Earlier this week Massachusetts lawmakers announced that they were considering a bill to prevent children from playing tackle football before seventh grade. The reaction online was disorienting and alarming.
The objections to the proposed law – which would cost violators a $2,000 fine – were centered around kumbaya notions of tackle football instilling toughness and the completely broken, incoherent logic that a sport which destroys brains is an essential building block for a maturing adolescent. “How could it be America without football!?,’”they cried.
Every time I saw one of the comments, I wanted to scream. This is not an attack on football, but rather an attack on ignorance.