Ann Coulter: Any growing interest in soccer a sign of nation's moral decay

[Amir]

"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.

• 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.

• 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.

• 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.

• 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.

• 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!

• 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.

• 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.

• 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?

• 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."

http://www.clarionledger.com/story/opinion/columnists/2014/06/25/coulter-growing-interest-soccer-sign-nations-moral-decay/11372137/

[Johnny Drama]

That post makes me want to punch a woman.

EDIT: I just read her Wikipedia page. Her life is one big episode of going full retard.

Edited June 27, 2014 by Johnny Drama

[Graeme]

Only in America could someone this utterly misguided be a public figure who some people actually take seriously. What a fanny.

[shades]

yea pretty lame article, too much thought put into the hating of a sport.

But she's still Ann Coulter,

rock babe of conservatism

her book "Never Trust a Liberal over 3" , gold

[Thin White Duke]

I don't like football and now everybody is talking about it. But I like being the centre of attention soooo much. What can I do if I know nothing about it? Oh great, I will insult the intelligence of the ones watching it. Just because.

Uppity bitches be uppity bitches.

Edited June 27, 2014 by Thin White Duke

[JONEZY]

She just wants attention. I wonder if she'll be on Bill Maher's show tonight on HBO?

[Apollo]

The most humorous thing about her story is how outraged and angry some people are getting.

People just love to get outraged and offended.

Agree with one person's opinion on an issue? Cool. Disagree with one person's opinion on an issue? Cool. But to get mad and freak out about it? Crazy. Not talking about this forum as this story was just posted. I've just read some of the comments posted on other sites in regards to her story.

I think she went way overboard on the soccer stereotypes. But it is nice that there are at least a few public figures out there willing to speak their mind and not be in 100% political correctness mode 24/7. Even if don't agree with her thoughts on soccer, surely you like that she is speaking her mind? I personally get tired of politically correct answers.

[Facekicker]

Only in America could someone so ignorant be taken seriously.

Edited June 27, 2014 by Facekicker

[Dazey]

I'd still hit it.

[YOUCOULDBEMINE.]

lolanncoulter

[luciusfunk]

I thought it was a fun read. /shrug

[MEXzilla]

This chick always says stupid shit, seriously soccer sucks major balls and even I know that shits dumb, smh.

[tinyrobot]

Anyone who calls a single country the name of an entire continent should shut the fuck up about anything else in the world

[tinyrobot]

The most humorous thing about her story is how outraged and angry some people are getting.

People just love to get outraged and offended.

Agree with one person's opinion on an issue? Cool. Disagree with one person's opinion on an issue? Cool. But to get mad and freak out about it? Crazy. Not talking about this forum as this story was just posted. I've just read some of the comments posted on other sites in regards to her story.

I think she went way overboard on the soccer stereotypes. But it is nice that there are at least a few public figures out there willing to speak their mind and not be in 100% political correctness mode 24/7. Even if don't agree with her thoughts on soccer, surely you like that she is speaking her mind? I personally get tired of politically correct answers.

I have no problem with people speaking their minds. The problem comes when they speak words to harm, trash and humiliate the likes of others.

I'm not saying everybody should like/love/adore soccer. There are tons of other sports I hate. But not even in my wildest dream I could go writting such a spiteful essay to diss a sport so many people like. That is just insane in first place and ignorant in the second.

Ignorant because she's basically rejecting soccer because its not an "american" thing. She's rejecting it because she feels "invaded" by the "aliens" who want to take her USA away and transform it into some horrible thing. She's the typical person who never left her country, who never interacted with foreign people, she's ignorant in all senses. I don't know how people can go mad at this poor person. All I can feel for her is pity. Such ignorance is as hard to remove as a brain tumor.

[ronaldo9]

Found it pretty funny, reading it as a satire piece. Solid Skip Bayless impression for her first venture into sports.

[ronaldo9]

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.

That's the part that let's you know you should take her opinion extra seriously.

[Broskirose]

I agreed with the first half of what she said. Then she went full retard.

But for real, soccer is a fucking stupid sport.

[Zint]

Only in America could someone this utterly misguided be a public figure who some people actually take seriously. What a fanny.

Yeah only in America.

[AxlisOld]

Ann Coulter is about on the same level of Alex Jones of don'tgiveafuckitude in my life. Really any poltical personality in this country.

[tinyrobot]

Sports aren't stupid. They all have a ludic component that makes them fun to play. The rest is just a matter of taste in whether you prefer having fun playing physical games or intellectual games.

That's it. No need to trash the fun of others.

[Thin White Duke]

tinyrobot's signature is amazing.

[Graeme]

Only in America could someone this utterly misguided be a public figure who some people actually take seriously. What a fanny.

Yeah only in America.

I can't tell if you're agreeing with me, or having a go at me...

[magisme]

What's fucked is that she's taken seriously by some when she doesn't even take herself seriously. Her whole thing is a gimmick, a schtick, and when she's the least ugly woman in a room full of old white men and old white hags she get a lot of attention.

Edited June 27, 2014 by magisme

[Graeme]

Only in America could someone this utterly misguided be a public figure who some people actually take seriously. What a fanny.

Yeah only in America.

I can't tell if you're agreeing with me, or having a go at me...

He's having a go at you.

Oh, that's not very nice .

[DieselDaisy]

This must be a pisstake. Surely nobody that dumb exists. 'A lack of individual achievement in soccer', what about hattricks, goldenboots, and cleansheets? 'You do not use your hands', you do not use your penis in most sports either! And anyhow, you do use your hands in football, for throw ins and goalkeeping. And, 'it is foreign'. Fuck me, let's not play it then!! Besides, baseball, basketball and American football are just rip-offs of cricket, netball and Rugby, both developed in England.