No. 192 - Benedict Arnold

The news this week was dominated by a story of a basketball player who was leaving one team, the Cleveland Cavaliers, to go to another team, the Miami Heat.

I found it amusing that of all the important things that could be covered, including the endless wars, the explosive growing deficit, the sky-high unemployment rate, the 40 million Americans on food stamps or food assistance, etc. etc. many Americans were fixated by some guy switching basketball teams. At least our priorities are in order -- not.

I picked up the WSJ Weekend Edition and found the following blurb:

$17.41

Price of a life-size LeBron James wall sticker being sold online by Fathead, a company owned by Dan Gilbert, who also owns the Cleveland Cavaliers. 1741 is the year Benedict Arnold was born.

So the newsworthy story here is that a cry-baby basketball team owner is pouting about his star player leaving for another team - boo hoo - and calling him a traitor.

Benedict Arnold V was a general during the Revolutionary War. He began the war in the Continental Army but later defected to the British Army. While he was still a general on the American side, he obtained command of the fort at West Point, New York, and plotted unsuccessfully to surrender it to the British. After the plot was exposed in September 1780, he entered the British Army as a brigadier general.

There are so many other analogies that could be made to the American Revolution, what it stood for, and how our current system is drifting further and further away from the principles our founding fathers fought, and died, for.

A basketball player is not one of them.