My old friend Catbird asked:
Hi Roger—
When I heard rump’s “maybe they shouldn’t be in this country” comment about football players staying in locker rooms the other day, I wondered if they’d “pass” the Comic Book Code of America. I remember you explaining this to me decades ago. I suppose it depends on whether anybody acts on it.
What do you think?
Might it be worth a blog item?
I hope all is well with you and your “bearers of two X chromosomes.”
It had not occurred to me, but I suppose both the Comic Code Authority (1954-2011) and the NFL owners’ new policy requiring on-field player and personnel to stand for the national anthem were both self-regulating actions designed to make the federal government leave them alone.
In the case of comic books, the industry was worrying, rightly, that the government might want to regulate it, to “protect the children.”It agreed submit the comics to a board for a stamp of approval. No excessive violence, no drug use shown, et al.
The owners of the NFL just wanted the bad press to go away – n.b., didn’t happen. They are worried about the bottom line, with ratings down substantially, although that may not be just a function of the anthem imbroglio.
There’s a more significant question you ask here: when DO we say in America, “My way or the highway?” Certainly, I’ve heard, “America, love it or leave it” a few times, usually when I was protesting some war, mostly Vietnam, but also Iraq. Yet, as I was wont to say, “I stay, and protest, BECAUSE I love America.”
When HAS the United States actually thrown people out of the country? In the past, not very often, in the vast scheme. It wasn’t until 2002 when the United States actually had an agency whose primary function appears to do just that.
As Full Frontal with Samantha Bee put it on May 23: “For Republicans looking to cut government fat, we found one bloated, cruel, and useless agency that is begging to be abolished. And no, ‘President’ is not considered an agency.”
It is, of course, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency. I appreciate it when the ICE agents remove some MS-13 gang member. But, much more often, they are seen as a source of terror in the immigrant community, even for those who are here legally.
As someone approaching Social Security, I find this problematic, not just from a moral and ethical position, but from an economic one. Driving out productive young people from the country is a recipe for federal fiscal disaster.
So, there’s a lot of bluster about people needing to leave the country. But it won’t be football players going. Unless they were born elsewhere.
What was so downright evil—and typical—about the current occupant of the White House attacking NFL players is that he’s really talking about making them an “unperson”, as Orwell put it. There is, as anyone who ever passed high school civics would know, NO WAY to deport a natural born US citizen, and it’s virtually impossible to take away their citizenship, and both would require due process (while that still exists).
The few circumstances at the moment would be in the case of treason (the real thing, not the partisan propaganda version), and then it’d probably be when the person was already overseas (like a defector to the Soviet Union). Under international law, another thing the current regime has contempt for, nations aren’t to create a “stateless” person.
That’s all about the Constitution and the rule of law, both of which the current regime laughs at. But to try to expel a natural born US citizen would require them to take that up to a new level of evil. Thing is, these days I wouldn’t put it past them.