I don’t personally know Lance Armstrong, the cyclist who won the Tour de France seven times, including after beating cancer.
I don’t know if Armstrong tricked folks for all those years he was competing, finding some ingenious way to pass more than 500 drug tests even while doping, as witnesses tell the United States Anti-Doping Agency.
I don’t know what to make of the USADA’s doping charges, but, as for the agency’s motivations, a federal judge wrote that, “USADA’s conduct raises serious questions about whether its real interest in charging Armstrong is to combat doping, or if it is acting according to less noble motives.”
And I don’t know whether Armstrong chose to drop his challenge to the USADA charges against him because after years of fighting the agency, as he wrote, “enough is enough,” or, as USADA contends, there was ample “evidence” that “Armstrong used … and administered doping products.”
But there is something I know. I know where we can cut some federal spending.
On the Opposing Views blog, Tim Dockery points out that USADA “receives almost 70 percent of its funding from the federal grants” and “is a government program masquerading as a non-profit organization. This non-profit status allows it to investigate and prosecute athletes without affording them the constitutional and due process protections required of other federal agencies.”
Why is the federal government paying to police sport? In a way that undermines our standard of justice? When we’re already 16 trillion in debt and butting in costs money?
Yes, “enough is enough.”
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
6 replies on “I Know Savings”
I DO NOT follow sports, anymore-and have not for years.
But look at the travesty, a few years ago, about baseball players and steroids-and one famous ( not to me) athlete who took STEROIDS THAT WERE LEGAL WHEN HE TOOK THEM, and stopped when became illegal- and the ruining of his reputation.
This is madness
The federal government is supposed to be an agent of the individual states and Constitution a limit on its power, lest it grow into an oligarchical beast that so many people died to get away from.
The state I live in has little interest in the USADA, as do most other states, which means that this is a usurped power and an unconstitutional agency.
Congress violates its oath every time they appropriate money to keep funding this. That money sequestering originates in the House, not in Harry Reid’s Senate. This only continues in existance BECAUSE of the Representatives in the House, not in spite of them.
While I do not have the facts regarding Mr. Armstrong, I really do not care what he did. He passed the screening tests for years which would have been good enough for me.
Mr. Armstrong’s fault appears to have been that he performed exceptionally, which, I guess, is proof enough for some that he must have cheated.
Will we be applying the same logic to others, Warren Buffet, Bill Gates, and especially now that he cannot defend himself, Steve Jobs. Can we use this logic to invalidate Mr. Obama’s first election, where he performed exceptionally well for the extended period of his campaign? Could we strip him of his winnings, title and prizes?
Mr. Armstrong’s torment by the quasi government agency is an abomination, but necessary function of a failing government and society. It is required in order to continue the preeminence of the “circus” in the news cycle, which might otherwise look around and decide to report the city is burning.
Another issue is all the money the Feds spent trying to convict Roger Clemens. And failing to do so. I think his real crime was not bowing to the dog-and-pony show the Congress wanted to put on.
Pay no attention to the “men” behind the curtain.
I will bet my next five years income to a brass Razoo that Mr Armstrong did not dope — as he says — and that we will likely not witness as courageous an action as was his choice to not waste the Millions of Dollars nor a minute more of his life’s energies nor of his time, as would be required would he have chosen to face down the mindless bloody bureaucrats of bottomless pockets baying at the back of his bike!
Way to go, Mr Armstrong!