You are all familiar with the Clippers owner Donald Sterling
and his racially charged comments that happened a little over a month ago.
Now that everyone has settled down a little and we know his fate, I feel
safe in reacting to how he is to be punished. So let us discuss his punishments
and how his punishments should have really been carried out.
Fined: He was fined $2.5 Million over his racist
comments. This is the max allowed by the NBA as per their guidelines.
However, I disagree from a freedom standpoint with this part of his
punishment. You are punishing speech, "free speech" whether you
agree with it or not. Yes you are responsible for what you say and must
suffer societal consequences (will discuss the alternative later), but
punishing speech with a monetary fine (especially one that is a drop in the
bucket for this multi-millionaire) if foolish and sets a bad precedent.
Why a bad precedent you ask? Well, any speech can be offensive, and
as such nearly any form of speech can thus be fined. The result is people
not talking out of fear of being fined for what society (or segment thereof
deems negative). Thus fining speech is not the answer.
Banned: Sterling is also banned from all NBA related
facilities. This means he cannot even see his own team play.
However, this makes very little sense. If he owns the team (the Clippers)
then would he not own the home stadium in which they play and practice?
Can we actually ban someone from walking on their own property? The
only way this could work is if the NBA owned the stadiums, in which case this
would be perfectly legal. If it is the case where team owners own the
stadiums however, then it should be left up to each individual team and their
owners to decide if they will allow Sterling on their property. As such,
the teams themselves can ban Sterling if the NBA has no ownership over
facilities they do not own.
Forced to sell: Ok, being forced to sell your own
property (the franchise known as the Clippers) is very disturbing. It is
your property, you own it and then someone comes along and says you must sell
it. No, that does not fly with me. Sure, he is a racist jerk, but
that is not an excuse to be tyrannical and forcefully make him sell his team.
As such, the individual teams should be able to decide if they are willing to
play against his team or not. And if they refuse to play, the NBA can
ignore it so that the team that refuses does not have it counted against them
as a loss. Simple right? Of course this rests on if the team is
actually owned by Sterling and is not owned by the NBA itself. In this
case Sterling is a shareholder charged with certain responsibilities. So
if that is the case then they can force Sterling to sell without question.
However, I believe it is the former and thus Sterling should keep his
team.
My punishment: All the aforementioned punishments violate
freedom in one way or another. But my solutions and critics I mention
above and what I am about to tell do not violate anyone's freedom of
conscience. So we have each team deciding if they will play the Clippers
or not and if they will have any other dealings with him and his team (as
mentioned above). Now as to the rest of the solution, we as members of
the population of the United States can ostracize him. Essentially refuse
to go to games in which the Clippers play, not to buy Clippers merchandise or
any merchandise put out by Sterling's other business dealings, and even refuse
to sell or associate with him. Essentially a form of boycott that does
not harm the team directly, but Sterling's income from our boycott. Team
members can also refuse to play for him so long as he owns the Clippers, thus
allowing them to be free agents with the NBA protecting them from breaches in
contract. These are some very simple solutions that do not violate
freedoms and yet embrace the freedom of association we all hold dear through
the freedom of speech and peaceable assembly clause in our Constitution.
Yes, in this case we can punish Sterling for holding his backwards and
hateful views through our God given rights.
Conclusion: No form of speech is without
consequence. Also, any form of speech and expression will be offensive to
someone in some way, shape, or form (including this issue of Jormungand).
So punishing people via institutions can become haphazard and result in
tyranny in the long run. Aiding by my suggestions, at the very least does
not allow for a future institutions abuse via precedent, but does still keep
the risk of mob rule (the weakness of all forms of Democracies). So I
embrace the freedom of association to punish, not the NBA trying to look tough
on a foolish old man.
No comments:
Post a Comment