Cue outrage.
What few people are saying is that most of this outrage was from what's now being known as "butthurt" Maverick's fans. Given the holier-than-thou attitude that follows all decent jokes these days, the Dallas Maverick's Twitter folks responded thusly:
If any team has no room to speak on what is 'classy', it's the Dallas Mavericks. From articles on how to 'troll' Rockets fans to Mark Cuban's statement that the Rockets "were not a very good team" this series has seen boorish behavior from the Mavericks at all levels of the organization.
To which I say fine. This silly idea that fans and staffers and owners of a team have to live up to some imaginary set of 'unwritten rules' when rooting either for their team or against the other team in professional sports is a silly one. If you can't poke fun at your rivals then why even try? Furthermore, for all of the talk in the Houston Chronicle about the "Houston/Dallas rivalry" this series of events, and the fact that the Mayors of Houston and Dallas apparently didn't have a bet on the game, illustrates that the rivalry is dead, except in insipid Houston Chronicle slide-shows.
All of this wailing and gnashing of teeth illustrates a larger point. In short: We've become a Nation full of sore losers and hyper-sensitive concern-mongers who aren't even capable of accepting the fact that our side has 'lost' and the other side is allowed their moment in the gloating sun.
I blame outrage culture, which has convinced us that it's OK to be angry to the point of incoherence about even the slightest perceived slight. What outrage culture has done is replace "sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me" with "you said mean things and turned me into a simpering pile of human goo". If anything, America needs to grow a spine again. We need to rediscover our steely determination and sense of purpose and inform the concern-mongers that they may politely take their hurt feelings and jump off a cliff.
You see, the Houston Rockets were never going to shoot a real horse last night. An emoji gun only can fire emoji bullets which are nothing but pixels really. Nor was any harm going to come to any of the Maverick players. Or Mavericks fans for that matter. I realize that losing sucks and that, in today's age of participation trophies and leagues that don't keep score, our younger generations are typically incapable of coping with loss. In fact, we are rearing a generation that thinks there are no losers. That 'fat shaming' is found in an ad for a weight loss company and bullying has been expanded to people saying anything about you that is not 100% flattering.
Kirk Schlichter is right when he says that It's time to unleash the power of no. Now, granted, he's speaking from a political perspective while I'm speaking from a societal one. I don't care whether or not you are liberal or conservative or somewhere outside that or in between, if you are grousing about the other side taking a victory lap, if your feelings are hurt when someone gets one over on you to the point you lash out, or if you just can't handle the concept of losing then you are the problem.
The sad offshoot of this is that we are giving away our right to free speech by turning on one another and demanding censure. The American public seems to have forgotten that free speech was designed to protect us from the government, we now seem to think that it should be limited to protect us from hurt feelings. Have we grown as soft and flabby mentally as we have physically?
Apparently yes, we have. Because if the losing side is going crazy over a fake gun fake shooting a fake horse then what's going to happen when they lose on something really important? How far is it from throwing a temper-trantrum over electronic horse murder to calling for the silence and arrest of those who hurt our feelings in real life? Are we guaranteed the right to never be offended by the Constitution? Of course not. What we are guaranteed is the right to fire back verbally, to try and win the argument with wit and wisdom instead or through forced censure caused by whining and false outrage.
In other words, if your response to being out-witted is to cry foul then not only have you already lost, but you've outed yourself as being somewhat gormless and dim-witted as well.
