Michael said:
>IMO Ric is more of a zealot than NFL.

I agree. He is a lot more "mature" and being in his sixties youthful
exuberance is hardly a viable excuse.

> Trying to convince him of their
>zealotry was hence pretty much a waste of time.

I disagree. Standing up to zealotry is never a waste of time. It not
only helps us define ourselves and give weaker souls a healthy
alternative to focus their energies on, but at the risk of sounding
like a zealot myself, I believe it is our duty to speak up for its
victims.

>So Ric seemed to be advocating that we forget our differences with NFL
>and that we all join together to fight some imaginary evil of his.
>And maybe the people who represent this imaginary evil to us will see
>us as representing some other imaginary evil. Then we can have a war.
>We can kill them to make the world a better place. They can kill us to
>make the world a better place. Not meaning to be facetious here but
>this is what a lot of wars are about.

Indeed. Luckily very few people will take their raw crusade seriously,
but it sure gives the rest of us a bad name.

>And yeah, Ric came across as a real nice guy.

Which always puts anybody who tries to criticize him in a very poor
light. With his suave, gregarious manner he can get away with
side-stepping almost any issue and make you look like a war mongering
Neanderthal in the process.

>That's how racism works. You take your unresoved anger and transfer it
>to some specific group. Then you can be nice to everyone else. When
>that anger wells up you just take it out on the scapegoat group. The
>Nazis were generally very nice and polite to their family, friends,
>and other "aryans". All kinds of religous and political extremists are
>very nice and friendly to the others in their group.  Its just if you
>are not in their group you are in trouble. Apparently Ric saw us as
>being part of his group, thats all.

Michael, thanks for your brilliant post that so succinctly expressed
what I never could have put into words myself.

Best, Peter
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