John Stossel - Policing For Profit

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According to Wikipedia, Schultz assaulted Stossel after the latter said that he thought professional wrestling was "fake." Of course, barely five years later, the head of the then-WWF was forced to admit that it is indeed fake.

I suppose it's healthy, somehow, that you're comfortable admitting your desire to inflict "violent death" on those who speak truths you don't want aired.



So, it's been fifty years. Has massive government intervention ended racism?

As a matter of fact, Schultz had always claimed that Vince McMahon had ordered him to slap Stossel around. If anything, McMahon is always a showman. And he's a hypocrite, as he fired Schultz after they all got in trouble for that order. That, and there was a great deal of backstage politics going on with Schultz's firing. That had been just before the first Wrestlmania, when McMahon had gotten the idea that it would be a great money maker to bring actor Mr. T into the tag team main event, originally slated as Schultz and the late Rowdy Roddy Piper vs Hulk Hogan and the aforementioned Mr. T. Well, Schultz made it clear that he didn't want to wrestle a novice just for the sake of making money, so this proved a convenient reason to fire Schultz, and replace him with Paul Orndorff.
As for racism being eradicated by government intervention - no, but no one can deny that things aren't better because the federal government had stepped in. The free market had had a hundred years between the Civil War and civil rights legislation to make things better, and all it did was to relegate blacks to an inferior, segregated economic and political standing. Many blacks were even forced into a form of slavery impressed upon them in the prison/industrial complex. At least with federal intervention, blacks have had greater opportunities to gain middle and even upper class standing, and with it, a voice in politics. The only blacks today who'd tell you things were better under Jim Crow would be Herman Cain, and Ben Carson.

Yada yada. And why would McMahon give such an order, if he did? Was he sending wrestlers to attack all journalists? No. Stossel was assaulted because he was saying that pro wrestling was fake – i.e., speaking the truth. Telling that you admire and approve that, even tongue in cheek.




You start off mentioning the free market, then discuss the effects of Jim Crow laws. Either you don't know what a free market is, or you don't know what Jim Crow was. They are opposites.

Decades ago I had numerous conversations with a local bluesman, who recalled sharing a tour bus with a young B.B. King in the Fifties. The bus had to be full-sized and well-equipped, because there were many times that an all-black band couldn't find a hotel which would accommodate them. So they slept on the bus. Often they ate on the bus too.

But only in the South. If their manager was able to book stops in Chicago or Detroit or NYC, that's when everybody got to take a proper shower, eat in a sit-down restaurant, sleep in a hotel bed. There was plenty of racism up North, make no mistake, but absent laws preventing it most hoteliers and restaurateurs would rather make money than turn away paying customers.

The free market? That's exactly what the South did not have.

Plenty of wrestlers have told how Vince McMahon had ruined their lives and careers. Remember his vendetta against Hulk Hogan for testifying against him when put on trial for distributing steroids to wrestlers, then fabricating negative results. I have no doubt that McMahon would have Schultz slap Stossel around, because he - McMahon - at the time was still promoting the idea that wrestling was real, and so wanted to give Stossel a "dose of reality." I'm going to take the word of McMahon's former employees that he's an abusive jerk.
As for the south being without a free market back during Jim Crow - I'm sure that a lot of southerners of that era would be surprised if you told them that. They did have a free market, they just excluded certain citizens from it. And even with the conditions in the north that were somewhat better, blacks were hardly equal citizens able to take part fully in the economic or political arena, till the federal government has stepped in to make things right.

Absolutely not. I have precisely zero interest in pro wrestling.



'I do have a healthy lifestyle, I just enjoy smoking five packs of cigarettes a day'

'She's a committed vegan, she just likes a cheeseburger and milkshake for lunch'

'We are a peace-loving nation, we just choose to invade and occupy all our neighbors'

Yeah, so the answer is A. You don't know what a free market is. Here's a hint: if the police come by and tell you with whom you can and can't do business, you don't have a free market.



If you think the federal government waved a magic wand and instantly 'made things right,' I have news for you.

People's attitudes change slowly. They were changing before the civil rights legislation and they've continued to change. If you're suggesting that any progress (heh) since the Sixties is due to those laws I think you'll find that hard to prove.

Those same white southerners would have slapped you and challenged you to a duel for insinuating that they weren't free marketeers ! But seriously, even if that's your definition of a free market, others have no problem describing themselves as such while stepping on unpopular neighbors.
As for things beginning to get better for blacks prior to civil rights legislation - maybe so, in some parts of the country. But I think it's unbelievable to say that things would have gotten better for blacks in states where segregation was the norm without federal intervention. And sure, things hardly got better overnight, but they did get better as people's hearts changed, and the old, vile bigots died off. But this change only became reality because the federal government had enforced laws allowing blacks to eat where ever they wanted, go to schools with whites, and be allowed to vote and hold office. Without having the full rights of citizens enforced, blacks would have remained second class citizens, no matter how somewhat better conditions were for them in some places.

Words have meanings. The existence of hypocrites is not news.



You're conflating private and governmental acts. I applaud (as
Objectivists, libertarians, individualists did at the time) the portions of the civil rights legislation which struck down Jim Crow laws mandating private racist behavior. Also the portions which enforced the rights of all to vote, hold office, attend school (if we must have government schools) – the government should be colorblind. The parts which violate property rights … not so much.

But the racism practiced by private business owners was a major part of social inequality. Political equality means nothing if you are turned away from eating or sleeping at whichever place of business you want.
Now, as I am going to bed so I can get up bright and early tomorrow morning to donate plasma (and get paid for my time), I'm afraid that I will not be able to respond till daylight sometime. Good night.

Where did this conversation get from the subject at hand to an attack on John Stossel? To get back on track, the government is indeed doing something illegal, and it doesn't matter who reports it, we should all be up in arms. Get a grip liberals!

The third post from the top was the obvious derailment.

The problem seems to be that until it happens to the individual the individual doesnt care that much. They hear about this happening to others, express momentary outrage, then it's over until thier aft-cabin cruiser gets confiscated. It's definitely a closer to home problem than lions and giraffes in Africa and something that needs to be discussed more.
If the government can't prove you bought something or have cash that is ill-gotten then they have no right to it. They ARE committing theft under the cloak of the War on Drugs or whatever else they're using to legally have something to hang thier hat on.

Don't hold your breath waiting for that.

Yes, absolutely, the government - or more precisely, the police - are doing something clearly illegal and wrong. That doesn't mean I have to like Stossel. After all, he's the same guy who did stories ridiculing homeless people, and demonizing people on food stamps.

Kill the messenger ! !! !! !

No, just expressing my personal dislike for him.

it's hardly that when the whole welfare queen narrative was spun from whole cloth.