The Question Not Being Asked In the Ray Rice Case

The critical question in the fiasco surrounding Baltimore Ravens' running back Ray Rice is not one of the 46 you've been hearing and reading.

The critical question is: If you were shocked by the video of Rice delivering a knockout punch to his fiancee in the elevator, what the hell is wrong with you?

After all, we already knew that Rice had knocked his fiancee unconscious. That had been established prior to NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell's laughably tone-deaf two-game suspension.

So what did you think happened in that elevator? That Rice kissed his wife too exuberantly? 

What's shocking is not that Rice's vicious punch was unusual but that it was so utterly mundane. That is what domestic abuse looks like. Did people really not know that?

In fact, Rice's abuse was relatively benign in the world of domestic abuse. After all, it consisted of a single blow, not a sustained attack.

Moreover, the release of video that vividly portrays Rice's violence primarily diminished the reputation of others, not of the football player himself. We knew what we had there -- or should have -- even without visual evidence.

The reactionary responses of Roger Goodell and the Baltimore Ravens have swathed them both in ignominy. What is eminently clear is that the league and the team are not concerned about the rampant domestic violence perpetrated by their employees but are hypocritically reacting (or pre-acting) to the ignorant public outrage they correctly expected the video would incite. (Ignorant not because outrage is unwarranted but because it was warranted absent the video.)

Remember, this is video that the league and the team either did or should have had possession of and could have obtained with little effort. Which means they either ignored it when it was known only to a handful of people or willfully avoided its acquisition knowing full well how poorly it would reflect on the game.

These are the same Ravens who welcomed back their star with open arms during the exhibition season. This is the same commissioner who imposed the same sanction on a violent criminal that he imposes on gentlemen who smoke a joint during their off-hours -- but only if it's their first offense.

And this is the same public, at least in Baltimore, that gave Rice a standing ovation when he returned to the field. A standing ovation. Nothing has changed since, except that those fans can no longer rationalize to themselves that it was just a family squabble.

To add stupid to liar, Goodell violated his own newly established penalty matrix for domestic violence, established just a week prior. Goodell had prescribed a six-game suspension for ordinary domestic violence not involving a child or a pregnant woman. This is the definition of ordinary abuse, yet Goodell suspended Rice indefinitely, with the strong suggestion that the punishment will last all year.

This is one of those cases where everyone even tangentially involved has rolled in the mud. Rice is a thug, Goodell a liar and a hypocrite, the Ravens the same, the fans boorish and self-centered, Ravens' coach John Harbaugh a mendacious, self-indulgent creep, and so on. I'm pretty sure Geraldo Rivera looks bad in all of this, though who would notice.

There's another domestic violence case on Goodell's docket, because NFL players can't go two weeks without beating the women in their thrall. There's no video on this one, at least as far as we know, so let's see how the league handles it. Nothing Goodell does will mollify anyone paying attention. He's already made such a hash of his own system that there is no longer any possibility of fairness or consistency.

Your Favorite Team Is -- You

What do Ryan Braun, Ray Lewis, Barry Bonds and Ray Rice have in common?

Their hometown fans cheered all of them. 

That's after Braun wriggled out of accountability following a year of self-righteous lying. That's after Lewis escaped punishment for his involvement in a double murder. That's after Bonds, generally despised by media and teammates, admitted to a years of cheating and lying about it. That's after Rice beat his wife unconscious.

Do fans not care about smarmy, cynical liars? Do they not care about murder? About inveterate cheating? About domestic abuse?

Sure they do, in theory. But they care much more about something practical and immediate. They care about their own enjoyment.

They care about the success of the teams they care about.

And if disgust over homicide or assault and battery or a malign personality interferes with the hometown nine (or eleven) winning, well, suddenly it's in conflict with something more important. Because our mood is elevated when our team wins. Our happiness is marginally diminished when they lose. And we don't like our happiness diminished, no matter how slightly. Someone else's murder or beating or lying, cheating and stealing are of little consequence compared to a sliver more of our contentment. So we support the sociopath who helps our team win and rationalize his actions.

Some examples
Consider this: whom did you root for in this past year's NCAA basketball tournament? Unless you have a connection to a contending team, the answer is probably whoever you wagered would win. (And if you have a natural preference, you probably picked that team anyway.) You didn't really care about the teams, schools or fan bases. Your favorite team was -- you.

Jameis Winston was accused of rape and caught red-handed stealing food from a supermarket. If he were an ordinary student he would have been expelled from college. Yet he will start every game at quarterback for first-ranked Florida State this football season because virtually the entire population of Tallahassee cares more about Seminole victories than about moral issues. That's for people in Gainesville and Coral Gables to concern themselves with, at least until their key guy commits some felony.

We're All Guilty
In fact, the college football universe generally supports Winston. They want to see him play. Watching him brings us pleasure even if we're not Florida State fans. Consequently there's been almost no backlash at all, even in places like Eugene, Oregon and Madison, Wisconsin and Oxford, Mississippi and most certainly in Bristol, Connecticut. 

It's also why sports fans are generally self-deluded about the college-sports industrial complex that makes billions of dollars for schools, media companies and apparel sellers, at the expense of athletes who are not and never could be college students but are compensated for their profit-creating services with scholarships of utterly no value to them.

So next time you see some thug welcomed back by the hometown fans despite actions that should have landed him in the state penitentiary, don't be surprised. The fans are just honoring the desires of the most important people in the world. Themselves.