The Online Opinion Outpost features opinions and commentary on the latest hot topics from national news sources. As much as you love hearing from The Universe, we thought you might like to hear from journalists around the nation.
Racism and privacy rights
Torrents of contempt have been raining down on Sterling since the release of an audio recording, apparently genuine, in which the billionaire owner of the Los Angeles Clippers tells his mistress to stop posting online pictures of herself with black men, including Magic Johnson, “and not to bring them to my games.”
My sympathy for Sterling is nonexistent. His racist remarks are odious, and they couldn’t have come as a shock to anyone who has followed his career. Yet the most alarming part of this story has less to do with basketball or the racial prejudices of an 80-year-old plutocrat than with what it says about the rapidly disappearing presumption that things we say in our personal lives will stay personal.
It is becoming harder than ever to be sure anything you say or do is being said or done in true privacy.
Do you bear in mind at all times that your words, actions, and whereabouts are being captured for posterity on security cameras?
None of this is meant in defense of Sterling’s bigotry or congressional hanky-panky or any other dishonest activity. It is meant as a reminder that it isn’t only other people’s dirty laundry that the whole world can get a good look at. It is yours and mine, too. Once our privacy is gone, don’t count on getting it back.
The First Amendment protects you from the government punishing you because of your speech. The NBA is a private club, and it can discipline Sterling all it wants.
What about the chorus of criticism? Are we all violating his First Amendment rights by criticizing him?
Nope. The First Amendment does not insulate you from criticism. In fact, that’s the First Amendment in action.
The Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy made his own stupid and bigoted statements, and he’s been nationally pilloried, too — but he chose to make those statements to the world. He deserves every ounce of obloquy heaped upon him.
But does Sterling? Think about what his public character execution means. It means that we now live in a world where if you have any views that are unpopular, you now not only need to fear saying them in public, but you need to fear saying them at all — even to your intimate friends.
Don’t get me wrong. Sterling does seem to be a bad person. But sometimes the bad person is also the victim, and he stands in for us.
Do we now live in a world where we can trust nobody? Where there is no privacy?
Shouldn’t we condemn the complete breakdown of privacy and trust at least as loudly as we condemn some old man’s racist blathering?
Challenging Putin’s values
When we lived in a world of walls — during the Cold War era — weakening Russia was a strategy that seemed to have only upsides. But in a world of webs, a world that is not only more interconnected but interdependent, the steps we take to make Russia weaker can also come back to haunt us.
Putin is focused on building the power of his state, not the prosperity of his people. And he wants total political control and the right for him and his clique to steal vast sums, while seeking out foreign devils to distract the Russian public.
Ukraine is not threatening Russia, but Ukraine’s revolution is threatening Putin. The main goal of the Ukraine uprising is to import a rules-based system from the E.U. that will break the kleptocracy that has dominated Kiev — the same kind of kleptocracy Putin wants to maintain in Moscow.
If anything, we should worry that over time our sanctions will work too well. And don’t let anyone tell you that we’re challenging Russia’s “space.” We’re not. The real issue here is that Ukrainians, as individuals and collectively, are challenging Putin’s “values.”
