Hateful Rhetoric

I want to quote something that I read the other day:

It feels good...That's what you want to do... You want to kill your opponent.

Inflammatory? Yes, yet I don't have a problem with it. Why? It was spoken by BYU guard Jimmer Fredette after he torched the Utah Utes for 47 points.
I love that fire in an athlete...for a team that I like. When I don't like the team, I generally consider such words to be classless and foolhardy. A great example would be New York Jets cornerback Antonio Cromartie, who went after Tom Brady. Cromartie is no great example of class, AND he plays on my least favorite team, so naturally anything he does crosses a line.

And this is the crux of the rhetoric issue. We are all rooting for one team or another. We are pleased by their enthusiasm and fire, their swagger, but when the other team does it, we take offense. That's really all that is happening in today's political climate. It's been that way for years, and it is not going to change any time soon, this peaceful interlude notwithstanding

Like Fredette, the vast majority have no interest in the actual death of the opponent in anything other than a figurative sense. We need to get over it.

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