Name, Image & Likeliness (NIL) Isn't A "Getting What's Finally Mine" Card And The Hypocrisy of Armchair Economists (There Is Irony To This Post)

 It never was. Why? Because the university in which the athletes are playing for don't pay them. NIL simply allows outside sponsors - which includes boosters - to pay a specific student-athlete a certain amount of money annually. 

There's some talk saying NCAA DI sports was never an amateur league. To a degree I agree, but it wasn't an amateur league you'd be hard pressed to convince it was a professional league because simply put: the student's never got paid. 

People will say DI athletics were "free labor." That's just the prevalent talking point bandied by people who haven't though it thorough. Instead of a paycheck being processed into their bank account, the student-athletes, in exchange of their labor, had their university tuition and fees paid for. It wasn't "free" - someone's paying their tuitions and fees, it's just that the expenses aren't coming out of their own pocket.

It's like saying American waitresses are working "for free" because they aren't on salary but instead rely on tips for a living. This is simply not true; tips are just a different economic system to get paid. They aren't working "for free" because if they did they would just show up and, well, work for free without any tips. But they don't. They know they're going to get paid - not by the restaurant - but by the customers. 

NCAA DI was an amateur league - not entirely, but the players were. The coaches were professional because they did get paid and they were in charge of essentially running a business within a business (team within a department within a university). Then NIL came along and amateur economists tried to convince other that the NCAA DI was never an amateur league, and that the student-athletes are "finally" getting what they deserve - a share of the millions of dollars brought in by their labor. But that's relatively bizarre way to put it. It's straight up straw man when framing the realties of a DI student-athlete. Students aren't employed by the university in the way a coach is - they're "employed" differently.

The millions of dollars brought in by the student-athletes labor was never theirs to begin with because it was never contracted. It never said "if sports program brings in X amount of money you get Y percent of profit." Nope. Never existed. What was promised was a no tuition and fee enforced education in exchange for being a DI athlete. That was the promise. Add in academic tutors, separate living quarters for athletes, separate workout quarters for you, healthcare, and transportation to and from for away games. These are the "benefits." 

I will admit a DI student-athlete is an "in-between" type of existence between an amateur and a professional, but it's more amateur than professional. You can't be an unofficial professional though. With that logic, graduate students are unofficial professionals/professors. People who play in recreation sports leagues are unofficial professionals because there's no one who promised to pay them $10 for an hour for their time after work to play dodgeball in the city's park league. 

So when I'm on a sports forum seeing posts confidently saying that the student-athletes are "just getting what they're worth" (totally subjective) and, minutes later, discovering that they liked a video posted by another commentator about being pro-union, I know I'm dealing with people who are just surface thinkers. These are the same people who have no issue with students saying DI athletes are slaves because they "work for free." I say this because extolling the nature of free markets and being pro-union is contradictory; it's trying to have your cake and eat it too. Reality says you can't do that. These are the same people that try to display their own integrity by "facing the grittiness of reality" but they want to tear down controversial statues. They want to erase mascots because they're politically incorrect. 

Unpopular Opinion: I Enjoy Experiencing Other Cultures. I Don't Like the Traveling Involved.

Especially if it's more than a five hour flight and I'm adjusting to more than five hours of time zone difference. 

Here's my stance: I enjoy experiencing other cultures - not so much the travel that's usually intertwined to it. 

An 8 hour flight to a Western European country? Nope, not fun at all. Experiencing cities such as Galway and Edinburgh and Seville? That's cool and fun. 

How about a 10+ hour plane ride to Southeast Asia, say to Japan or the Philippines? Put me in deep sleep and wake me up when we get there please. 

New Zealand? Kenya? Syria? Can I teleport? 

Jet lag also sucks.

I'm sort of a rule follower so though I will rue the idea of customs I'll bite my tongue and deal with an hour or two waiting and dealing with custom officers. I still wish I can transport 20 ounces of jam from some Central European country to the States but rules say no. 

When people write down in their bios, or when asked about their interests, passions or hobbies, often times "travel" is listed, at least in the past two decades or so. I will probably never put "travel" down. Instead, maybe be "experiencing other cultures" or something similar to that. But "travel"? Yuck. 

Don't get me started on how antithetical the people who are into the whole "bike/walk/public transportation ew cars and highways" love traveling given the amount of queuing and time wasted up in the air can take. Just don't. Just don't get me started. If I take the car to the groceries it's because it's a necessity. If I take the car to accomplish some errands it's because it's a necessity. If I take the plane to travel it's because travel (where "travel" is used technically for leisure) it's a choice; one can live without travel for a couple of years. 

Does this make me a neanderthal? Maybe. Uncultured? Who cares. 

Traveling is tiring. It often sucks and it isn't glamorous. Jet setting sucks for 99% of the people who aren't put into first class or don't have the logistics planned and their tickets paid by someone else, especially transatlantic and transcontinental trips. 

Traveling is literally getting on a flying bus where I'm stuck in the air for 4+ hours with a bunch of strangers in a weirdly shaped oblong metal tube darting through the air. It's a cool concept; it works, but it's a drag. I rode the bus many times and it ain't fun. It's a necessity because I can't teleport. 

But dang, the Aran Islands are beautiful though, and a proper English pub is a great place to settle down for a pint. It's just getting there. 

Biden the so-called "Good" Catholic.

 I knew it was all just a facade to build an image.

Why expanding government services to aid newborns won't greatly reduce abortion rates.

 Ever since the overturn of Roe v Wade, many well-meaning Christians, whether Catholic or not, have immediately been turning to the talking point that if US government would just have better healthcare (they usually mean universal healthcare) and expanded on more childcare services (i.e. universal Early Childhood Education, maternity centers) that it would incentivize women to keep their baby. 

Full disclose: I am empathetic to ECE being integrated nationwide. 

One poster on Reddit said that since Roe v Wade is now gone that Catholics should now vote for Democrats because of their support for government aid and social services; these Catholics only saw the Republican Party as a one voter issue where their Pro-Life stance was the only thing that kept them from voting for the Democrats. (These probably are the ones that also suffer from Trump Derangement Syndrome.)

I don't buy into this argument. If we look at this map even countries that have universal healthcare have a relatively high abortion rates per capita (i.e. UK, France, Sweden, Canada). Even then, welfare in the States and Canada has incentivize that if you fall below a certain annual salary threshold you're given money for each child you have. I know this because one I work in social services and two I have a family who's a physician that, at one time, had a patient that kept on having kids because she was being paid by the Canadian government for each kid since she was on welfare. She's the typical case of being a welfare queen.

I wish Milton Friedman was alive so he would talk some sense into these "gotta vote Democrat now because of the social services" Catholics/Christians. This isn't to say that Friedman was pro-life, but he surely question the assumptions of those who trust the Big Government for an easier life. 

Many who get abortions do get it because the baby is an inconvenience. Yes, they may list down "socioeconomic instability" or whatever as a the main driver to abort but like all surveys the question is flawed and not all-encompassing. Many in the States that abort are poor, are in their twenties and already have at least one other kid according to the Guttmacher Institute. If we put to and two together this tells me that many aren't making smart decisions - to withhold sex until marriage or to have sex when one is not ovulating. 

Furthermore, women have listed the following why they decided to get an abortion -

The reasons most frequently cited were that having a child would interfere with a woman's education, work or ability to care for dependents (74%); that she could not afford a baby now (73%); and that she did not want to be a single mother or was having relationship problems (48%). Nearly four in 10 women said they had completed their childbearing, and almost one-third were not ready to have a child. Fewer than 1% said their parents' or partners' desire for them to have an abortion was the most important reason. Younger women often reported that they were unprepared for the transition to motherhood, while older women regularly cited their responsibility to dependents.

The "could not afford a baby now" is a relatively vague statement since it gives no standard on what income would be acceptable to have and raise a child. It's presented as a single factor where other factors are not put into affect such as responsibility and relationship problems.

As mentioned, if other countries such as Sweden, a rather socially "progressive" country with, ironically, a more restrictive abortion policy in comparison to the States, has a relatively high abortion rate per capita with universal healthcare then the connection between robust government social services in regards to newborns and health are specious at best. 

But what drives a woman to reject abortion? Not the aid of the state if I bet my money, but conscious and values. 

Compared to What? That's the Question Thomas Sowell Asks.

 Non-Americans and Americans alike, usually they lean left, are quick to point out issues found within the States. But compared to what? They act like the issue the US is facing is solely a US issue or that it's such an issue to a degree that's unique to the US. Take for example this post on Reddit written about a year ago by a non-American when an American brought up the fact that non-American rarely ever compliment the cultural impact it has on the world in the form of authors and music; usually non-Americans comment on the geography of the place.

But compared to what? Trump? Non-Americans think anything not Obama is a freak show or some white privileged person, so I don't take a European's opinion on Trump anymore seriously; I take it as seriously when a ten year old speaks about politics. Violence, death, hate, war? So what. All those can be found in Western Europe as well. If you don't live in the States then you don't have much of a right to criticize it for the things that you dock points from it. 

Antivaxxers? Who cares. In a place like America antivaxxers are allowed to voice their opinions. White supremacists? Same thing with antivaxxers - non-Americans are stunned to think such a group exists despite them being a minority. It's called difference of opinions. Poverty? Okay, and? Awful healthcare? The people who say this are non-Americans and people who are underemployed. Sorry but if you're gainfully employed and you know how to use your healthcare network healthcare in the States serves you with relative decency. US healthcare has its issues but to say it's awful, by a European, is showcasing your own ignorance. 

As for the "US had been in the news negatively for decades" that's probably more so the anti-American/weird fasciation with America Western Europeans have with the country. I heard Germany is relatively anti-American in its media. BBC is a shit show like CNN and MSNBC. I mean, what country is shown positively that's a global superpower? Not one. 

Another Example of LGBT+ Fragility

 

There is great irony to this all. A lesbian so gosh darn worried to live in "the Bible belt." I think she's more afraid and prejudiced against the South than the South are against her kind. 

With that said, I'd rather not she move to Charleston. I don't think she'd do any good there given her mentality. 

Online Meltdown By Leftists/Social "Progressives" Concerning the Overturning of Roe v. Wade

 Reddit -