This column is in response to George Diaz's evisceration of Tim Thomas in The Orlando Sentinel.
Tim Thomas was the Stanley Cup Finals Most Valuable Player, posting two shutouts for the Boston Bruins in the team's victory over the heavily favored Vancouver Canucks. One of those shutouts came in the deciding seventh game, 4-0.
Thomas also shut out the recent visit to the White House, and that enraged Diaz so much to write a column elaborating on how America is wonderful because it allows you "take a stand on principle and — unless you are breaking laws — have no worries about repercussions."
Yet George Diaz of The Orlando Sentinel wrote a column recently that criticizes Thomas and totally bashes his political views, as if he is of another planet, and the way he arrives at this reasoning is a complete contradiction. It also raises the question of how this man got such a column position.
Thomas's Facebook and Twitter is where he gave his explanation for giving the White House the cold shoulder: "I believe the federal government has grown out of control, threatening the rights, liberties, and property of the people. This is being done at the Executive, Legislative, and Judicial level. This is in direct opposition to the Constitution and the Founding Fathers vision for the Federal government."
Diaz mocks Thomas in context of this post, asking if Thomas was arrested, and inquired as to whether the federal government raided his house.
Okay, Mr. Diaz, so you have the opportunity to take a stand on principle … and have no worries about repercussions? How about the libelous column you just wrote about Thomas, slamming an athlete for being "dark, narrow and simple-minded." Who are you to say he is simple-minded?
Mr. Diaz, why don't you talk to the Occupy Wall Street protesters, who are getting clubbed by police in riot gear and sprayed in the face without any provocation? Diaz also argues that meeting the president of the United States is a once in a lifetime opportunity and you should do it no matter what.
But what if he has drone-bombed Pakistan and Yemen, killing many innocent people, and I don't agree with it? What if he serves the interests of the Wall Street big business scum who got us into this economic recession in the first place? What if he waged war on Libya without authorization from Congress, which is unconstitutional? What if he has left the economy in a worse place than when he entered office? What if he rang in 2012 by signing into law the new National Defense Authorization Act, which not only allocates another $660 billion to police the world with the U.S. military apparatus, but also allows for indefinite detention of U.S. citizens without trial or charge? Does that not go against everything America stands for?
What then? Do Thomas or I still have to blindly submit to the celebrity status of the President of the United States? Wouldn't that completely nullify your "greatness of America" philosophy: taking a stand on PRINCIPLE?
Diaz's buddy Ruben Perez got to meet the president! Oh and he got to plug his food establishments in the Orlando International Airport!
Enjoy what you're reading?
Signup for our newsletter
"Check them out," Obama said.
Then Diaz says, to paraphrase, "TOO BAD YOU MISSED IT, TIMMY!"
What a hack. What an imbecile. What a missed opportunity to display an ounce of political intelligence.
If my taking offense to your column is dark, narrow, and simple-minded, Mr. Diaz, count me among the lovers of liberty, quietly losing my mind, wandering aimlessly, searching for the flickering light at the end of the shrinking corridor that is the American political establishment.
Read More
How one professor and her classes are preserving Oxford’s Black history
By Sean Scott | March 20, 2024Jazma Sutton, an assistant professor of history, teaches The Black Midwest (HST 350Q) and Black Women in America (HST 450D) classes. In both courses, she has students working with the Smith Library of Regional History and Miami’s archives to document and preserve Black history in Oxford.
Miami faculty members recount Freedom Summer in new documentary
By Luke Macy | February 25, 2022After seven years of work, “Training for Freedom,” a documentary highlighting Oxford’s involvement in the Freedom Summer of 1964, premiered on PBS Western Reserve on Valentine’s Day.
“Documenting the COVID-19 Pandemic”: History in the making
By Alice Momany | August 29, 2021In March 2020, Miami University’s archives launched “Documenting the COVID-19 Pandemic,” a collection focused on life during the COVID-19 pandemic.