Written by Lars Hancock

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Last weekend was of course the start of the NFL playoff season, which means that I didn’t get/have to watch the Browns play anymore. And, to quote Mike “Factory of Sadness” Polk, “it’s like they’re playing a completely different game.” Even the Denver Tebows’ abortion* of an offense looks like Swan Lake compared to Shurmur’s Shitheads’ America’s Funniest Videos-esque constant array of groin shots and fails. I thoroughly enjoyed being treated to playoff-quality teams running playoff-quality offensive and defensive schemes after 16 painful games of watching the Browns, giving me the football equivalent of an evening of dinner at Lola followed by sweet lovemaking with my wife, after being released from a 5-month prison sentence where the food and sex were, um, prison-quality.

* No unborn children were harmed in the writing of this column nor in the execution of the Broncos’ offensive attack

Anyway, off to the questions.

Conspiracy question that has tormented me for years. Were Carmon Policy & Dwight Clark in some type of evil subversive conspiracy designed to cripple the "newly returned" Browns by amassing a roster void of talent and providing no foundation for this franchise's future thus setting us back for a decade?. – pod2dawg

The 1999 NFL Draft was as loaded as your average Browns fan at 4:01 on a Sunday. You couldn’t swing a dead Bengal without finding a Champ Bailey, Dre Bly, Joey Porter, or even a Donald Driver in each and every round of that draft. And yet somehow we come away with an array of Rahim Abdullahs, Marquis Smiths, and Madre Hills. You’d think statistically with that many picks, we’d be bound to stumble upon an Aaron Smith at random, so to avoid people of talent would take considerable effort, and thus a conspiracy had to be in place.

The problem is that the Browns only had random luck on their side. Being given inadequate time to put a franchise together, they couldn’t even amass a Mike-Brown-quality scouting department. Cleveland had completely too little time to prepare for the draft, especially considering the not-so-bright Dwight Clark was our GM. All those wonderful picks, and they had the NFL GM equivalent of a blindfolded monkey and a fish bowl. And we got the result we got.

But you’re onto something – this clearly was no accident.

I have sources that tell me that by 1995 the Cleveland Browns fans had really pissed off the blue blood aristocracy of the NFL with our boorish behavior throughout the years, and they felt the need to punish us, punishment that continues to this day. In today’s kinder, gentler NFL, a doghouse with a keg inside of it is no good. We can’t throw batteries and dog biscuits at the beloved John Elway (just think if we did that to Tim Tebow!). And the mini disco demolition night we staged at the last game of the old Stadium? Distasteful.

No, the NFL was done with Cleveland. The conspiracy started long ago, when they ruled Karlis’ FG good that won “the Drive” game. The league then had patsy Art Modell move the team, and on the return they built the “factory of sadness,” a soulless shell of a place to be policed by Gestapo-type politeness police. Then the NFL screwed up our start, meaning with a poor foundation we would indeed suck for decades. They allowed Trent Fucking Dilfer to win a Super Bowl at QB to punish us – please tell me that happened without some sort of fix. And the punishment continues as the on-field officials fellate our inbred rivals in central PA.

But I can’t say that Carmen Policy was involved in any way. Of course, if you know the way business is done in Youngstown, I can’t say he wasn’t. In fact, it’s probably better I don’t say anything further here.

I am a born and bred Cleveland Browns fan, living and working in Ohio. A guy in the office asked me my opinion on whether he should ask out a cute girl who also works here. She is nice, and she likes the Browns too. Whenever I talk to him, he changes the subject to ‘Ben’, ‘Hines’, and ‘Heath’. This is annoying. But he must not be all bad- he’s always offering to give people his spare yellow towels. What should I tell him? - Wondering in Warrensville Heights

Your coworker sounds like a swell guy. I’m always glad to help a good man out.

First, let me give you a little lesson in body language (this stuff is actually true, btw. Seriously). Your genitals are the key to the statement you make with your body language. Notice this. If someone faces their genitals to you, they are respecting or admiring you, professionally, socially, or romantically. If their back is to you, or leg closes their genitals away from you, the body language is closed, and they are dismissing you. When standing, if you hook your thumbs in your pockets, your hands then point to your genitals, and people see you as a person of power subliminally. Or put the hands in and have the thumbs point. Either way, the genitals are power.

So I would suggest you tell your coworker this fact, and that he should watch his body language to portray a powerful aura to his object of desire. His simple caveman like mind, damaged from years of inbreeding, will clearly misinterpret this, and he will be thrusting his dong inappropriately toward this woman at all times. Which will cause her to file sexual harassment against him, and he’ll be fired, and you’re workplace douche number will go down by one.

Oh, and make sure the woman overhears you mention your boy saying he got a scorching case of herpes from a hooker in Vegas. Just so she is absolutely sure to notice, and to be completely horrified, as he does “the peener” toward her in the office.

Finally, from the forae:

Was John Wayne a racist?

Absolutely. But let’s dig a little deeper.

First of all, we have to admit that this very country was founded on racism, and racism allowed the USA to be the world superpower it is today. The original settlers decided the Native Americans were less than human “savages”, so as such they believed it was their “Manifest Destiny” to form a nation where the white man had lands that extended from sea to shining sea. So white early America simply stole the Native American lands. Fueling the economy of the fragile new nation was an agrarian system that racistly exploited Africans as slaves to produce food and marketable goods at extremely low prices (since we didn’t have to pay our workers, or treat them well, or anything like that), which gave American goods a distinct market advantage in the world stage. This allowed the original white colonists to achieve riches, build a civilized society, conquer the Native Americans, and form the United States as a global superpower in less than 100 years.

Going deeper, many of the very people that created the instruments that govern our society today, owned African slaves and supported the subjugation of the rights of Africans. Thomas Jefferson (who had a longstanding African girlfriend with whom he produced numerous children) wrote often of his perception that Africans did not have the same mental capacity as the white man, with the very same hand he famously wrote that “all men are created equal”. Seriously dude?

Fact is, racism was the prevailing mindset of the day among the “intelligentsia”. Does any of that justify the practice, and make our founding fathers and the original settlers of this nation less of ignorant douchebags for their beliefs? Hell no. Some of them, such as John Adams, were completely opposed to slavery and the racist dehumanization of other men. The racist belief system was and is dead wrong, and those who espoused it failed morally.

Which brings us to John Wayne. Though society had advanced considerably since the late 1700s, there was still a prevailing mindset of racism. Progressive views were becoming more mainstream, and Wayne openly spoke against such progressive views. He was a product of his time to be sure, and completely owned the values of his era, but he was still wrong, and a racist. And we, with perfect hindsight, can accuse him (and every one of our Founding Fathers) thusly and be morally righteous on the topic without the least bit of hypocrisy.

Right?

As Lee Corso would say “not so fast my friend”. To completely allow ourselves to be judgmental without the slightest stain of hypocrisy, we must fully investigate our present mindset for those areas where we fail morally and will be judged by our descendants. How clean are our hands? What “-ism” will our great-grandkids shake their heads in shame as they recount Great Grandpa Lars’ embarrassing failures where we committed morally atrocious crimes against humanity?

To me, that “-ism” would be Nationalism: the act by which we put the interests of this nation, and the selfish desire to have Americans live a clean, safe, and prosperous life by favoring good ol’ Americans over “others”. “It’s a shame we lose so many jobs overseas.” Yes, shameful that our lower class, which is overweight and often obese because our food supply is too plentiful, has to lose their jobs so that indigent people in a third world country can have a menial job and the ability to earn sufficient income to get a bowl of fucking rice a week, while living in a shantytown where sewage runs through the streets. And shame that said job allows money to flow and improve their quality of life, helping them to live disease-free and not to starve.

Just because a man was born across an arbitrary line on a map from you, does he have any less of a right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness? If you agree with that, or act in a way that quietly supports said belief, how is that any different than assuming said rights don’t apply because of the color of that man’s skin?

If death squads roamed the streets of the USA raping and killing like they do in Africa every day, would we be so quick to turn a blind eye and instead negotiate with the criminals in power for natural resource rights so we could live more comfortably? Well, okay, that is pretty much life in Baltimore, but still, the point stands. “We need to take care of things at home. We’re losing jobs, the economy is in the toilet….” All excuses for ignoring the problems of the world and allowing humans to suffer while we watch the fucking Kardashians on our HDTVs.

In 1080P hindsight, will our great grandchildren despise us for allowing that to happen? Probably. But we will have given them a better life because of our ability to ignore the world’s problems and focus on making the USA kick some serious ass. And you know what? I’m pretty bought into preserving my cushy way of life instead of fighting the world to provide basic human rights for everyone. Because there is an inherent and realistic impossibility to said task without risking thrusting the entire world into abject poverty, then anarchy, and then the complete worldwide subjection of the rights of every man. And future generations may never get that, because the problem may be eminently solvable by then, and worldwide human rights and prosperity may be a reality.

So will some future loquacious dork writing a self-important column for some obscure corner of the internet of 2112 (whatever that may be) call out Lars Hancock for being a Nationalist douchebag? Probably, and she will be right.

Just as John Wayne was, indeed, a vile racist.

 

Please email questions to lars.hancock@yahoo.com, or DM them to me in the forae to LarsHancock.