END OF SINCERITY? IS THE CONSTITUTION OF THE NBA TO TRUMP THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES?

THE END OF SINCERITY?  IS THE CONSTITUTION OF THE NBA TO TRUMP THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES?

James R. Fisher, Jr., Ph.D.

© April 30, 2014

When I was an undergraduate student at the University of Iowa, after a physics lecture, Rex Jamison invited me to have coffee with him. 

Rex was valedictorian of his high school class at Story City, Iowa.  He was also number one in my class at Iowa as well.  He would go on to become a Rhodes Scholar at Cambridge in Great Britain, and subsequently to graduate from Harvard University from the School of Medicine at the top of his class.

Rex and I were acquaintances taking many of the same courses, living in Hillcrest Dormitory, and often involved in bull sessions on various topics.

Deeply religious at the time, a devout Irish Roman Catholic, attending mass and communion several times a week, I suppose I wore my religion on my sleeve.  Rex was not religious.

One night the bull session turned to religion and Rex had the floor.  He challenged me among all our friends to justify the tenets of Catholicism, the relevance of Papal Encyclicals, the basis of Papal Infallible Authority and the church's dogmatic teachings.  I was no match for him.

    

Rex had been a debater in high school, and he fairly reduced me to incredulity.  He never let up even when my responses were reduced to stutters.  I felt naked with all my clothes on.

Therefore, I was surprised when he invited me for coffee after our class in physics.  I couldn’t imagine what he wanted of me as my only contact with him was when he had an audience, when he could hold court with his peers and demonstrate his intellectual superiority by punishing one of us with it.  

He was not a good listener, and always seemed to have to be “on.”  My wonder was how he could feel “on” with only me as his audience.

After our second cup of coffee, he looked into my eyes deeply, and said to me, “Jim, teach me how to be sincere.”

I thought he was kidding, so I laughed and said, “Right!”

“I’m serious.  I watch, hell, I study you.  Did you know that?”

“Noooo," I said.  That felt weird.  He studied “me,” me of all people, a person he had destroyed before our peers.

“Yeah, I do.  You listen to others.  You listen to me.  I tried to make you mad the other night when we were discussing religion, and I could see pain in your eyes, sincere pain, not phony pain, not contrived pain.  I got to you, but I couldn’t stop.  I also saw anger, and thought he’s going to hit me, and you started to stutter, yeah, stutter!  That was the damnedest thing.  You’re a mountain compared to me and could crush me like a bean, and what do you do?  You stutter!

“Now, that’s sincerity, and I want to learn it, teach me, be my rabbi.”

“Rex, sincerity can’t be taught.  Sincerity can only be felt.  It doesn’t come out of the head.  It comes out of the heart.”

“Really?”

“Yes, really!”

He gathered up his books, turned and left, looked back and said, “I’ll owe you for the coffee, okay?”

THE END OF SINCERITY?  IS THE NBA CONSTITUTION TO TRUMP THE UNITED STATES CONSTITUTION?

I thought of this conversation when Adam Silver, the Commissioner of the NBA,  told a press conference that Donald Sterling, the owner of the L A Clippers NBA Basketball Team, would be banned for life from the NBA, exacted a $2.5 million fine, and could never again step into an NBA arena.

Donald Sterling’s crime was having said some outrageous and despicable things about African Americans in general and NBA players and former players, such as Magic Johnson, in particular in disparaging language to his former mistress. 

He made these remarks in the privacy of his own home, not knowing that he was being recorded.  But the remarks were of such a heinous nature that the NBA Players Association, of which more than 80 percent are African American, as well as NBA fans throughout the league, demanded the commissioner come down hard on the LA Clippers owner, and they were not disappointed.

If fact, I don’t imagine most NBA players or fans expected the commissioner to be so draconian, or his wrath to be so personal against the Clippers’ owner.  The commissioner made it emphatic that his ultimate objective was to strip Donald Sterling of ownership of the LA Clippers with an early sale of the franchise.

To accomplish this, the commissioner needs three-quarters of the 30 NBA franchise owners to vote for such an action.  He claimed it was within the NBA constitution to exercise such an action.

FIRST AMENDMENT RIGHTS TO FREE SPEECH – WHERE IS THE NBA IN ALL THIS?

Donald Sterling has a history or racism, and has paid fines before for his shameful bigotry.  What makes this different?   Charles Krauthammer on the “Bill O’Reilly Show” of Fox TV claims the groundswell of reaction to this tape recording is evidence of the huge shift in public opinion in the past 50 years. 

That said what is disturbing to me is the invasion of privacy, the violation of free speech, and the overwhelming emotional piling on that everyone seems to be engaged in without a moment’s reflection on what it may mean – down the road – to everyone else in terms of freedom of speech.

So, Donald Sterling is a despicable human being, but even a despicable human being under the United States Constitution has certain rights, among which are found in the Bill of Rights with the first amendment of those rights the Freedom of Speech.

Can the NBA franchise owners vote a franchise owner out of his ownership because he made some racist remarks in the privacy of his own home?

If this emotional madness is taken to its logical conclusion, and Donald Sterling is forced to sell because of these remarks, what does that say for the rest of us that are not billionaires, not millionaires, indeed, working paycheck to paycheck?

Can we lose our jobs, lose our homes, or be ostracized from our community if a son or daughter, brother or sister, uncle or aunt, or other friend or relative uses an iPhone to record what we say in the privacy of our own home about anything or anybody? 

Is there no sanctuary where we can express ourselves, vent our spleens, damn the world, damn the boss, or our company, the cat or dog, neighbor next door, or down the street for any imagined or real slight that gets our dander up?

If that is the case, more people will be like Rex, finding it impossible to understand sincerity, because sincerity will have died, for no one will be able to afford to say what they think or trust anyone to keep the confidence of their most private thoughts.  It will mark the end of spontaneity. 

By punishing a reprobate for his sick mind and hostile spirit who happens to be an NBA owner, could we be punishing us all in abstentia?