What the hell is this supposed to be?

And as my other great love is politics, a side comment about civil liberties: I believe that the curtailment (or attempted curtailment) of our civil liberties over the last 6 years is completely the product of an administration led by people who are trying to restore pre-Watergate levels of power to the presidency. In practice it has little to do with terrorists, short of providing a convenient excuse to rein in dissenters. Emboldening the terrorists is the excuse that is used any time someone disagrees with the administration's policies. It worked for a long time too, but now people are finally waking up.

Oops, hope I didn't open a whole new can of worms...  

First, though, a thank you. In keeping with the spirit of boobs' earlier "Bletiquette" post, I can't tell you all how much I appreciate the well-reasoned, passionate, respectful debate on this site. In my opinion it is one of the best things about Red Reporter. I'm so tired of sports or political blogs where the debates degenerate into name-calling and personal attacks. Even if I don't agree with you, I respect your right to your own opinion, and I feel that respect back. So thank you, everyone. If only our national political discourse were the same...

Anyway, on to the clarification. I in no way meant to imply that the Air Jordans were the cause of the violence. You're absolutely right to blame the violent kids and not the sneakers. And if it hadn't been the Air Jordans, it would probably have been some other status symbol. I was just trying to illustrate that something that might seem small and insignificant to one person may be a reason to murder to another person.

And that's my argument in a nutshell. You say that the hat doesn't represent anything other than the Reds and a goofy design. My point is that no inanimate object has any meaning apart from what an individual assigns to it. But it's all relative to the individual. You look at the hat and assign to it the meaning of Reds and goofy design. Fair enough. But an inner city kid might look at the same hat and assign to it the meaning of membership in a gang. (And in my view the design of the hat makes this easy to do and very likely.)

And I think that's a bad thing for MLB. I'm not saying the hat will cause kids to join gangs or commit violent acts. Even if it did, if we were to ban the hat something else would take its place. This country was founded on freedoms of speech and expression. MLB has every legal right to market such a hat. But why would it want to?

The philosophy-major in me argues that we make sense of our world largely through symbols (letters, numbers, images, etc.), and these symbols can cause powerful emotional reactions (i.e. a swastika in a synagogue, a burning cross at an NAACP meeting, etc.) Even if it's inadvertent, if this hat can be reasonably construed to symbolize violent gang activity (and I argue that it can), then why would MLB want any part of it? It is in the best interests of a wholesome, family-friendly, "America's pastime" organization like MLB not to potentially normalize or glorify the worst elements of our society. Apart from the ethical issues, it's simply bad PR.

One final thing. In your last paragraph you talk about getting handguns off the streets, which I am 100% in favor of (and, living in NYC, I applaud Mayor Bloomberg's efforts to that end.) But it reminds me of the argument used by the NRA: guns don't kill people, people kill people. Your arguments about the hat seem to me to be the same -- the hat doesn't commit gang violence, violent kids do. What I say to this argument, whether about hats or guns, is that it's true. As far as the surface level goes, nobody can dispute the fundamental truth of the argument. But why allow easy access to guns, such that they might fall into the hands of violent people? And why market a new product that will be used to represent gang violence? Sure, if it's not the hat, they'll find something else. So let them find something else. Don't get my beloved sport and my beloved team in the middle of all this. I can't see any productive purpose that it can serve.

Whoo! I do tend to go on and on, don't I?