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AMERICA'S FAVORITE NATIONAL PASTIME: HATING SOCCER (ANN COULTER)
Ann Coulter Webpage ^ | June 25, 2014 | Ann Coulter

Posted on 06/25/2014 8:47:40 PM PDT by fkabuckeyesrule

I've held off on writing about soccer for a decade -- or about the length of the average soccer game -- so as not to offend anyone. But enough is enough. Any growing interest in soccer can only be a sign of the nation's moral decay.

(1) Individual achievement is not a big factor in soccer. In a real sport, players fumble passes, throw bricks and drop fly balls -- all in front of a crowd. When baseball players strike out, they're standing alone at the plate. But there's also individual glory in home runs, touchdowns and slam-dunks.

In soccer, the blame is dispersed and almost no one scores anyway. There are no heroes, no losers, no accountability, and no child's fragile self-esteem is bruised. There's a reason perpetually alarmed women are called "soccer moms," not "football moms."

Do they even have MVPs in soccer? Everyone just runs up and down the field and, every once in a while, a ball accidentally goes in. That's when we're supposed to go wild. I'm already asleep.

(2) Liberal moms like soccer because it's a sport in which athletic talent finds so little expression that girls can play with boys. No serious sport is co-ed, even at the kindergarten level.

(3) No other "sport" ends in as many scoreless ties as soccer. This was an actual marquee sign by the freeway in Long Beach, California, about a World Cup game last week: "2nd period, 11 minutes left, score: 0:0." Two hours later, another World Cup game was on the same screen: "1st period, 8 minutes left, score: 0:0." If Michael Jackson had treated his chronic insomnia with a tape of Argentina vs. Brazil instead of Propofol, he'd still be alive, although bored.

Even in football, by which I mean football, there are very few scoreless ties -- and it's a lot harder to score when a half-dozen 300-pound bruisers are trying to crush you.

(4) The prospect of either personal humiliation or major injury is required to count as a sport. Most sports are sublimated warfare. As Lady Thatcher reportedly said after Germany had beaten England in some major soccer game: Don't worry. After all, twice in this century we beat them at their national game.

Baseball and basketball present a constant threat of personal disgrace. In hockey, there are three or four fights a game -- and it's not a stroll on beach to be on ice with a puck flying around at 100 miles per hour. After a football game, ambulances carry off the wounded. After a soccer game, every player gets a ribbon and a juice box.

(5) You can't use your hands in soccer. (Thus eliminating the danger of having to catch a fly ball.) What sets man apart from the lesser beasts, besides a soul, is that we have opposable thumbs. Our hands can hold things. Here's a great idea: Let's create a game where you're not allowed to use them!

(6) I resent the force-fed aspect of soccer. The same people trying to push soccer on Americans are the ones demanding that we love HBO's "Girls," light-rail, Beyonce and Hillary Clinton. The number of New York Times articles claiming soccer is "catching on" is exceeded only by the ones pretending women's basketball is fascinating.

I note that we don't have to be endlessly told how exciting football is.

(7) It's foreign. In fact, that's the precise reason the Times is constantly hectoring Americans to love soccer. One group of sports fans with whom soccer is not "catching on" at all, is African-Americans. They remain distinctly unimpressed by the fact that the French like it.

(8) Soccer is like the metric system, which liberals also adore because it's European. Naturally, the metric system emerged from the French Revolution, during the brief intervals when they weren't committing mass murder by guillotine.

Despite being subjected to Chinese-style brainwashing in the public schools to use centimeters and Celsius, ask any American for the temperature, and he'll say something like "70 degrees." Ask how far Boston is from New York City, he'll say it's about 200 miles.

Liberals get angry and tell us that the metric system is more "rational" than the measurements everyone understands. This is ridiculous. An inch is the width of a man's thumb, a foot the length of his foot, a yard the length of his belt. That's easy to visualize. How do you visualize 147.2 centimeters?

(9) Soccer is not "catching on." Headlines this week proclaimed "Record U.S. ratings for World Cup," and we had to hear -- again -- about the "growing popularity of soccer in the United States."

The USA-Portugal game was the blockbuster match, garnering 18.2 million viewers on ESPN. This beat the second-most watched soccer game ever: The 1999 Women's World Cup final (USA vs. China) on ABC. (In soccer, the women's games are as thrilling as the men's.)

Run-of-the-mill, regular-season Sunday Night Football games average more than 20 million viewers; NFL playoff games get 30 to 40 million viewers; and this year's Super Bowl had 111.5 million viewers.

Remember when the media tried to foist British soccer star David Beckham and his permanently camera-ready wife on us a few years ago? Their arrival in America was heralded with 24-7 news coverage. That lasted about two days. Ratings tanked. No one cared.

If more "Americans" are watching soccer today, it's only because of the demographic switch effected by Teddy Kennedy's 1965 immigration law. I promise you: No American whose great-grandfather was born here is watching soccer. One can only hope that, in addition to learning English, these new Americans will drop their soccer fetish with time.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial; Political Humor/Cartoons
KEYWORDS: cup; world
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To: Ransomed
No other popular team pro sport has the defense being in charge of the ball.

That is an interesting point.

81 posted on 06/25/2014 10:35:08 PM PDT by Yardstick
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To: tumblindice

Every time I hear that argument, I want to ask (and I am a NFL fan): how do you feel about spending 3-1/2 hours watching 15 minutes of action during a NFL game?


82 posted on 06/25/2014 10:36:20 PM PDT by 1rudeboy
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To: 1rudeboy

Are these commies and illegals trying to trick us by waving US and Gadsden flags and chanting U-S-A?

Naw...They'd never do that boyrude...

83 posted on 06/25/2014 10:39:50 PM PDT by dragnet2 (Diversion and evasion are tools of deceit)
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To: dragnet2

When’s the last time you’ve seen Obama waving a Gadsden flag and chanting, U-S-A?


84 posted on 06/25/2014 10:40:55 PM PDT by 1rudeboy
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To: 1rudeboy
My point is, people who have no interest in the U.S. wave American flags all the time. They wear them on their clothing, and stand on stages full of flags and the evil even swear on Bibles...No?

Coulter is 100 percent correct here. They've been clearly pushing soccer on the American people for years now...This is no accident.

Did you fail to notice your government turned the U.S. into a foreign flop house and made American citizenship all but pointless???

Were talking tens of millions of foreigners and illegals. Nearly half the country now is made up of illegals, Communist, leftist, frauds and sellouts..

Did you fail to notice more foreigners and illegals are pouring in by the thousands per day?

Hello?

Did you not think their sports and cultures would not follow them here?

Where ya been?

85 posted on 06/25/2014 10:52:59 PM PDT by dragnet2 (Diversion and evasion are tools of deceit)
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To: fkabuckeyesrule

Soccer is Feetball.....

Only American football is football...

Rugby is just grab ass...


86 posted on 06/25/2014 10:54:03 PM PDT by hosepipe (This propaganda has been edited to include some fully orbed hyperbole..)
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To: dragnet2

Apart from the fact that the US has been playing soccer as long as baseball, if not longer, I will consider your point the next time I see a member of the US military showing some patriotism. /s


87 posted on 06/25/2014 10:58:36 PM PDT by 1rudeboy
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To: 1rudeboy

Don’t be cynical. We may have our Annie back. An entire column of sound observations and not a single mention of trivia like anything named Romney or Chris Christie. Maybe she should have been a sportswriter all along.


88 posted on 06/25/2014 11:02:11 PM PDT by BlackElk (Dean of Discipline, Tomas de Torquemada Gentlemen's Society: Rack 'em Danno!)
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To: 1rudeboy

BS....Good grief...

You actually deny this has not escalated in the past decade or two, while tens of millions of foreigners and illegal aliens who are all aided, abetted and supported by leftist media and government, are not pushing their sports and cultures on the schools and the American people?

This is a yes no question boyrude.


89 posted on 06/25/2014 11:03:43 PM PDT by dragnet2 (Diversion and evasion are tools of deceit)
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To: Greetings_Puny_Humans

I don’t always agree with you. This may be the very first time. BUTTT, hey, when you are right, you are right! Congrats!


90 posted on 06/25/2014 11:05:52 PM PDT by BlackElk (Dean of Discipline, Tomas de Torquemada Gentlemen's Society: Rack 'em Danno!)
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To: Ransomed

To me, baseball is the greatest game ever invented. Though it tends to drag and be tedious at times, just the possibilities, the strategy involved, sskill, power , finesse..and best of all..NO CLOCK!!...YOU CANT RUN OUT THE TIME...you gotta get the last out...i love it!


91 posted on 06/25/2014 11:06:35 PM PDT by basalt
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He’s gunna go IRS style evasion and deception here.


92 posted on 06/25/2014 11:10:57 PM PDT by dragnet2 (Diversion and evasion are tools of deceit)
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To: dragnet2

Post hoc ergo propter hoc. “After this because of this.” Gimme a break.


93 posted on 06/25/2014 11:13:19 PM PDT by 1rudeboy
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To: fkabuckeyesrule

For me, if I had choose between watching a soccer game or breaking thermometers and playing with the mercury inside, I’d choose the latter.


94 posted on 06/25/2014 11:14:38 PM PDT by Kevin in California
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To: 1rudeboy
He’s gunna go IRS style evasion and deception here.

Post hoc ergo propter hoc.

What did I say? What a hoot!!

As usual boyrude, assume the position and see the tagline.

95 posted on 06/25/2014 11:20:14 PM PDT by dragnet2 (Diversion and evasion are tools of deceit)
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To: dragnet2

Whatever. If you think a comment responding to your argument is “evasion and deception,” then you are more of an idiot than I thought.


96 posted on 06/25/2014 11:22:00 PM PDT by 1rudeboy
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To: dragnet2
We COULD interest the newly arrived in actual American sports by setting up federal handout programs to give them baseball uniforms, bats, balls and gloves, football uniforms, helmets and footballs, etc. Another actually worthwhile idea to acclimate the waves of undocumented Demonrats to our shores would be federal programs like firearm stamps and ammunition stamps and vocational high school programs in urban marksmanship.

Soccer, while totally boring, has the advantage for poor immigrants of needing only a field, two goals, some sneakers, shorts and T-shirts and maybe athletic cups for the boys.

97 posted on 06/25/2014 11:23:07 PM PDT by BlackElk (Dean of Discipline, Tomas de Torquemada Gentlemen's Society: Rack 'em Danno!)
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To: BlackElk

But how do we prevent commies and libs from cheering for the USA? A question only a True Conservative™ can answer.


98 posted on 06/25/2014 11:26:04 PM PDT by 1rudeboy
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To: 1rudeboy

Get a job with the IRS boyrude...You’d fit right in.


99 posted on 06/25/2014 11:26:14 PM PDT by dragnet2 (Diversion and evasion are tools of deceit)
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To: dragnet2

Nah, I’ll cheer for the USA tomorrow (in a game the USA likely lose). Just to piss off “patriots” such as yourself.


100 posted on 06/25/2014 11:28:15 PM PDT by 1rudeboy
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