Spirited Discussions
The family gatherings include a brother-in-law who is a self-described political moderate but who also describes himself as a socialist. The two conservative brother-in-laws (myself and Chris) debate him early & often.
A recent one was a bit humorous. Our socialist interlocuter thought he had us when ESPNU, an obscure ESPN spin-off channel, played hardball and outraged Ohio State Buckeye fans by buying the rights to the game such that it would not be shown on network or regular cable. He said this was an outrage, and "an example of everything that's wrong with the capitalistic system....Big guys screw over the little man."
Chris said that we wouldn't have most of what we have today without capitalism, all the fantastic technologies that allow games to be broadcast. I said that ESPNU's little gambit backfired. They may've won the war but now they are associated with all that is evil in the world (at least in Columbus's eyes). ESPNU is dead to us. I think I made my point that sure ESPNU screwed us, but in a capitalistic system the consumers usually won't allow repeated screwings. Discuss & recuss amongst yourselves.
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