I should have a category called “Ass-hat politicians” because I really don’t know how else to classify this.

Fresh from the government-has-solved-all-the-serious-problems wire, the NYT is reporting that a lawmaker intent on eliminating NCAA Football’s Bowl Championship Series in favor of a playoff compared the BCS to Communism. (As an aside: I’m curious what Barton thought of the de facto nationalization of banks like AIG and automakers like Chrysler?) Oh, the hilarity.

Republican Rep. Joe Barton of Texas said Friday that efforts to tinker with the BCS are bound to fail. He told a House hearing that the BCS is like communism and can’t be fixed. — Lawmaker Compares Football’s BCS to Communism (5-1-2009)

My first reaction is: it’s pretty clear that Barton has no fucking clue what communism is, because the NCAA BCS series is not communism.  Barton invoked the “red scare” under the assumption that most people believe that, “Communism is bad” and will therefore conclude that “The NCAA BCS is bad, too, I should support Barton’s laws.”

Barton correctly described the BCS system as “more about cartels and revenue sharing” than it is about athletic performance, but then followed that gem with fucking nonsense about how “It’s big money… We’re going to start looking into where the money goes.”

And then presumably controlling, directing, and redistributing it. Which is pretty much State socialism.

Although the athletic departments at these universities are often (always?) required to be internally funded, there are plenty of contributing factors to the NCAA’s cartel/monopoly including but not limited to network TV, broadcast rights/privileges, the NFL, the NFL’s labor practices, the NCAA’s privilege as licensed institutions of higher learning, etc. But of one thing, we can be absolutely certain: this sort of abomination does not persist in any market with even a modicum of freedom. How’s about you start looking into where the money comes from — the sources of these economic rents?

Behind every powerful cartel or monpoly is an even more powerful government.