Soccer As A Metaphor For What Is Wrong With America

I've got a problem with Soccer - surely not unique - and it's not just that it is a stupefyingly boring sport. Well, OK, it is mostly about that, and please, you soccer fans, spare me any lyrical descriptions regarding the subtleties of a game where the typical score ends in a 1-1 tie. The fact that Soccer not only exists but thrives tells me everything I need to know about the resurgence of Socialism worldwide, and not coincidentally, the fortunes of the Democrat Party. Let us review the origins of Soccer, so as to better understand a) what is wrong with it, b) why it is a Metaphor for The Democrat Party and c) how to improve it.

1) Enslavement to Conformity - Low scoring as a virtue
Karl Marx famously said "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need". It's a bit of irony that Marx pilfered the poetical nature of this phrase from Matthew 25:14-30 in the Bible, seeing as how he was himself an atheist. Not that that is a big surprise. Socialism has teemed with shameless Plagiarizers from well before Marx, and that tradition continues to this day, including both President Obama and V.P. Joe Biden. And when Lenin so famously stated that "capitalists will sell us the rope with which we will hang them", he wasn't just talking about exploiting the profit motive of Capitalism for Socialism's ends, he was talking about using our Words against us as well.

That aside, the Socialist credo is the embodiment of the virtue of low scores, one of Soccer's most hallowed orthodoxies. Inciting the working classes against Greedy Capitalist Exploiters who take more than their fair share has always been foremost in the minds of the Commissars, be they of the classic Russian variety or as personified by the current Democrat Party leadership. And so it is that in Soccer, low scores are an honored tradition. In contrast to the gaudy and excessive scoring of American Basketball and Football, Soccer encourages low scores so as to sustain the self esteem of the losing team. After all, if the final score was 1-0, how bad could the losing team truly be said to suck?

And thus, does Soccer seduce the masses to conformity and against overachievement. This explains Soccer's popularity amongst Soccer Parents, by the way. Our theory on this point is that most Soccer Parents were - in their youth - failures at more conventional sports themselves. Thus, however bad their kid's team is, it's rarely reflected in the score, and the parents can sustain their child be truthfully observing that "you only lost by one goal!", whilst simultaneously exorcising their own youthful failures on the diamond, the field or the court. By the way, this also explains why Soccer leagues insist on giving trophies to the second, third and fourth place teams in any tournament.

2) The death of Meritocracy and the rise of the Midfielder
There's a classic joke amongst the hardy folk of Russia during the Soviet era, and it summed up the relationship between the Common Folk and the Communist Party in the "Worker's Paradise": "You pretend to pay us, and we'll pretend to work". Now, that might not strike you as too funny, but in Russia - where cynicism reigns - it has them rolling in the aisles.

This simple phrase pretty much sums up the essential nonsense of the Rules Of Play in Soccer, and particularly as it is embodied in the position of Midfielder.

See, Soccer is boredom, and Socialism is boredom elevated to a virtue. And how better to institutionalize this boredom than through the positions of its players and the things that they are allowed - or not allowed - to do. Defenders, Midfielders, Forwards and Goalie all play very prescribed roles. Each position occupies a particular portion of the Pitch (playing field), and they cannot stray from it. Of all of these positions, they have created one that has absolutely no meaning: the Midfielder.

Midfielders are not allowed to Defend. Midfielders are not allowed to score. Midfielders are not allowed to stray from, well, Midfield. No, to all appearances, the Midfielder's only purpose is to advance the ball to the Forwards in the event that the Defenders or the Goalie fail to do so, and to prevent the opposing Team's Midfielders from doing likewise. It is not a coincidence, by the way, that the Midfield is the largest portion of the Pitch, and Midfielders the largest portion of the team. In a sport so devoted - as Socialism is - to distracting the masses from their sorry lot by whatever means possible, this was inevitable.

It is clear that the position was created so as to stifle even a hint of the Meritocratic impulses which so energize Capitalist societies. After all, if you proceed from the premise that a certain percentage of your workers are going to be Underachievers, you still have to find a place for them in society. In Soccer, their "place" is at Midfield. Here, they can do no real harm, and through the Rules of Play, you can actually convince them of the importance of their role.

For the real-life equivalent of this phenomenon in the workaday world, you need look no further than government employment. With a few honorable exceptions, it is the place where society deposits its underachievers. And in the ranks of our Polity, this is nowhere so embodied as in the United States Senate, the institution P.J. O'Rourke so famously described as being "the place where society could deposit 100 of its more prominent numbskulls, so they could do no real harm".

It is no coincidence in the Age Of Soccer that for the first time in the nation's history, both the President and Vice President hail from this dubious institution.

Knights, Heroes of the Revolution, Forwards - Whatever

Soccer is rife with traditions that encourage the myth of a benevolent Aristocracy and its Champions, for example, allowing only Forwards to attack the opposing goal. In the Superbowl just past, a linebacker named James Harrison for the Pittsburgh Steelers intercepted a pass at his own goal-line and thundered 100 yards to score a touchdown. That single play proved to be the winning margin for the Steelers, a team in a sport that is steeped in the American values of democracy and capitalism, not to mention a moment of unparalleled excitement.

That could have never happened in Soccer, since the honor of scoring has been reserved for Forwards, the Elite of all Soccer players. Much as Europe has - for all of its history - reserved the title of Hero for it's Upper Classes, and even enshrined the concept in the traditions of Chivalry, so has Soccer duplicated all that is worst about Agrarian society, a Landed Gentry and Aristocracy by creating the position of Forward.

Forwards are the Knights Errant of the present day, right up to their sworn fealty to some Supreme Ruler. So it has ever been with Socialism and so it has ever been with the Democrat Party. It is no coincidence that their mythology so revolves around "Camelot" and the Kennedy family, or that Barack Obama has been so anointed. It is also no coincidence that the consequences of inbreeding so inherent in such a social arrangement should result in the embarrassment of Caroline Kennedy being put forward for appointment to one of the highest offices in the land, or that most of Chicago's most prominent political sons are either in jail or mere steps ahead of a Federal prosecutor.

The American Solution

The elevation of Caroline Kennedy, Barack Obama and Soccer is a societal cry for help, a cry for some fresh thinking about how we order our affairs. I believe that if we can cure soccer of what ails us, we can cure America of the Democrat Party. In summary:

- Midfielders serve no purpose.

- Scoring is far too low.

- The Pitch - or Field of Play - is much too large.

In a nutshell, we need to transform Soccer into a truly entertaining sport such as NFL football. In a nutshell, we need to Americanize Soccer. Much, say, as we have Americanized Iraq by exposing it to the most virtuous aspects of our culture, we can work the same magic on the ancient game that the rest of the world knows as Football with one simple change: Get rid of the Midfield, and get rid of Midfielders.

This stroke of genius would accomplish all of our objectives in a single swoop, making the game interesting, high scoring, and - might I say - ensuring it's profitability at the Professional level as well, since, not only do you get rid of the sizable group of players that serve no purpose other than to slow down play, you allow for another 10,000 seats in the stadium as well.

The benefits at the intramural level would be even greater. At municipal fields all across the world, there would suddenly be room for twice as many Soccer pitches; so, for those concerned that underachievers would be displaced from the sport, you simply create two tiers of proficiency, and put the underachievers on the "B" squad. Kids with no athletic talent not only get to continue playing Soccer, they get to do so with other kids at their own skill level, thus ensuring them of a competitive match and the opportunity - however modest - for some of them to excel.

Finally, in ridding ourselves of the Midfield, we have also rid ourselves of the dreaded boundaries of which statists everywhere are so fond. Defensemen would be free to charge the short length of the new Pitch and score, without all the tedious manuevering necessitated by the "Tweeners". A Goalie's inbound kick might actually result in a score, and a whole generation of Joe Harrisons would spring forth, with glory available to all based on talent, merit and grit.

There is no more honored concept in all of commerce than that of "getting rid of the Middleman". And what is the modern Democrat Party if not the Middleman? Constantly insinuating themselves between Buyer and Seller, Provider and Consumer; producing nothing, but consuming far more than the value of the services they provide, none of which are actively sought out by an informed and empowered citizenry. Democrats are the Midfielders of our age, aimless underachievers seeking esteem and purpose - not by the dint of their effort - but by enforcing their mediocrity upon an overachieving public.

Socialism will never produce a Sergeant York, a James Harrison, or any other working class hero - hard as it may try - and neither will the Democrat Party. Get rid of the Midfield, and the Midfielder. Strike a blow for Freedom and Democracy. Strike a blow against boredom and conformity.

Strike a blow for Soccer.