFL; 18 year olds aren't all that massive.
So even if the author of that article was right that the NBA was falling apart at the seams because of 18 year olds (they're not, when something hits a huge peak [Magic, Bird, Jordan] it's going to stumble [the Pistons and Knicks playing bad basketball so well] and stumble [strike], or rather change and change and change. {But limiting the criteria to a single criterion: cash flow, the peak then stumble bit is reasonable}) I don't agree that this can be translated directly into football. It doesn't work that way in baseball (there are some young players in the majors, mainly pitchers that do real well their first season at 20 or 21 and then fall apart for a while and maybe come back and be ok or great, I mean, they're pitchers, it often appears random), most players [or hitters atleast] reach their peak at say 27-30. And, if we accept Gould [and we do, see this blog, Monday Jan 12] the level of play is getting increasingly better and thus fewer and fewer players not very near their peak will be able to do anything.)
I'm outta steam; I've only tangentially glanced socialism but I've hit most other recent topics.
