Lance Armstrong should have kept fighting

Aug. 27, 2012

By John Seiler

With a name like Lance-Arm-Strong, Lance Armstrong should have kept fighting the anti-doping charges against him. The U.S. Anti-Doping Agency just supposedly “stripped” him of his seven titles, although it’s not clear if they have the authority to do so, and he might still have the titles. Said Robert Luskin, his lawyer:

“I think Lance ultimately decided he’d rather be eaten alive by zombies than locked in a room with lawyers for the next five years of his life with no promise at the end of it that there would be any peace.”

That’s an understandable sentiment. But somebody has to fight these bureaucratic flesh eaters. Moreover, less than three months ago, Armstrong blew $1.5 million pushing Proposition 29, which would have raised taxes on cigarettes for $735 million in unaccountable cancer research. The initiative especially would have hit poor people, who smoke more than the rest of Californians. It would have put in jail more people for violating laws against black markets. And it would have given employment to hundreds more lawyers.

If he was willing that much dough to stick the state with thousands of legal actions, why didn’t he have the guts to keep fighting his own legal action? Maybe he’ll tell us.

Anyway, here’s what Wikipedia wrote about the tyrannical U.S. Anti-Doping Agency:

“The United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) is a non-profit, non-governmental^[1] organization and the national anti-doping organization (NADO) for the United States….

“In 2001 the agency was recognized by the U.S. Congress as ‘the official anti-doping agency for Olympic, Pan American and Paralympic sport in the United States.’^[4] USADA is not a government entity, however the agency is partly funded by the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP), with its remaining budget generated from contracts for anti-doping services with sport organizations, most notably the United States Olympic Committee.^[5]“

“non-governmental”? Actually, if it’s “recognized by Congress” and takes tax money, the USADA really is a part of the government, despite it’s alleged independence. And the legal system itself is run by the government.

Manic McCain

Moreover, the anti-doping mania has been given a boost by grandstanding congressmen, in particular Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., who lost a presidential bid four years ago. Here’s what happened in July:

“Senator John McCain lent support Friday to the United States Anti-Doping Agency in its case against Lance Armstrong, saying the agency follows a fair process that has been authorized by Congress and that it has the right to investigate and bring charges against Armstrong.

“’This process is the proper forum to decide matters concerning individual cases of alleged doping violations,’ McCain said in a statement.”

Normally I don’t agree with Michael Hiltzik, the L.A. Times columnist. But yesterday he wrote a great column defending Armstrong:

“With the whole world atwitter over Tour de Francechamp Lance Armstrong‘s decision to drop his legal fight against anti-doping allegations, it’s the right moment to be appalled at the travesty in sports this case represents.

“It’s not that the case will be seen as a major victory for sports anti-doping authorities. It’s that the anti-doping system claiming its highest-profile quarry ever is the most thoroughly one-sided and dishonest legal regime anywhere in the world this side of Beijing.

“It’s a system deliberately designed to place almost insurmountable hurdles in the way of athletes defending themselves or appealing adverse findings. Evidence has emerged over the years that laboratories certified by the World Anti-Doping Agency, or WADA, have been incompetent at analyzing athletes’ samples or fabricated results when they didn’t get the numbers they were hoping to see.

“Athletes’ defense attorneys harbored some hope that by picking a fight with Lance Armstrong, the anti-doping system might have sowed the seeds for its own reform. Finally, it was thought, here was an athlete with the money and motivation to expose the legal sophistry, the pseudoscience, the sheer sloppiness that underlies sports anti-doping prosecutions all over the world.

“Instead, the outcome shows that the system is so relentlessly rigged that even Lance Armstrong doesn’t see a point in fighting it.”

Who will fight?

Actually, someone who has the stamina to fight would be someone who won seven Tour de France titles.

I also wish Hiltzik would be more consistent in opposing government encroachments on our lives, instead of so often wanting to give our oppressors more of our tax money. Hiltzik did oppose Armstrong’s Prop. 29 tax increase, but only because he wanted the taxes for other government waste.

It’s the government itself that’s not only run by dopes, but is doped up on steroids that have ballooned government powers to monstrous proportions. And like a junkie, the government supports its habit by stealing, which the government calls “taxation.”

We need to take the steroid syringes from the government by cutting off the tax dollars — all of them. Without our money, government would have to go cold turkey: