Bellicheck Coached Football as Rome Burned

The 2002 superbowl saw the rise of the New England Patriots, the plucky little upstart that rode obscure rules and a team-first attitude to its first Lombardi trophy, introducing the city of Boston to a game known as “football.” Meanwhile, late 2001 saw the rise of the Patriot Act, the plucky little condensation of increased governmental powers that rode patriotism and good old fashion fear to an easy passage by Congress. Unfortunately, both the New England Patriots and the Patriot Act would receive a good dash on infamy by the close of 2007.

In the opening game of the 2007 season, the New England Patriots went above and beyond the allowed monitoring techniques, brazenly spying on the opposing team’s defensive calls. In the off-season, Bellicheck was specifically warned against this particular spying effort. Meanwhile, he voted against allowing a radio-based communication setup in the helmet of one defensive player, a move which would negate any benefit in signal stealing. After the evidence of spying was brought to light, Bellicheck blamed the incident on a differing interpretation of the rules.

Meanwhile, it came to light that the extended powers of the Patriot Act led to the department of justice going above and beyond the traditional monitoring techniques, brazenly spying on international phone calls and potentially domestic-based calls as well. At the same time, prisoners held by the US were never informed of exactly what they were being held for, and potentially tortured (most definitely, extreme coercion techniques such as water-boarding were used) to extract possibly useful information. After the evidence was brought to light, Alberto Gonzalez (the attorney general at the time) wiggled out of the incident by saying they were using a different interpretation of the rules (specifically, while the US constitution says that the government can-not take away the right of habeus corpus, it does not say that people have the right of habeus corpus. And, as prisoners held in Guantanamo are not specifically citizens, we can do whatever we want to them. Also, the prisoners do not fall under international Geneva convention standards, as the prisoners are not officially prisoners of war, but “enemy combatants”)

But the comparisons don’t stop there. The NFL commissioner confiscated all tapes the Patriots had, then subsequently destroying them all. Did they possibly cover-up evidence of similar cheating in the past superbowls? Congress wanted to confiscate all tapes the justice department had of interrogations, unfortunately, all these tapes were destroyed. Did they possibly cover-up evidence of torture? For years the Patriots allowed minimal media coverage of their training camps, disallowing the press to see the conditions they were putting their players through. At the same time, the US government denied international organizations the ability to observe the conditions of prisoners in Guantanamo (not to mention any secret prisons scattered throughout the world), disallowing the press to see the conditions they were putting the enemy combatants through. The Patriots have supported dictatorial regimes around the world, by way of Bob Kraft providing Putin with precious stones. The US government has supported dictatorial regimes around the world, by way of not asking too many questions, in Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. The Patriots have evolved from a hard nose run/defense team to one that relies on the air (leaving vulnerable their aging linebacker core). The US military has evolved from a infantry, boots on the ground mentality to one that relies on the air (leaving vulnerable their aging infantry units with improper armor). Gillete Stadium is built on catering to the wealthy (in forms of luxury boxes and exclusive concourse areas). The US government is evolved to catering to the wealthy (by removing the estate tax and not even daring to increase taxes of the wealthy while the debt sky-rockets). Rodney Harrison takes performance-enhancing drugs. Cheney shoots people in the face. The similarities are stunning.

All you need to do is listen to patriots sports talk radio for a few minutes to get the full effect. Any mention of the Jets or the Colts, and is the conversation any different than "2 minutes of hate" in 1984? Or how about an interview with Brady or any other leading Patriot. No group of people are that single-minded and mono-syllabic without some form of brain-washing. I mean, it's impossible for that many bland personalities to "randomly" be on the same team. To sum it up, exactly what am I saying? That the rise of Patriots dynasty coincides, and dare I say, caused, the evolution of the US from a privacy-driven republic into some kind of Orwellian, totalitarian regime. War is peace, my friend.