The NBA threw the book at Donald Sterling, bans him for life. But is it fair?

Here’s the lowdown on what the NBA doled out to Sterling:

FOX NEWS – The NBA threw the book at LA Clippers owner Donald Sterling, banning him for life, fining him $2.5 million and raising the possibility of a forced sale of the team over racist remarks he allegedly made to an ex-girlfriend that surfaced on a tape recording.

NBA Commissioner Adam Silver made the announcement at a New York press conference after Donald Sterling, the Clippers owner, told Fox News that the team is not for sale and he had no intention of selling the team.

Silver, who succeeded David Stern as NBA Commissioner in February, said the league concluded its investigation into the matter and interviewed Sterling. He determined that the voice heard on the audio tape obtained by TMZ was indeed Sterling’s and called the comments “deeply offensive” and “harmful.”

Let’s get a couple of things straight. I think we can all agree that Donald Sterling is a racist at least in some capacity and that his remarks were reprehensible. The man clearly has issues with race on a level that makes other people uncomfortable.

But I have to admit, I come away from watching this NBA press conference very unsettled. It had all the feel of the outrage mob beating the crap out of Donald Sterling because they disagree with something he said. And they are so proud of it.

But it just doesn’t seem fair.

After all, where are the allegations that Sterling made racist remarks to a player, a coach, an owner, a league official? Where are the allegations that Sterling ever did anything wrong to someone or some thing within the bounds of the NBA league? There are none to my knowledge.

And yet he’s banned for LIFE from all things NBA and may have his team sold out from under him because of a private conversation he had with someone, a conversation that was never meant to be public and had nothing to do with anyone except he and his girlfriend?

I’m sorry, but this just isn’t right. And where does this end?

At the rate our society is moving, the outrage mob is just going to get hungrier and hungrier. Soon, disagreeing with gay marriage or believing that homosexuality is a Biblical sin will get you the same sentence that Sterling just got. It will be said to be as bad as making racist remarks.

If Sterling had actually said or done something wrong within the boundaries of the NBA league or if he did something criminally wrong, I could understand this better. But he didn’t.

He simply has a personal view, reprehensible as it may be, that is out of line with mainstream thought in America; a personal view that hasn’t even been known to have interfered with his ownership of a NBA team. And yet for that personal view he is condemned and cast completely out of society without an inkling of a second thought, to much fanfare and applause.


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