Alysa Offman's piece "The case against cheerleaders" received a number of comments. Our loyal reader Ed posted: Y'know my day was kind of odd. I was having intelligent conversations with smart people all day, so I had to get back to normal, before my feet left the ground. Glad to hear from the usual bag of dicks in MT's comment section. Now there's just enough stupid in my day to remind me that I'm still on planet Trump.
We live in a society where the majority of adults act as if they are still in high school. Just listen to random people talk to each other. Just read the comments sections of any publication. Fourteen-year-old mentalities abound within the boomer and post-boomer generations.
The fact that cheerleading is still alive and well shouldn't be of any surprise. Adult sensibilities and mature values are not at play here. We are dealing with a big group of people still reliving its best days, and ignoring the size of their guts, the aging on their face, and the fact that their dicks don't work anymore.
Their best days included cheerleaders. So they want cheerleaders. I think having cheerleaders in any sport is just stupid, and sexist.
And dangerous. Wasn't W a cheerleader?
Taking another view, gobluespartyon commented:
The Lions having cheerleaders is a good thing. I have been saying for years that the Lions needed eye candy on the sidelines. I believe that ladies who want to be cheerleaders do it as a hobby. You're comparing apple to oranges with the pay of athletes on the field compared to cheerleaders. They both do two very different things, so that point is moot point.
And Joe commented:
Yep, you are a killjoy.
Nobody is forcing anyone to be a cheerleader. The pay does seem low, but they know what it is before they try out.
How does their pay compare with Rory the mascot or the guy who sings "Forward Down the Field"?
Also, having beautiful women cheer for a team doesn't seem barbaric to me. What is wrong with appreciating the beauty of women who want to be cheerleaders? As long as they are OK with it, why would you be upset? Aren't you just trying to limit their happiness, just because you wouldn't do that or because guys like it? Seems like that is the opposite of what you're trying to accomplish.
Obviously if guys are being verbally abusive towards them, that is a problem that should be dealt with by security.
Offman's blog about Dearborn police hiring a uniformed officer who wears a hijab earned some comments too. After one poster declared that a true Muslim woman is not allowed to venture out without being accompanied by an adult male relative, lest she be legally raped, Leopold31 replied:
Is this going to be like the "no true Scotsman" fallacy where we point out how obviously untrue this is only to have Gary retort: "Well, all those women were not true Muslim women."
There is a big difference between an extremely regressive regime like Saudi Arabia and more progressive states like we see in North Africa, Syria, Turkey, etc. What you are seeing in Saudi Arabia is secular, not religious because women go out all the time in other countries that are predominantly Muslim. I know. I've been there.
And if you really believe what you said, just go try raping a Muslim woman in Turkey or Algeria who is out unaccompanied and see what happens to you. Try using your "she was unaccompanied" defense.
Finally, Jimmy Doom's piece on the psychology of the die-hard Lions fan earned us a joke that's an oldie but a goodie. It came courtesy Jonathan Andrew, who posted:
When I die, I'd like some Lions players to be my pallbearers. That way they can let me down one final time ...
