John Wayne, Teddy Roosevelt and the modern Wimp

We have all seen this a hundred times in westerns, particularly John Wayne westerns: someone says something truly stupid, Wayne (or Eastwood, etc. – fill in your favorite cowboy) gives the fool a hard look, then hauls off and decks the guy.  After the guy gets up off the ground he realizes he was an ass, says he is sorry, is appropriately contrite, and turns out to be a good guy by the end of the movie.

In real life the same thing used to happen as well, and part of me hopes it still does.

President Teddy Roosevelt told of walking into a store or saloon in the Dakotas in the 1880s and being accosted by some men who just decided he was ripe for being picked on.  Roosevelt let them speak for a while and then, when it had gone too far, he decked the ring leader.  Problem solved.  As Roosevelt later said ‘It needed to be done’ (or words to that effect.)

This all comes to my mind because of a similar set of circumstances having to do with a professional football player having said something offensive.  I believe – but don’t know because I just refuse to follow sports ‘off the field’ – that the player in question publicly used a particularly crude racial epithet.  Now it is being turned into another cause-celebre.

Frankly, I’m tired of it, and here’s why: nothing ever gets solved in this day and age when we walk through this oft-repeated act.  Someone says something offensive, they huddle with their agent, they release a statement, they craft a particularly well acted scene where they say they are sorry, the news media – seemingly incapable of so much else – spends hour upon hour covering this all in detail, and then when the next salacious story comes along the news media shifts, until the next offense, often by the same fellow.  True contrition and true atonement are never considered or achieved, and everyone is allowed to wimp out, to do truly offensive things and not take any sort of punishment like a man.

So, I have a better way.

The next time some jerk says something like this, when he walks into the locker room one of his teammates says – in front of the rest of the team - something to the effect: “Joe, that was an A—holish thing to say” and then coldcocks him.  ‘Joe’ then picks himself up of the floor, says, “Yeah, you’re right, I’m a stupid b---tard, I’m really sorry.”  No lawyers, no agents, no nonsense.  Then they go about their business.  Done.