By Derek Brumby @Shutterstock
Originally posted on October 31, 2019.
Larry Taunton of The American Conservative writes (abridged):
In recent weeks, we have seen the NBA of Adam Silver and LeBron James awkwardly attempt to sidestep the obvious fact that the China of Xi Jinping is an oppressive, totalitarian state.
The awkwardness is compounded when one considers the fact that under Silver’s watch the NBA has, more than any other American professional sport, engaged in endless social justice warrioring.
LeBron James, the face of the NBA, says that no NBA champion wants to visit the Trump White House.
He expressed no such qualms about visiting China in the midst of that country’s violent suppression of protests in Hong Kong.
Baseball, not basketball, was one of America’s earliest and most enduring cultural exports. Invented in 1839, the game was being played widely in Latin America by the turn of the century.
Larry Alex Taunton is the executive director of the Fixed Point Foundation and a freelance columnist.
