Stickybuffalo.com

There’s flip-flopping, and then there’s this. Pheeew.

But in all fairness to John McCain, the disconnect runs deeper in the GOP. How do you premise your entire economic platform on keeping government’s dirty mitts off our sacred financial institutions, then insist the government bail them out when they inevitably succumb to the too-predictable consequences of unchecked, boneheaded, myopic greed? How to reconcile the yawning discrepancy between these two postures? Let me give it a shot…

Everybody knows that free markets are identical with freedom and state planned economies are evil. Taking over an entire industry is about the most evil thing a government can do, but only when that industry is successful. See, when a foreign government dares to nationalize a critical economic resource — let’s say oil — because its private owners — who, just for fun, let’s postulate have their home offices on Wall Street — have failed to handle that national resource in a way that sustains that nation’s economy or benefits its people… well, that’s bad. Real bad. We go to war over stuff like that when other people do it.

But when our own financial institutions get into trouble, the government has to take control in order to right the ship. Otherwise, the economy would suffer! It may seem unfair to expect taxpayers to bail out companies that do stupid, evil things that ultimately lead to their own undoing. But things will be even worse if we don’t. It’s all about the public good!

And so you see, it’s not that Republicans are against government oversight of private enterprise. On the contrary, when the shit happens they advocate the same policies as guys like Hugo Chavez. It’s just that they draw a key distinction between assets and liabilities: when a business is successful, hands off! As long as somebody somewhere can theoretically be making money off it, any form of government intervention would be oppressive. BUT, the moment that moneymaking enterprise ceases to make money and instead creates problems, it’s on the rest of us to dig the moneymakers out of the hole they have dug for us all.

I hope that clears up any confusion. You may now resume voting Republican on the principle that they’re good with money.

[note: this started as a response to charlie's tour de france post, but got a little too long for the comments thread.]

if you think that’s bad, just wait ’til 2012, when gene doping will be in full flower just in time for london.

“It is possible to introduce genes into people and change the DNA of some of their cells, genes that affect the way muscles function or the way that they heal after injury,” he said.

Although gene doping is probably still in its infancy, as techniques become more sophisticated naturally occurring hormones could be boosted or altered to enhance performance.

“In mice and in monkeys and in other tests that have been done, the animals have shown increased amount of blood production,” Dr Friedmann said. “Those mice have in fact become much stronger and much more muscular.”

…and we’re still at least a decade away from developing a test that will be able to detect it. some think it’s already going on in beijing this summer:

Dr Peter Larkins is a former head doctor for Australia’s athletics team and past president of Sports Medicine Australia.

“I think it is happening now,” he says of gene doping.

“I can’t believe that 10 years after gene therapy has been proven and we have mice that grow muscles twice the size of normal mice and mice that are called marathon mice because they run all day, I can’t believe the scientists who have been unethical enough to help athletes cheat for the last 30 years aren’t giving that technology to some people.

” Associate Professor Bob Stewart, a drugs-in-sport expert from Victoria University, is also pessimistic.

“We just have to accept the fact that athletes and biochemists are a jump ahead of the WADA (World Anti-Doping Agency) testers,” he says.

“accept facts”??! sounds like surrender talk to me!

seriously, though. the puritans and drug warriors and self-deluded nostalgia mongers who run professional sports (yes, the olympics are a pro outfit) have an extremely simple choice to make: either figure out a way to remove big money from the equation, or deal with the fact that athletes as a group are going to continue doing whatever is required of them to stay competitive. it’s unreasonable — hell, it’s unfair — to expect otherwise from people whose livelihood is competition.

and please, no lectures about sportsmanship and unfair advantages from the olympian sector, when the IOC already sanctions huge technological and economic advantages for certain competitors. why is it that the larger, developed nations always seem to do best in the medal count, anyway? is it because we’re naturally superior, or could it be that our teams enjoy superior training facilities and equipment, better coaches and staff, larger and more competitive recruiting pools, and more all-around institutional support?

drawing the line at drugs seems pitifully arbitrary, especially when the pace of development in the doping sciences is so fast that we can’t even agree on a stable universal definition of what “doping” is in the first place, or in some cases, as charlie notes, how to differentiate between doping and legitimate sports medicine. besides, as long as prohibition prevails and doping happens underground, the aforementioned institutional & economic disparities mean that only the most technologically disadvantaged dopers — the ones who can only afford treatments that the piss police have already figured out how to catch — will get caught.

it seems obvious that the hardline anti-doping stance is more ideological than anything else. but don’t take my word for it: ask WADA chair Dr. Gary Wadler why cannabis is also a no-no:

“Specifically, three criteria are used when considering whether or not a drug should be on the Prohibited List: (a) Does the drug or method have the potential of enhancing performance? (b) Does its abuse represent an actual or potential risk to an athlete’s health? And/or (c) does its use violate the spirit of sport? To be even considered for addition to the Prohibited List, the drug or method under consideration must fulfill at least two of the three aforementioned criteria.

The use of marijuana… is considered to represent a risk to the athlete’s health and its use violates the spirit of sport.”

that is to say, “drugs are bad, m’kay?”