Brain Truster Ron Artest Speaks to America's Youth

Ron Artest, the main culprit (along with an addle-pated fan who threw a beer at him) in the shocking NBA brawl was on the Today show this morning. The following question and answer occurred.

MATT LAUER:...what do you say to the twelve-year-old fan of the sport who's seen this and is trying to come to terms with what he or she has seen?

RON ARTEST: Right. They seen [sic] -- they seen disrespect, you know, from -- from the crowd, and then they seen a frustrated reaction from a player, and they got to understand that, you know, sometimes things happen. People go to war but we don't want to go to war. You know, nobody -- nobody wants to die, you know. But things happen and you move on. You try to move on and you try to make everything positive. So what I can tell kids is, you know, things happen and, you know, try to move on and -- and always try to stay positive and keep positive people around you, and that's how you will get by.

After this , the head of the NBA players' union blamed the whole thing on the war in Iraq. I don't know which is worse--Artest's brain-dead lack of insight into his long-standing and well-known refusal to control his violent impulses, or the attempt to attribute the whole thing to the mood of a nation at war. Once upon a time society assumed that everybody had at least a vestigial conscience. But in the NBA now we have an entire sporting institution that is premised on sociopathy as the norm. Investigative reporter Jeff Benedict, author of Out of Bounds: Inside the NBA's Culture of Rape, Violence & Crime, says that 40% of NBA players during the 2001-2002 season had criminal records including at least one serious crime.