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I don't know if I am allowed to comment on things on your august website, being a mere Englishman but I will have a go. I don't know much about baseball. I went to Cooperstown once and saw the field there, that's is my only contact. I suppose if you only see one baseball diamond that is a good one to see. About deserving the money. Of course baseball players do not deserve the money. They are fulfilling a lifelong ambition. Think about it. Think about how much people are prepared to pay to own a famous bat or ball. Then think how much the Yankees or the Cubs could charge for a place on the team. Major League Baseball players are being paid to do what millions would pay to do. The money does not come from talent. It has no relation to talent whatsoever. If Babe Ruth had been twice as talented how much more money would he have earned? Who else was there to pay to watch him more? If he had been 10% less talented how much less would he have earned? If he had exactly the same talent but was overshadowed by thirty better players he would have earned much less. If he had lived in England instead he might never have become a professional sportsman, from what I have seen of him in old films he looked like a Trade Union leader. Babe Ruth didn't earn the money, the crowd earned it. The enormous crowd paid modestly inflated prices to see him play. That money poured in to the commercial operation around him. Then greed and envy ensured that the lion's share of the money went to Babe Ruth himself. I have no doubt that if he had to pay to play he would have done. But he didn't. Only a saint could see money being made out of his own talent without demanding a share. Anybody in the situation of generating money like that is going to want to believe that it is their talent that earns the money. They are wrong. Rap artists do not need three Ferraris to help them cope with the angst of having too much talent; they just need to remove their heads from their nether regions and wake up to reality. The world is big, there are a lot of people in it. If you have something that a lot of people are prepared to pay a modest amount for you can channel large amounts of money in your direction. Nobody paid $50,000 to watch Babe Ruth play. 50,000 paid $1. That is the reality. Talent does not make people rich. People make people rich, and there are a lot of people. I think the people should ask for that money back, nobody needs to be a millionaire in order to want to be a famous sportsman, popstar, supermodel, President of the USA or of a major company. Tax them, take our money back. Martin Willett The following is a reply to a gun enthusiast's newsgroup posting.I'm English. My father is a retired police inspector. He has a long service medal. He has a pension. He never saw a gun except in the hands of very carefully trained fellow officers. Those facts are related. Sample form for issuing a gun owners permit.
There are more gunshots portrayed on one evenings television in this country than are fired in real life in a year. Guns are hard to come by. Very few home owners use any form of weapon to defend themselves. Very few criminals use weapons. My house was burgled a few months ago while I was asleep. I am very glad that privately owned guns are not available in this country. If they were the burglars may have been armed, they may have been frightened for their lives. Somebody may have been killed. If you think that the thought that I might possess a gun would deter the burglar I suggest you consider how rare burglary is in your country and in South Africa; despite the existence of an effective death sentence for the crime. Adultery in any country with a large number of hand guns effectively carries the risk of a death sentence, I see no evidence of a deterrent. My mother was a Prison officer for many years. She mixed with many women who had killed their husbands. She much preferred them to shoplifters and petty thieves. In my country the usual weapon of the wronged woman is the kitchen knife. It is a lot easier to kill with a .38 than a bread knife. It is also a lot easier to kill several people with a gun than with a knife. Multiple murders/attempted murders in this country are rare. In the last twenty years there have been *two* mass killings. (Hungerford and Dunblane) Both were carried out by deranged men who held at least some of their guns legally. Yes America is bigger. About four and a half times the population. You seem to have multiple shootings most months rather than most decades. There have been lesser incidents involving swords and machetes. I have absolutely no doubt that the losers who attacked children at a nursery school, a congregation in church and a member of parliament and his helpers would have used guns if they could get them. They could not get them. In those three incidents only one life was lost to a blade. If those nutters had only one gun each I am quite sure that they would have killed many more people. There are more gun crimes than before in my country. Criminals have no difficulty in getting hold of them if they want them. In earlier times they didn't want them. The "Greatest Crime" in British history happened in 1963. An express train was robbed by a team of more than a dozen professional criminals. No guns were carried by any of them. Carrying a gun carried the risk of getting them hanged. Carrying a gun was not necessary. A train driver was coshed. In Hollywood a cosh knocks a man out for ten minutes. In real life a cosh blow can kill. The driver died, but the death did not occur until beyond the year-and-a-day deadline. The Great Train Robbers could not be hanged for murder, they got thirty years. In my country only two kinds of people can now own a handgun above .22 calibre; the police and the military. And criminals. Generally criminals use guns to shoot and threaten criminals. Armed robbery is rare. Shots fired during an armed robbery are even rarer. The Police do not routinely carry guns except in airports and around Embassies that are a terrorist target. (Like yours, obviously.) We do have armed response teams who drive around in cars with a hidden arsenal in them. The lure of the fast car, guns, body armour and baseball caps is very strong; unsuitable candidates are excluded. You would stand more chance of getting to be made Pope than getting a place in such a unit. Don't think that I am a woolly minded liberal bed-wetter. I favour the death penalty for suitable crimes, such as shoplifting, car theft and burglary. I have owned and used shotguns. I have killed animals for meat and pest control. But I won't have a gun in my house. British accidental gun incidents involving children are not at an all time low. We have never had any statistics. I doubt we ever will. Guns stop riots?? I would rather stop resentment and inequality. Little point but it does piss me off. The so called peace symbol you use is nothing to do with peace. It is based on the British movement Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, which called for nuclear disarmament starting with Britain. Unilateral disarmament. These dreamers thought that after Britain had scrapped its four ICBM carrying submarines, dismantled it's bombs and bombers and kicked USAF bases out of the country that the USSR would then disarm out of shame. The symbol is based on the semaphore signal for N and D. I went to University with a lot of idiots who marched with CND to ban the bomb. I wanted to ban the Soviets bombs. I wanted a global multilateral and piecemeal disarmament not a western surrender. There were strong rumours about soviet sponsorship of CND, all I know is that the CND group seemed to have more money than any other student group, yet never seemed to raise any. It is not your problem. CND started in the late 1950s. By the time hippies of the sixties came to public attention the CND logo had become widely misidentified as a peace symbol. There is no peace symbol for the same reason there is no virginity symbol. It is a concept defined by the opposite condition. What is the real threat to democracy in the USA that can be defended against by private guns? Your country is not a tyranny. You live in a democratic country with a very effective military organization. No country on Earth can contemplate invading you. You have been safe from conquest for over 150 years. To invade the USA would require a military might equivalent to the rest of world put together. All those constitutional arguments are bullshit. Stop being a fundamentalist. You like guns because you are a psychopath. Face it. Face yourself. I can see it in myself, that's why I stay clear of guns. |
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