The Olympic Games...Enemy Of The Future

There are just so many things wrong with this picture...if you're President Obama. Four years ago, Michael Phelps made Olympic history by winning, count 'em, EIGHT gold medals. For Progressives of all stripes, this has to be an abomination, and the prospect that he might add to this obscene total in the 2012 games set to begin tonight will only add insult to injury. I know what you're thinking.."Dunnevant, this time you've gone off your rocker. What in God's name are you talking about??" Bear with me.

This photograph is a perfect encapsulation of the unfairness of competition. Michael Phelps is the poster boy for the 1% of sport. Thousands of American boys with nothing but a Speedo and a dream trained day after grueling day, in pools great and small, for the chance to step up on that medal stand and hear the National Anthem. They all worked just as hard as Phelps, most of them were every bit as smart as Phelps. Hell, most of them had better teeth than Phelps. But in the end it didn't matter. Michael Phelps won every event and ended up posing for this insulting picture celebrating his individual accomplishments, rubbing it in the face of all the other competitors.

Micheal Phelps was born aquatically gifted. It wasn't hard work and dedication. Just look at that body, those gangly arms, the almost concave chest, the lithe, sloped shoulders, with not an ounce of body fat.Those are genetic gifts, not the product of training and desire. When I was in high school, I was always annoyed by the 6'5", 210 pound guys who ran the 40 in 4.7 seconds and a had a 30 inch vertical leap, who thought they were more athletic than me. The nerve of those guys! It's the same with Phelps. You put an inner city kid in THAT body and he would win a chest full of medals too.

Besides, is it really fair that he had to win EVERY event? Wouldn't so many more people have benefited had those medals been spread around more equitably? And speaking of medals, why is it that the guy ( or girl ) who finishes first is so exalted over the second and third place finishers? Even the medal stand reflects this winning-worship obsession. There is Phelps, head and shoulders above the poor silver medalist and towering over the pitiful bronze medalist, like some Greek God. Has anyone stopped to think of how this grotesque scene might impact the guy ( or girl ) who finished last? The dream of the progressives, and our only realistic future, is the equalization of outcomes for all, the subordination of the self for the betterment of the whole, the banishment of rugged individualism and it's replacement with collective cooperation. And yet...we still have not evolved beyond this outdated Olympian worship of excellence. Is it a coincidence that this orgy of conservatism occurs every four years, during our Presidential election? I think not.