Those are my principles. If you don’t like them I have others.
While in Maine, my mother and I saw a puzzling t-shirt. It said something like ‘traitah 18′. As we discussed what it could possibly mean, a woman explained it was some Red Sox player (forget the name) who had taken a lot of money to play for the Yankees instead. Fair enough. As a Montrealer, I have to support the Red Sox over the Yankees. I think I’m even supposed to support them over the Blue Jays, I forget.
The next day, having forgotten or been unclear, I asked my father if he’d transferred, or chosen to transfer, or what. He’d chosen to transfer. My father said he would take $10 million to play for the Leafs.
So the next day, we discussed: would you take $10 milllion to work for people you disagreed with for five years? The PQ/BQ? (Mother: no; father: no; me: sure.) The Conservatives? (Mother: maybe; father supports them; me: maybe, depends who was leading them, etc.) The NDP? (Father: no.) He pointed out that I was saying what I’d sell my principles for. Which is true.
Who would you sell your principles to for $10 million over five years? Who wouldn’t you? I wouldn’t sell them to a pro-life group, a creationist group, a crazy right wing Christian group. I don’t think I’d sell them to PETA, because PETA pisses me off a lot, plus then I shouldn’t have pets. I wouldn’t sell them to an anti-immigration group.
August 22nd, 2006 at 7:53 am
I am sort-of a Sox fan, and I have two teams: the Sox, and whoever’s beating the Yankees. But I think it’s silly to be upset about Johnny Damon. (Note: he was a star player and he had previously made a lot of statements about loyalty, which is probably why people were so ticked.) The Yankees have the biggest payroll in baseball by a huge margin, and expecting him to say “no” to that much is truly wishful thinking.
If the fans want to get pissed, they should be directing their ire at the Sox management which couldn’t (or wouldn’t) meet or beat the offer.
August 22nd, 2006 at 12:02 pm
I’d probably agree to work for the Greens, the Liberals, or the Bloc for $10 million, but not for any crazy right-wing extremists, which for me includes the Conservative Party in its current state. (If they underwent a sea change and elected David Orchard as their leader, I’d do it.) On the other hand, I can’t imagine what I could possibly do in five years that would be worth that much money to anyone, especially a political party—so maybe I should agree to take the money from the Conservatives, or some even more odious group, and then turn around and donate it to the NDP and various worthy charities, thereby more than offsetting the practical damage done to what I believe in.
It also seems to me that there’s an important difference between principles and loyalty, but maybe that’s because I’m not a sports fan. Someone who accepts a transfer from the Red Sox to the Yankees isn’t, so far as I can tell, undertaking to aid an enterprise that is antithetical to his basic moral principles; he’s just being disloyal to his former teammates and fans. I’d certainly accept ten million dollars to play baseball against my friends, but then that’s because I think baseball is only a game, and does not require any genuine enmity between opponents; I wouldn’t accept ten million dollars to betray my friends in any serious way.
By the way, what are Montréal baseball fans supposed to do with their loyalties now? Surely you can’t be expected to root for les Expos de Washington, but how did you arrive at Boston–is it just geographic proximity?
August 22nd, 2006 at 5:36 pm
That’s funny, I always thought I’d sell out at the slightest opportunity, but all those examples you gave are ones I wouldn’t work with for $10 million either. (Although I don’t know what BQ is, and Wikipedia isn’t helping, because I don’t think it’s a unit of radioactivity.)
I have principles!
I can’t be bought!
Thank you for allowing me to find this out.
August 22nd, 2006 at 6:15 pm
Q, I don’t know why, but the default US place to support here is always Boston. I guess because it’s near, and also because it’s similar in some ways.
Styley, try BQ and PQ.
August 23rd, 2006 at 11:33 am
Now there’s an interesting question: could I support the becquerel, despite my sentimental attachment to the curie?