Ichiro and MLB Neoconservativism

Ryan and I had a debate on the way to taking him to the airport Tuesday evening, about whether one can root for the Marlins when they have such a vile owner as Jeff Loria.  Ryan’s position was Loria was so evil we had to root for the Marlins to fail disastrously so he’d be driven out of the game. “Despotism anywhere fosters despotism everywhere” is Ryan’s position when it comes to baseball: other owners will feel they have to be snakes, too, to compete with the Marlins unless Loria is removed.

My position was Marlins fans and players (especially Ichiro, but also others like Yelich and Stanton) didn’t deserve to suffer just because Loria is a snake.

It’s the classic problem. How much suffering will we tolerate for innocents caught in the web of an evil regime, in order to remove the regime?  I have made the “political misery anywhere fosters political misery everywhere”  argument about all forms of political misery (including corruption and anarchy as well as tyranny) in arguing for a loving Christian duty to overthrow tyrannies (nonviolently).  But I have not extended my nonviolent neoconservative position to baseball. It is Ryan who takes the neoconservative position in this case, which is an interesting twist.

(Editorial note:  I debated whether to lead with this pic of Loria:

or re-use this photo:

to illustrate this post. I decided to feature Loria because I had just done the mouse thing a few days ago, even though the mouse picture perfectly illustrates Ryan’s MLB neoconservative position.)