So Lance Armstrong Used Drugs

Lance Armstrong told Oprah Winfrey on her TV show last week, after years of bitter public denials, that he used performance-enhancing drugs during his legendary cycling career.

Yawn …

So what?

Big deal!

Ask me if I care.

Armstrong admitted to using a variety of performance enhancing substances starting sometime in the "mid-90s." The powers that be in the cycling business had already stripped him of his seven Tour de France titles and banned him for life from participating in future professional cycling events.

But as far as I’m concerned he crossed the line first; he won all seven of those titles; and its way too damn late now to take them away from him. It’s a bit like the NFL calling a clipping penalty during a game winning touchdown run ten years after the game is over and declaring the losing team the winner.

How many games in baseball’s major leagues have been won by a batter hitting a home run using a corked bat in the bottom of the ninth inning? We’ll never know. But if some player admits to doing just that many years ago, should the game be awarded to the team that lost? Should the offender be punished today?

It’s ridiculous.

Had he been caught violating the rules during a race that would be different; he could have been disqualified then without any complaint from me.

There really should be something like a statute of limitations on this kind of thing. You know; if someone admits to stealing $10million in a train robbery that happened seven years ago, he can’t be prosecuted. It’s too late.

If O.J. Simpson goes on Oprah tomorrow to admit that he murdered his ex-wife and Ronald Goldman, too bad; his trial is over; he can’t be touched for that; it would constitute double jeopardy.

O.J. Simpson and train robbers clearly did something wrong. But as a hard core libertarian I don’t believe that Mr. Armstrong did anything wrong until he lied and bullied others about his conduct in order to keep it a secret.

Yes, those things were wrong.

Maybe he’s a jerk; I suppose he is, but the only reason he felt compelled to lie and bully was because he had to keep it secret. He had to keep it secret because the statist bastards controlling those events think they have the right to tell the participants what they can and can’t do with their own bodies.

He wanted to enhance his performance. Who wouldn’t want that, especially with the huge rewards out there now in professional sports? He could not have won the race seven times without the drugs, Armstrong admitted with a small smile. Surely there were many others who were doing exactly the same thing.

Men have been trying to enhance their performance since the dawn of time. Sales of male enhancement drugs are booming everywhere these days. I’ll bet money that the toads that stripped Lance of his titles go home at night regularly and pop a Viagra before hopping into bed with their wives.

It’s that kind of hypocrisy about the use of drugs that disgusts me. There is an illogical hysteria about drugs which has been embedded in our culture only relatively recently. Babe Ruth would have gotten away with what Lance Armstrong did with no one thinking twice about it or batting an eye.

The public today expects its athletes to all be angels, pure as the driven snow, and honest to the core. That is never going to happen with the millions of dollars at stake now on the playing fields. Nice guys finish last and that fact of life has never been truer than in the gritty, dirty and fiercely competitive world of pro sports.

"At the time it did not feel wrong?" Winfrey asked.

"No," Armstrong replied. "Scary."

"Did you feel bad about it?" she pressed him.

"No," he said; "Even scarier."

"Did you feel in any way that you were cheating?"

"No," Armstrong paused. "Scariest."

"I went and looked up the definition of cheat," he added. "And the definition is to gain an advantage on a rival or foe. I didn't view it that way. I viewed it as a level playing field."

I hate this never ending War on Drugs. It’s downright disgusting, demeaning and dehumanizing to insist randomly that free people must allow their blood to be drawn or have to pee in a jar so that some sanctimonious martinet can test it.

It’s none of their business.

Now it has come to the point where public schools are insisting on drug tests for any student who wishes to participate in any extra-curricular activity, including the debate team and marching band. Soon it will be all the kids rounded up and being randomly tested like cattle just for showing up for their compulsory education.  

So Lance Armstrong used performance enhancing drugs almost 20 years ago – yawn!