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Ban This! Ban That! Ban This and That!
Townhall.com ^ | February 6, 2013 | John Stossel

Posted on 02/06/2013 3:30:05 AM PST by Kaslin

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To: John Valentine

Stossel wondered why if vitamins and protein supplements were legal, then why not steroids.


21 posted on 02/06/2013 12:39:44 PM PST by driftless2
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To: RipSawyer
Personally I think 18 year old citizens can more safely be trusted with a beer than with a vote.

I think that only about 1/2 of the 38 yo's can be trusted to vote!

22 posted on 02/06/2013 1:31:07 PM PST by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: driftless2
Stossel wondered why if vitamins and protein supplements were legal, then why not steroids.

And? Your point being what, exactly? In fact, steroids are NOT illegal, generally, are they? You can be prescribed steroids quite legally. Stossel's problem is government deciding that they ought to be illegal for SOME, like athletes, and legal for others. This is not a proper area for the application of governmental force - that's Stossel's point. If the sporting bodies want to ban these substances, that's their prerogative. No problem for me, Stossel, or perhaps you.

I can tell you that to my certain knowledge there are some nutritive supplements with enhanced delivery coming down the pike - already being used in racehorses to astounding effect - which provide increased stamina and endurance. These supplements and the associated delivery technology are certain to find their way into human supplementation. The company behind the technology already does business with GNC, so GNC is certain to be aware of it. To repeat - these are all entirely natural and legal supplements, just delivered more efficiently.

Should they also be made illegal? Illegal for everyone? Illegal for some? Made illegal by government? And if so, to what legitimate end?

23 posted on 02/06/2013 2:34:11 PM PST by John Valentine (Deep in the Heart of Texas)
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To: Tax-chick
Legislatures today address all issues with one of three actions, ban it, tax it, or regulate it, in some cases so completely that the rules effectively do both of the first two at the same time.
24 posted on 02/06/2013 4:57:39 PM PST by SoCal Pubbie
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To: John Valentine
I don't think you understand what I'm trying to get at. I'm not talking about government's intrusion. My point is: what are the limits for what athletes can use to enhance performance? Maybe steroids should be illegal, maybe they should be legalized. But does anything go? If not, why not? Steroids obviously helped a lot of athletes do things they wouldn't have done without them. A number of athletes, like Ken Caminiti, admitted as much. Steroids were not available, or not in the current form, forty years ago and more. So you have athletes today setting records they might not have come close to without steroid use.

People look at the records of great players from the past and see their records, achieved with no peds, shattered by athletes who may not have come close to those records without steroids. And when baseball cracked down on steroid use, homerun production went way down. So how can I, and millions of other fans, seriously take the records set by players who might not have come close to setting records if they hadn't used artificial means i.e. anabolic steroids to do it?

25 posted on 02/06/2013 5:56:43 PM PST by driftless2
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To: driftless2

They’re just games. I find it ridiculous that “athletes” can’t use substances I hear advertised on the radio.


26 posted on 02/06/2013 6:08:20 PM PST by Fledermaus (I'm done with the GOP. Let them wither and die. Let's start over.)
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To: driftless2

I’m sorry, but this does not seem to be anything at all like the original position you espoused. Besides, all the introspective musing in the world won’t allow you to escape the final question: Who gets to decide?

And when it comes to whether you can take athletic achievement seriously with or without steroids or whatever else, is a matter for you, and not for anyone else. Others can make up their own minds. Bottom line is, frankly, I don’t care, and I hope millions more don’t care either. Because, all this “caring” is leading us toward a society where long-nosed busybodies make more and more decisions that ought to be ours alone. Maybe I might want to take steroids - or maybe not. But I don’t want that decision left to the LLiC - that’s the “Local Libtard in Charge”. They have already started tagging non-steroids as steroids just to get them banned. This is what Fascists do.

Finally: “Steroids were not available, or not in the current form, forty years ago and more. So you have athletes today setting records they might not have come close to without steroid use.”

So what? The same thing will be true in another 40 years - when whatever performance enhancing substances have been developed in the meantime are matters for this unhealthy public “caring”. And as I said before, they are on the way, faster than you might think.


27 posted on 02/06/2013 9:44:30 PM PST by John Valentine (Deep in the Heart of Texas)
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To: John Valentine
"so what"

Finally.... I ascertain that you don't care what athletes take and how it affects their performance. At least we've cleared that up. For the record, I do care. Especially if some substance or substances allows average athletes to surpass records set by superior athletes.

28 posted on 02/07/2013 3:28:48 AM PST by driftless2
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To: Fledermaus

I’ve never heard of anabolic steroids advertised on the radio, tv, or other media forms.


29 posted on 02/07/2013 3:30:08 AM PST by driftless2
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To: driftless2
Finally.... I ascertain that you don't care what athletes take and how it affects their performance. At least we've cleared that up. For the record, I do care.

For the record, I had already concluded that. The question is, do you think "something ought to be done"? And by who?

I have no problem whatsoever with sports bodies setting their own rules about anything, age, gender, drug use of all kinds, drinking, you name it. That's the nature of freedom. You don't want to play by the rules, don't play. It's simple.

But as for individuals, I can't see a problem. And as I have said, there is stuff coming down the pike that will test folks like you - LEGAL stuff that you really couldn't ban without exposing your innate bias against excellence.

Look, I wore glasses for years. I needed them as I worked with texts. Should I have been refused them because they were "unnatural" or gave me an unfair advantage, or that back in 1492 people had to do without?

I can't see a difference with athletics. Should baseball players be obliged to wear 1920's style footwear or football players wear protective gear as manufactured back in 1935, just so the stats can be leveled? Strikes me as a bit of nonsense, that's all, and besides, it can't and won't be stopped.

30 posted on 02/07/2013 6:33:59 AM PST by John Valentine (Deep in the Heart of Texas)
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To: John Valentine

Wearing glasses? Glasses correct a deficiency...a fault with the body. Steroids give healthy athletes edges beyond what they’d achieve normally.


31 posted on 02/07/2013 10:26:55 AM PST by driftless2
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To: driftless2

Sorry, but you are making distinctions with literally no practical difference.

Who are you to say that one of your “average” athletes is not merely steroid deficient?


32 posted on 02/07/2013 8:33:36 PM PST by John Valentine (Deep in the Heart of Texas)
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To: John Valentine

Fine. So you are on the record as supporting any drugs or measures athletes can use to increase performance. No limits...am I correct?


33 posted on 02/08/2013 3:42:06 AM PST by driftless2
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To: driftless2
No limits...am I correct?

No you are not correct, and again I implore you to actually read and understand what is put in front of you.

As previously explained, here it is again: The limits are whatever limits are agreed within a voluntary sports association such as a sponsor of competitive bicycling. Any participant under the auspices of the association would be obliged to follow the rules set up for all participants. Simple. Or, in the case of professional sports, all would follow the rules of their employment, again simple.

No need for heavy handed, coercive government head-bashing and clubbing of the uninvolved.

34 posted on 02/08/2013 6:22:33 AM PST by John Valentine (Deep in the Heart of Texas)
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To: John Valentine

Well, actually you are agreeing with me. As long as it’s a private agreement with no government involvement.


35 posted on 02/08/2013 9:34:14 AM PST by driftless2
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To: driftless2

It was your use of terms like “illegal” that lulled me into thinking you had the government in mind. LOL!!!


36 posted on 02/08/2013 6:40:23 PM PST by John Valentine (Deep in the Heart of Texas)
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To: John Valentine

I’m against government sticking its nose is places where it doesn’t belong as much as any other conservative. My concern is what are the limits to what athletes can put in their bodies to enhance performance.


37 posted on 02/09/2013 4:37:02 AM PST by driftless2
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To: driftless2

My basic position is that if they (the athletes) don’t stick their noses into your business, you could reciprocate.


38 posted on 02/09/2013 8:15:00 AM PST by John Valentine (Deep in the Heart of Texas)
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To: John Valentine

You forget that what is the fan’s business (that would be people like me) is the player’s business. No fans, no players. If I, a fan, say what a player is putting in his body is important, it’s important. Period.


39 posted on 02/09/2013 6:48:20 PM PST by driftless2
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To: driftless2
If I, a fan, say what a player is putting in his body is important, it’s important.

Important to you.

Please, just don't ask your Congressman to "do something about it".

40 posted on 02/10/2013 4:12:26 AM PST by John Valentine (Deep in the Heart of Texas)
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