At this late date in the history of scandalous Baylor University, we shouldn’t be surprised that this very assertively Christian University lacks the basic moral clarity a local newspaper columnist displays. “[W]hat Zamora did was illegal. But to me it’s not about the legality and more about what Zamora’s actions say about him as a person. A good, kindhearted, person doesn’t abuse innocent animals.”
[Baylor] fans just endured a disgusting sexual assault scandal and many are having a hard time supporting the team after that. But we were told all the guilty parties were removed from the team, so we’re not rooting for sexual predators. Baylor shouldn’t turn around and ask those who stood by them to root for an animal abuser.
Actually, Baylor just stonewalled – rather than endured – its way through a sexual assault scandal. It was dragged kicking and screaming to doing the right thing.
Baylor University is that most curious thing: a Christian institution seemingly designed to encourage cruelty and viciousness.
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What I’m talking about at Baylor goes beyond the moral dissonance demanded of all serious football fans – you must adore a sport so freakishly violent that its beau idéal is Richie Incognito, even as you tell yourself you’re adoring clean-cut all-American fun.
But that’s nothing. That’s step one. Now place yourself at Baylor. Or at Notre Dame. Pile university and Christianity on top of all that dissonance. Reconcile vast mass worship of a hyper-concussive sport, quite a few of whose standout players feature, on the field and in their private lives, exactly the sort of lunatic aggression you’d expect, with some stubborn vestigial notion in your mind, some vague remembrance, that the bloody ritual you’re adoring takes place on hallowed intellectual and spiritual ground.
It should be difficult to enjoy yourself unadulteratedly under these conditions, as the bullies, brawlers, domestic abusers, rapists, and animal floggers (fuck academic cheaters; forget cheaters; c’est entendu) bloody each other down there…
But hey. Turns out not only isn’t it difficult; it’s easy. It’s a pleasure.
Because – to state the bleeding obvious – violence is the primary object of worship in the world of Baylor University. You’re sitting in Waco – home of last year’s enormous bikers-with-guns melee/massacre. You’re sitting in the heart of Trump territory. Your choice for national leader is the man who has turned a presidential election into The Rime of the Ancient Tackler.
Strangely, you don’t even like nobly violent people; you cheer on chickenshits like Trump – a man who crapped all over a war hero because he was captured and “I like people who weren’t captured.” You cheer on players who beat up women, children, and animals.
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Some like it hot.
Hot and bloody.
It’s the Baylor way.
August 26th, 2016 at 12:03AM
I’m trying to process that cruelty to animals gets a much faster and stronger reaction in waco than does rape. Not succeeding.