Ali

Am I the only guy who thinks Muhammad Ali is a leading indicator of America’s decline?  Well, consider.  Single mothers now comprise 25% of households.  A boy without a father figure cannot easily achieve the Warrior phase.  Warrior is when a young man masters a skill and the acclaim of his dad or other men give him confidence to move into an eventual position of leadership.  Moms cannot do this vital role—it takes other men, often a parent but sometimes a grandparent or the military.  Without the settled psyche, a young man coming of age will revert to peers (gangs) for approval, feel insecure and thus exploit women and use braggadocio. He will often reject his country and society or the faith he was brought up in. These “weak roots” also can result in behavior that loses fortunes and families themselves.   

Ali had both parents a grandparents, but dad and granddad died young.  His mother raised him Baptist, but Ali converted to Black Muslim faith.  He refused to serve in the military and declared as a conscientious objector. He lost his money in record time.  As I used to warn our foster and exchange daughters, “the people in Hollywood and entertainment often have disastrous lives offstage. They often lack real roots, an anchor.”  Thus an artificial façade is created around these otherwise successful people.  So today we hear commentators remembering how accepting of others Ali was, “how he loved white people and rejected Malcolm X’s radicalism.”  Well if true, Ali was rejecting Black Muslim belief.  Many former Muslim authors talk about how Black Islam was originated by a white-hating guy who dreamed up his strange, non-Islamic belief system that postulated that Africans originally believed in Islam.  Malcolm X was the radical leader of that sect who went to Mecca on pilgrimage and came home spouting a newfound hope for white Muslim brothers.  The rest of the Black Muslims couldn’t stand this and assassinated him.  Thus the faith still holds that a day is coming when the African race, which they hold are the only actual humans, will genocide the rest of the world.

Ali’s slander of opponents and bragging about being the greatest, has now infested our world.  Maybe that is his lasting legacy.  He called Liston “Uncle Tom”.  (Now when you read Harriet Beecher Stowe’s book it seems that Tom is the old wisened and crafty slave who helps others to freedom.) Ali was the Greatest. Well, now having discovered who the greatest was for all time, we no longer have much need to watch boxing, the most popular sport in America before World War I.