From Past Time to Prime Time

Something occurred to me just a moment ago, and I wish to share it. People are often complaining: how can a guy who swings a baseball bat make forty-million dollars a year when teachers are paid less than forty-thousand? I mean, let's face it. In the old days, when baseball was still a national past time, the players made, on average, something like three times the normal salary of a person. Now they make three-hundred times it. It isn't a national past time anymore, our sports have gone prime time. Now, the answer from a conservative is usually hey, there are less people that can hit that fastball than can teach those kids, etc etc. And I, for one, never had a problem with a guy making a fortune to throw touchdowns. Good for him, I say. I tend to have problems with people who take from me- you liberals!- not with people who earn.

But now that I think about it this night I write, I do have a problem with the million dollar contract that sports stars have. Logically speaking, from an outsider's philosophical point of view, there is no reason that a society, strictly speaking, should pay a sports star so much. And teachers, deserving and worthy teachers anyway, should get paid more for what they do. So yes, in my own way, on principle, I do have a problem with the money that celebrities make, but I'm afraid it's for a much better and well thought out reason than I've ever heard anyone else say. I should also point out that unlike you sobbing baby liberals out there, I do not want the government to step in and regulate salaries for movie stars. Still, just like everything, and I mean everything that is wrong with our country today, it is the peoples fault. Stop blaming the country, meaning government. Stop blaming big corporations. Stop blaming anyone except yourselves.

The truth of the matter is: we live in a free market, everyone knows this. (Don't bog this post down with rhetorical arguments about how "free" our market is- you'll miss the point). And the free market is the highest and greatest state an economy can reach. Look at countries without such freedoms: communist Soviet Russia, Afghanistan under the Taliban, the feudal serfdom systems... and you will understand this. However, being a double-edged sword, the free market, just as all things that are free, are a reflection of those who participate in it. Do you really want to know why sports starts make eight figures? Because YOU placed such a high demand for them. YOU, America, who are so obsessed with the Super Bowl (don't sue me for saying it, please), or the World Series, or whatever. YOU, America, would sooner cut your child's after school tutor- that they desperately need- than your digital satellite, bringing you Dancing With the Has-beens and every football game, NFL and college. I've seen that happen more times than I can count. Does anyone read books anymore? No, magazines about those very celebrities of whose wealth you bemoan. YOU have your priorities all screwed up, and the contracts that these sports stars make, the million dollar movie deals, the fact that these "super stars" are in fact worth that much in America's free market, is a direct reflection of YOUR own faults, not theirs. After all, if nobody were watching, they wouldn't be getting paid.

S0 the next time you complain from your recliner, when the game's on commercial of course, about how teachers are underpaid, and movie stars and sports heroes and whoever else make so much money, when all the true heroes like doctors and teachers make so little, take a long, hard look at yourself. The fact is that these fortune makers do provide entertainment for millions of fans, using a very rare set of skills, be it hitting the fastball or pitching it, throwing the touchdown or catching it, that are in very high demand. You, America, have placed such a high demand on something of which there is such a low supply. I am not angry at the celebrities making millions, I would too if I could. And so would each and every person who whines about it, you mark my words. On principle, though, I do recognize that if our society was better, stronger, more virtuous, with proper priorities... this would not happen. But if you still want to moan, if you want to complain about their millions, blah blah blah, ask yourself if your priorities are in the right place first. Ironically, people complaining are correct when they state that the country's priorities are misplaced. However, the complainers, themselves, nearly always seem to have their own priorities right in line with the country's. How do you think a democracy loses its priorities anyway?