The fight or flight instinct is deeply embedded in humans. We don’t like to stand and fight. Watch wild animals. They do the same.
Listen to Tom Izzo. There is a broader concept here.
As a Fighting Illini fan, I sometimes detest Izzo. He recruits some of the best players out of Chicago that could have gone to Illinois. He wins a lot. He’s won national championships and it grinds my gears when MSU fans lord it over me.
But, he’s a great coach and he is truly a great person. A friend of mine knows him personally, and Izzo goes above and beyond. He exemplifies class.
In this instance, he is talking about the end of the Wisconsin v Michigan game. Juwon Howard, Michigan’s head coach took a swing at a Wisconsin assisstant.
Howard’s actions were low class.
The way Howard coached the game with one minute left to play was low class as well. He was full-court pressing the Wisconsin walk-ons and players who don’t play a lot. Wisconsin was up 19 points, at home.
Wisconsin’s coach called a time out to get his players organized because they were going to get a ten-second violation called against them. Howard was offended by that.
Howard received a five-game slap on the wrist suspension. He should have been fired. Except, Michigan doesn’t want to blow up its program. Players would have transferred, and recruits would have decommitted and gone elsewhere. They’d have had to negotiate a settlement with Howard and find a new coach.
So, Michigan avoided it.
This is a proxy for a lot of things we see in society today. We avoid lots of things.
We have tried to sidestep really hard arguments in the United States for years. In our history, we sidestepped the slavery argument at our founding and it led to a Civil War. In foreign policy, we sidestep a lot of things because the opportunity cost we have to pay is too high. For example, the world let Hitler have the Sudetenland prior to WW2. If they’d have stepped up and stood up to him, WW2 might have looked a lot different.
There are hundreds of issues like this. Actually doing something about the national debt is a hard conversation. So, continuing resolutions are passed, spending increases, the debt grows and America becomes weaker because of it. Our government grows ever larger. Eventually, things will come to a head in the US and a dictator like Canada’s Trudeau will enact martial law and destroy the freedoms we were founded on. They will have people on their side that agree with them. Canada’s legislature voted to destroy Canadian freedom. For years, they backed away from that hard conversation avoiding conflict and now it is too late.
We need to have tough conversations with China, Russia, and our Allies. We are in the place we are with Putin because we avoided tough conversations. This started back in the 1990s under the Clinton Administration. Remember the “peace dividend”? The Clinton Administration was just a little too bullish on the fall of the old Soviet Union. Rose colored glasses don’t help you make good decisions. Succeeding Presidents weren’t any better. Putin casts his country as being humiliated with the fall of the Soviet Union.
The US has been in stasis. Part of that is because of career bureaucrats in government that can’t think out of the box and just proceed along with whatever they were doing before no matter what the underlying changes are in the world.
Vice President Kamela Harris speech yesterday was a joke. A 12th grader could have given a speech with more meat in it. She looked ridiculous and unserious saying it. This is what she said:
“Abso – we strongly believe – and remember also that the sanctions are a product not only of our perspective as the United States, but a shared perspective among our allies, and the allied relationship is such that we have agreed that the deterrence effect of these sanctions is still a meaningful one, especially because remember also, we still sincerely hope that there is a diplomatic path out of this moment. And within the context, then, of the fact that that window is still opening – open, although it is absolutely narrowing, but within the context of a diplomatic path still being open, the deterrence effect we believe has merit.”
The US has put economic sanctions on Putin and Russia. Economic sanctions never deterred any dictator.
When we try to have tough conversations, they quickly devolve. Someone is racist. Someone is a fascist. Someone is Hitler.
I watched Canada closely. When the chips are down, their government won’t be allied with us. Their people might, but their people have no power. I noticed virtually no one that has a large platform or following said anything in the halls of democracy about Canada. So much for preserving democracy and insurrections. Fascism just won north of our border.
I am not well versed enough in the details of Ukraine to make an argument that America shouldn’t commit blood and treasure to defend it. That also means I am not well versed enough to make the case we should defend Ukraine. I have watched the commentary on television that makes the case we don’t belong there and it doesn’t matter. I have also heard people I respect that aren’t on television every day make the case we should defend Ukraine. They each bring good points to the table and it’s a hard conversation to have.
I am reminded about the end of World War Two when American General George Patton thought we ought to take the Russians on right away. Churchill was of a similar mind. Truman, and FDR before him, had no stomach for it. Churchill’s speech in 1946 really set the chessboard for the next 43 years. Unfortunately, America let the Chinese and ex-KGB people reset it after.
My problem is I have no trust in the people that are having that conversation. I don’t think I am alone and even people that voted for this crowd are having doubts. A few months ago, the same people were having deep conversations about transgenders, retraining soldiers on critical race theory, and how to have a carbon-neutral military. They are not serious people.
Coach Tom Izzo could have that serious conversation. He’d welcome it if he had to have it. He’d do all he could to enable people so he wouldn’t have to have it. I am sure he’s had a lot of tough conversations over the years and not sidestepped them.
We don’t have a Coach Izzo in leadership at any level in the federal government now. They are merely actors and role players.
It's time for us to do what we have been doing. And that time is everyday.
You are extremely generous to point out her 12th grade status.
Her handlers must have abandoned ship in unison.
I am a grad of MSU who had the good fortune many years ago of having Coach Izzo offer to take a picture with my then-10 year old son. I've also been a high school lacrosse coach for 28 years and a high school history teacher for 30. Coach Izzo is absolutely correct-you have to "man up." You may not like that you lost, you may be pissed off and disappointed, but you owe respect to the game itself and to the other team to look them in the eye and shake their hands after the game is finished. It's called life preparation-you're gonna lose sometimes (maybe more than sometimes) and you're going to have to gather yourself and get moving in a positive direction. Many of the things going on in society today are just making me shake my head-but that's another rant for another day. Mr. Carter-I appreciate your writing and have passed some of your musings on to others.