The film "Moneyball" features Oakland General Manager Billy Beane's innovative approach of selecting undervalued players using on-base percentage. Beane rocks baseball with a team of has-beens and no-names that wins their division.
As Red Sox owner John Henry tells Beane, any time someone challenges the conventional wisdom of an institution, the rulers of that club go crazy and attack the infidel. It is better to be insulted than ignored. Boston, imitating Beane, won its first World Series in 86 years.
Enter Ron Paul. Proposing a platform once very similar to that of the Republican Party (before George W. Bush launched his unnecessary Iraqi crusade and bankrupted the treasury with Medicare drug benefits and No Child Left Behind), Paul is criticized for expressing opinions unapproved by the GOP establishment and questioning the neoconservative creed of perpetual war and fiscal lunacy. While other Republican candidates argue over who will attack Iran, Dr. Paul preaches constitutional adherence, budgetary sanity and international prudence, all very dangerous propositions for GOP today.
In our soundbite world, approved talking points and cliches rule. Original thinking, indeed any thinking, is unacceptable. The first guy through the wall, he always gets bloody, says Henry to Beane. Or to Ron Paul.
Much like the classic "Field of Dreams," "Moneyball" is a baseball movie that isn't about baseball. It's about courage and conviction. Tea Partiers take note.
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Barry Bruss
Rochester
