Organized Sports are to War...

...what pornography is to sex.I heard that on one of the TED Talks and it always resonated with me.

From the time they are young, we encourage athletes to push themselves harder and harder. We tell them to push through the pain and shake off injuries. We look at athletes in sports movies or television shows who bleed to win. We call those people heroes. What's more, we call the coaches and the parents who train them to do those things and allow them to be trained to do those things role models.

But that's not true. Athletes aren't heroes. Athletes are modern gladiators and their parents and coaches are modern day lanista who profit from the bodies of their slaves. Go bigger, push harder,shake off the pain.

Gladiators were gods in their time and were allowed liberties no other slaves would have been granted; women and boys were brought to them when their masters were pleased with the results of that day's games. They had the best places to live, the best food, the first and best of everything among their social peers. And when the gladiator is no longer profitable they were tossed aside like garbage.

Sounds a lot like your standard collegiate or professional sports league, doesn't it?

So how can we be surprised that in a culture that systematically devalues the people upon who it profits people like Jerry Sandusky are allowed to thrive for decades?

He gave the people bread and circuses and helped bring in huge profits for his team. In return they allowed him to prey on little boys.

I'm just surprised it took this long for something like this to be uncovered.