Massa Sterling and His Friends

NBA star David West put the Donald Sterling matter more eloquently than anyone else.

Sterling basically articulated Plantation Politics...Make money off the Bucks/Lay with the Women/No Association in Public good or bad. ~ David West

Although I would have put things more grossly. What interests me at the moment is the clear divide between urbane conservatives, like the writers at National Review, and Sterling's only supporters - rank and file conservatives.

NR's David French works for the American Center for Law and Justice which counts among its successes efforts to legalize genocide of homosexuals in Africa. French's article, Donald Sterling Had to Go, inarticulately points out that Sterling had treated his black employees horribly, has managed his team badly, and worse of all insulted Magic Johnson as grounds for banishment. It's not a great defense of the NBA banning Sterling, but if we grade conservatives on a curve it earns an A-.

Aside: Actual grounds - Sterling is a racist slumlord who should have been expelled from the NBA and decent society decades ago.

Contrast that with the bulk of rank and file conservative thought as expressed in the comments at the website Hot Air. There are over 800 comments to this issue and most of them hold some or all of the following opinions:

•  Don't punish Sterling because there are Black racists too.
• "Slippery slope" (thanks Mark Cuban) that will lead to expelling homophobic owners and, eventually, a fascist state where thought crimes will be punished with prison.
• Sterling had every right to say what he did because - First Amendment.
• This is all a grand conspiracy between the NBA and Magic Johnson to let him buy the Clippers at a bargain price.
• Sterling is the victim here of (choose one) the liberal media, a golddigger who illegally taped him, Magic Johnson, Al Sharpton (huh?).

Some of my favorite quotes:

• In the case of “racist thoughts”, there is no longer two sides. That is what I meant by the left has already won. They already got you to accept their basic premise that racist thoughts are moral crimes. ~ HugoDrax. (Misses the good old days when racism was the basic premise of society.)
• Who hasn’t made such remarks in the privacy of a close friend? ~ cajunpatriot. (Not as many as you think.)
• This is chilling. ~ TinFin. (Put on a coat.)