Nancy Armour, a sports columnist for USA Today, has called for a sports boycott of states that put any restrictions on a woman’s right to abort her child. She is calling on sports leagues to discriminate against states that restrict abortion and cancel sporting events from occurring in such states. She believes it is immoral to allow a state to host sporting events if a child cannot be aborted freely. Some chutzpah!
Armour in the past has called for canceling Tom Brady because she believed he had been too friendly with Trump. Armour is a perfect example of the cancel-culture zealots that permeate today’s society. These Putinesque people refuse to have civil discourse with their fellow citizens who disagree with their beliefs. Anyone who does not adhere to their “Ten Commandments” must be ostracized and sent to a “career Siberia.”
Helen Keller once said “the highest result of education is tolerance.” Sadly, today many of our educational institutions have taken the Putin approach to education and refuse to allow anyone to express an opinion that does not agree with their rigid belief systems. Ho does one become so conceited that they insist that anyone not agreeing with their beliefs should be the object of discrimination?
It seems that the weaker one’s argument is in relation to logic, the more vociferous they become in their discourse. Do you think that Armour is calling for a boycott of France and Spain because they restrict a woman’s right to an abortion. No, she ignores European laws and blindly attacks the “flyover states.”
Our country is very polarized and we are naive to think we could never experience a civil war. It is time for the public to agree to disagree and accept that our fellow citizens may have different viewpoints. It is also time to realize that your beliefs may not always be correct and those who agree with your viewpoint may sometimes be in the minority.
Our country can survive if we accept that we have the right to argue fervently for our viewpoints but others have the right to argue just as strongly for their viewpoints. Neither side of the argument deserves to be canceled or ostracized.
Hopefully our country will overcome the Nancy Armours and learn to thrive with healthy public discourse.
Bob Spencer
Publisher
Manatee Herald
publisher@manateeherald.com
