Op-ed views and opinions expressed are solely those of the author.

Anyone who has been a fan of professional football mourned the death of legendary coach and broadcaster, John Madden. Madden’s coaching career speaks for itself, his .759 winning percentage is the highest of any coach who has ever coached who coached at least 100 games. 

He coached for a decade and had a winning record in every season. After leaving coaching, he became a very popular broadcaster and was instrumental in developing one of the most popular video games that was ever created. Madden’s computer football game has been a top-selling video game for over three decades. 

As the accolades came in from former players and others associated with the game who admired what Madden brought to the sport, of course, there was a left-wing professor who couldn’t wait to say something that belittled Madden’s achievements and attacked his video game. Dr. Andrew McGregor, a history professor at Dallas College tweeted, “The creation of the Madden video game was not a great development for the U.S. It further glamorized violence and dehumanized Black athletes, helping to establish plantation cosplay that has grown worse in the era of fantasy football.”

The Madden football game has been around since 1988 and has generated over 7 billion dollars in revenues. Given that the game has been around for 30 plus years, it’s interesting that Dr. McGregor would wait until John Madden’s death to criticize the game, but it’s not surprising because this is exactly what the left does. It’s very easy to criticize, attack or insult the dead, which is a common practice of leftists because they don’t have the courage to deal with those who can fight back. We have all seen video of ANTIFA members attacking diners or elderly people in the streets, like packs of wolves when the odds were overwhelmingly in their favor, which is the definition of cowardice.

When faced with facts, those on the left opt to name call, label, or attempt to censor speakers when the ideas of the speakers are in opposition to leftist ideas. In the case of Madden Football, the game is a strategy game, where a player must call offensive and defensive plays given a variety of player rankings that are carefully calculated and make up a realistic part of the game. How this “glamorizes violence” or “dehumanizes Black athletes” or “establishes plantation cosplay” can only be understood from an extremely twisted mindset that attempts to invoke racism where none exists.  

Most responders to Dr. McGregor’s tweet soundly rejected his tweets and either made fun of them or criticized them. NFL insider, Benjamin Albright, used sarcasm to make his point about Dr. McGregor’s comments and tweeted, “Can’t wait for your essay on how Super Mario Brothers set back Italian Americans. We would all be better off if people would just stop with the faux-intellectualism and these laughably insipid word salad essays.” 

This is a perfect reply to the continued insanity that dominates left-wing thinking that takes rationalization to an extreme. The attempt of someone in academia to make the kind of claim that Dr. McGregor makes exhibits a complete lack of reality. People play video games for fun and as an escape from the trials and tribulations of the daily news (most of which is fake news). The left-wing narrative that is espoused by people like Colin Kaepernick who equates the experience of NFL players who choose to play the game, and earn millions of dollars to play it, with slavery is absurd and demeans the pain and suffering endured by slaves.  

Most people who play video games hardly think of the game as anything more than a means of entertainment. They don’t seek out deeper meanings with sociological implications when they turn on their computer and attempt to win against other players or a computer. When they turn off the game, their lives aren’t impacted by whether they won or lost at Madden Football. Yet, this is the implication made by someone who has a job teaching history at the college level. The real problem here is that this person who has demonstrated an inability to comprehend the difference in the innocent playing of a video game for fun versus labeling the game as being a venue for building a “digital plantation” is allowed to continue to teach young people who pay large amounts of money for their college classes. 

Colleges and, more recently, high schools and primary schools have become breeding grounds for cowards who fill students’ heads with nonsense in an attempt to force-feed their own personal agendas into young impressionable minds that are at the mercy of those who could fail a kid for not acquiescing. 

Few of these instructors have the courage to defend their ideas and this is the message that they have imparted to their students. This is what happens when conservative speakers are uninvited to speak at colleges or when they show up; they are shouted down. These are the actions of cowards whose ideas cannot stand the test of a civil debate. Social media is perfect for them because they can ignore comments when their ideas are challenged.  

The idea that tearing down statues, rewriting history, or attacking those who are recently deceased or long dead to pursue some social justice agenda defines the spineless nature of those whose criticisms would not stand a scrutiny test is why these people do what they do. It’s easy to make statements, but not have to defend them, which is why I was so happy to see so many ridicule Dr. McGregor’s inane tweet.

Internet bullies are not social justice warriors, they are weaklings who hide behind their computers and cower at the thought of being confronted by people with backbones and credible ideas.

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