Cheating is bad, true, or false?
It is an interesting question. We are taught from a very early age that cheating is bad, that it’s not the way to do things, or to get what we want. All the way through high school, and then into college, we are discouraged from cheating by pretty much everyone in our lives. Use fair means to get ahead, to achieve, to get the grades, get the girl, whatever.
As we get older, and we reach a certain awareness, however, it starts to become obvious that cheating occurs in many places, in many fields of endeavor, and by many, many successful people. And of course, we begin to wonder a little about the whole “cheating is bad” line we’ve been listening to for so long. Put another way, is it cheating for a battle commander to intercept his opponent’s communications in order to defeat him? Is it cheating for a man to lie to get a better job, in order to provide for his family; if he is able to do the job well? Is it cheating for a politician to rig an election if he truly believes that he is the man best suited to the position? Is it cheating for a man to lie to in his efforts to woo a particular woman?
These are just a couple of different dilemma’s that a person may face in their lives, but they are illustrative of the kind of questions facing professional athletes today. Is it cheating for a journeyman reliever to use PED’s to make the majors if it means he will be able to better care for his family? If you say yes, then you are saying that some notion of fair play is more important than being a good father and provider. Is that logical? Is it a position worth defending?
As a player ages, he will find that his ability to stay strong and flexible will diminish. Is it cheating for him to delay the inevitable end of his career by using PED’s? He might say that he is just doing whatever he can to get the most out of his ability. Is that cheating? Is it wrong? Seems to me that you could argue that it is admirable.
If PED’s were legal and safe, what would you say then?
And therein lies the rub. If you knew that PED’s were legal and safe, and teams administered them to individual players as needed, like they do now with painkillers muscle relaxants and surgeries and rehab and other treatments; would using them be cheating? Curt Schilling used massive amounts of painkillers to perform in Game Six of the ALCS against the Yankees in 2004. Without them, he would not have been able to perform. Was he cheating? He risked serious injury, and, in fact, suffered through more than a year of poor performances and setbacks following the ’04 playoffs; so, in effect, he cheated the team and it’s fans while he struggled to regain his pre-injury form. He risked his career to pitch that game. Why wasn’t there a huge outcry about setting a poor example for children? Is that the kind of example we want to set for our kids; that using painkillers to win a game is OK? Why is using painkillers to perform acceptable? They are just as illegal to possess and use as steroids. They are also only legally available with a prescription. Why is it OK to use them, but not steroids? Why is it OK for baseball players to use amphetamines? Why has the widespread use of speed been ignored for half a century? We all know how bad speed is, right? Or do we? Mike Lupica doesn’t, I can tell you that much.
There is selective logic being used here, and it’s disgraceful. Here’s what I know, and what doctors know.
You cannot argue, in good faith, that PED’s are seriously harmful to your health. You cannot. They are no more harmful than almost anything you can buy at your local drugstore. Just for shits and giggles, Viagra, Cialis, and Lipitrol, to name but a few, all list side effects that are as scary, and in some cases, much more terrifying than side effects you might experience if you ingest, say, Decabol. There are drugs that are being sold over the counter, right now, that state in bold-face letters that pregnant women should not even handle the contents of this package.
Steroids are prescribed for a variety of uses, and just like any serious medicine, they are administered under a doctors care and supervision. Sure, some people suffer adverse side effects when using them. Some people die if they eat peanuts. That doesn’t make peanut butter a menace to society.
By repeating over and over the claim that steroids are particularly dangerous, and even fatal to use, the MSM has made a lie true, an argument tactic that is easily defeated (provide, of course, that there is a forum to do so).
There is little real evidence to suggest that a carefully administered and monitored regimen of testosterone-boosting PED’s would be particularly risky for a healthy, adult male. There is plenty of anecdotal evidence to suggest that driving PED use underground is.
You wanna worry about the kids? Keep them informed. You don’t do them any favors by lying, or by hiding the truth.
That is the real price we pay for criminalizing behavior. We lessen our knowledge, we leave everyone with incorrect and insufficient evidence to make intelligent choices, and so people choose in the dark.
I see MLB being responsible for this steroids debacle. They did not establish a system as to testing players regularly for this drug. I dont blame MLB players for taking the stuff cause the fan’s wanted to see HR’s and Mr.Selig needed something to get more people interested in baseball (sosa, mcgwire,bonds), esspecially after the players union strike. The players, i’am sure, know the severe side effects of the drug and took it anyway. At the same time, money comes into play also, that has tainted the sport as well inducing more players to take the drug to get that big contract.
I think what is worst than steroids are all these new ballparks being built for HR’s. If you look at the old school baseball history, in the early 1900′s, games were played on the polo grounds with the fences 550ft from home plate!! The most HR’s hit in any one year for a person was 8 !!! Triples were at an all time high !! Christy Mathewson started 4 games as a pitcher in the WS back then, without steroids…. LOL
I wish MLB can go back to the rules of the early 1900′s again, but without the player segregation…..
Peace
http://baseballanalysts.com/archives/2007/08/roid_monster_or.php
A take on Steroids and Bonds that I thought was sensible.
I think a great number of people are able to compare numbers over different eras…. as a matter of fact, I think this is a main focus of any number of evaluation systems. One might note that scoring has not increased. One might also note:
1)improved training regimens, accentuated by rises in salaries
2)use of thin-handled bats, often made of maple as opposed to ash
3)every ballpark (Petco excluded) built in the last 20 years being a hitter’s park
4)no tolerance policy towards knockdown or brushback pitches, allowing batters to stand on top of the plate and otherwise be more “comfortable”
5)chicks dig the homer-certainly one must be aware that fandom is a pyramid, and with record-setting attendance levels, the additional fans are not hard-core baseball nuts. More homers, happier crowds, bigger contracts.
I am still unsure, outside of a plethora of 500/career home runs hitters (which can be largely explained above) where the “enormous impact on statistics” is. I’m not 100% certain, but I believe only one of the top ten scoring teams of all time come from the last 30 years (the Indians)? Surely comparing a historical “norm” to 1968, 1930, or 1910 provides far more variation than say, 2000. Perhaps in all these instances offense/defense was out of balance, and pitchers/hitters adjusted? I think it is a given that this happens in baseball. One certainly cannot compare any year with another year ten years apart. The 80s era of the 100 steals a season player is gone because of…..? Surely one must note how the use and style of pitching has changed from 1968 to 1975 to 1990 to the present. Are pitching stats “enormously impacted” from 1990 until now? Defense? If no, then the other side of the equation must not be either.
I would assume that if a “great many teams were using steroids, effectively cancelling out any one’s team’s advantage” then steroids cannot at the same time “(have) an enormous impact on the statistical output of the last 15 years”. And 2/3 of those cited (actually caught) for steroid use have been pitchers. It has been proven at great length via Baseball Prospectus that the maximum steroid use could change an individual player’s statistics is about .010 across the board. The majors batted .300 in 1930, .230 in 1968, .270-.280 generally – the argument then would be that in these eras only pitchers or hitters (and ALL of same) were “cheating” in some manner, and it was as much as seven times as impactful as steroids. And that’s assuming ALL players were cheating. Is that logical? Or perhaps there are simpler explanations that are less cloak and dagger and more plainly obvious as opposed to rumored?
again, if the effects of steroids make players “inhuman”, where are all the ridiculous feats that are out of context with baseball history? People point to one thing – Bonds, McGwire, home runs – which has been explained to death by countless sabremetricans and anti-same. It’s like saying there were few stolen bases in the 30s and 40s because the players were all on downers. If there were these rampant dens of thieves (i.e. what Canseco says about the A’s and Rangers, and others have said about the Giants) surely those teams would have run roughshod over their opponents. So – either virtually everyone was doing steroids, thus the advantage cancelled itself out, or there is no blatantly significant effect. Either way, I can’t see how the game was “different”.
So no one on this board objects to PEDs in the least?
Marc, it -is- generally believed that a great many players throughout the league were doing steroids, effectively canceling out any particular team’s unfair advantage. My issue is not with the equality of the playing field, but with the growing indifference I feel towards athletes with bodies that are blatantly pumped-up due to chemical injections.
I think one thing that both steroids bashers and boosters can agree upon, is that statistics have lost a great degree of significance as a useful measure to compare players from different eras. Stats are great fun for sports fans, and have traditionally carried almost mystical significance as symbols of legendary achievements. However, the positive correlation between PEDs and homerun totals (among other power-stats) diminishes the relevance of numbers as a trans-generational measuring stick . Granted, there are many other factors besides steroids, such as ballpark variations, mound height, segregation, etc., that have significantly influenced statistical trends, but steroids have undeniably had an enormous influence on the statistical output of the last 15-odd years. So when the players themselves refuse to acknowledge such a significant factor in their accomplishment of statistical milestones, why should sports fans unconditionally acknowledge their accomplishments in an all-time context.
I have no doubt that Barry Bonds is the finest hitter of this generation, and that Roger Clemens is at least a top 3 pitcher, but many of their astounding statistical achievements are inseparable from the unique conditions of the steroids era. So, within this era, they have no peer, but in an all-time context, the gaudiness of their numbers does not seem as impressive as they would otherwise be if this era weren’t so heavily influenced by steroids. Statistics have lost much of their mystical power to measure value across eras with distinct conditional variations.
Nick,
You are certainly wrong. Statistics have lost no significance or meaning. They never had significance or meaning. They are what they are, numbers. Using statistics to bolster an argument about a players greatness is fine, but stats alone will never be the end of any serious piece of analysis. Whether you think Bonds’ numbers are somehow distorted or not should be one of the many ways in which you analyze his accomplishments. It shouldn’t be a reason to discount his greatness, anymore than the 191 RBI season of Hack Wilson means that he was the greatest clutch hitter of all-time.
Comparing players and/or teams from different eras is doable, has been done, and has been done well. You, along with many uninformed sportswriters and fans, are mistaken in believing that PED’s have somehow changed the game. If you believe that, then how do you explain the rampant use of amphetamines that was going on in baseball for 5 decades? Where are the super results you speak about from the ’50′s or ’60′s?
I wrote, years ago, that the trend towards more home runs has been going on since before the 1994 players strike. Not just home runs, and not just the players you believe were the abusers, but everybody has been hitting more home runs for more than a decade. The reasons why are debatable, DEBATABLE. Baseball is a complex game, played in different eras, ballparks, with different equipment, under different weather conditions, altitudes above sea level…. There are a multitude of possible explanations, and the simplest is that there are several contributing factors to explain the recent trend towards offense.
To say that PED’s are THE reason is absurd. It isn’t even close to being provable, while we know, FACTUALLY, that, for instance, Coors Field has added a huge number of home runs and runs scored and allowed to the National League since it opened. It is a provable fact that when the Milwaukee Braves moved to Atlanta, their entire team hit many more home runs in the next decade than they had the previous decade. That is why Hank Aaron is the home run king that Bonds just passed, and not Babe Ruth.
That doesn’t mean anything, it just is.
Twenty years ago, Bill James wrote, (I’m paraphrasing a bit here), “You either have to conclude that all of the greatest hitters of all-time played in the 1930′s, or you have to make an adjustment.” Fifty years from now, somebody’s going to write the same thing about the decade that just passed. Statistics have no mythical power, players do, transcendent achievements do.
When McGwire passed Maris, we all remembered the man whose record had been broken. His legacy was renewed and passed on to a new generation who had only seen him as a name in a book. Just like what happened when Bonds passed Aaron. Everyone recalled what a difficult task it was for Aaron to break a white man’s record, at a time in our country’s history when black men and women were thought of as unequal. Bonds did nothing to damage Aaron, in reality, he restored him.
If you read my posts again, I never said I think PEDs are THE reason for the increase in homeruns (or other trends). But certainly they are A reason. And a significant one, with a tangible effect (whether you think it is profound or trivial) on the game, the players, the results, the achievements, the statistics, the cultural reception to the sport, and (I would say) the integrity of the competition.
Certainly we can at least agree that steroids increase muscle mass? The physical change in users is significant in and of itself. Now, I would say that this sets an unfortunate precedent in elite training methods, whereas you seem to feel the opposite–that steroids can be healthfully implemented in an adult athlete’s nutritional regimen. You say there is no valid evidence of steroids’ harmfulness, but it’s not like you have valid proof of their harmlessness either. I imagine the truth lies in between, and that steroids are not as harmful as many would have us believe, but neither are they without risk. For me, the jury is out, and I don’t think it’s appropriate to flat-out decriminalize steroids, thereby condoning their use in mainstream society (including among young aspiring pros), when their impact on body composition is so dramatic (and perhaps traumatic).
I fear this argument could drag on forever, so I would just like to say that I am trying to absorb the facts presented by the “other side” to come to a fuller understanding of this issue. I hope you would do the same, rather than simply proclaiming that I am “certainly wrong,” as making such an assumption seems to imply that you are certainly right, and this is a multi-faceted issue.
Regarding McGwire, Bonds, et al, in comparison to their legendary predecessors, I never meant to imply that breaking old records diminished the former achievements, only that I am less amazed by some modern records knowing that they were achieved with the benefit of increased muscle mass resulting from steroids.
Nick,
When I said you were certainly wrong, I was speaking specifically about your assertion that steroid use during the last decade or so has rendered comparing players from different eras impossible. I don’t care about being right, I care about the facts being presented properly, and the discussion being based on what is known, not propaganda. It is propaganda that has colored this argument in the public sphere, and here at OBM, it isn’t tolerated.
Historically speaking, there are always reasons why outlier seasons happen. Bob Gibson’s historic 1963 season occurred during the height of the pitchers era. It doesn’t mean he wasn’t great, but it does mean that it wasn’t the greatest pitching season of all time, because it’s unbelievable impact was due, in some part, to the conditions that he pitched in.
Likewise, Pedro Martinez’s 1999 season, in which he posted an ERA that was half what the league average was, is way more impressive. It isn’t very difficult to understand these details, a degree in statistical analysis isn’t needed to understand that one guy threw up a 1.12 ERA when the league average was 3.1, and one guy threw up a 1.92 when the league average was over 4. When Bonds hit 73 hone runs, the league was in an explosion of offense, and home runs. He still did it, and nobody else did. But it also is important to remember that one of the reason Ruth’s 60 home runs was more than 8 teams was because the style of the game was different; players were discouraged from trying to hit home runs, the offensive strategy of the game was centered around batting average and speed and stolen bases. He still did it.
At the end of the day, I’d rather root for Bonds, who got every single ounce of performance out of himself, than, say, Ken Griffey Jr., or Mickey Mantle, neither one of whom paid the price to be the absolute best they could be. And let’s not forget that PED’s are already being used by pro athletes throughout all sports. Deciding that steroids are the one that shouldn’t be allowed because they may have deleterious side effects makes no sense at all. There are dozens of things that an athlete endures that we know have negative effects on their long-term health. To say that steroids are THE ONE that shouldn’t be allowed is foolish at best, and sanctimonious on its face.
PEDs were indeed explicitly prohibited prior to 2003. However, the feckless administration failed to enforce their own dictum, probably in fear of another selfish strike by the players union.
(http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2006/writers/tom_verducci/04/05/week1.mailbag/1.html)
Fay Vincent said, “The possession, sale or use of any illegal drug or controlled substance by Major League players and personnel is strictly prohibited … [and those players involved] are subject to discipline by the Commissioner and risk permanent expulsion from the game…. This prohibition applies to all illegal drugs and controlled substances, including steroids….”
No they were not. Neither Fay Vincent’s 1991 MLB Drug Policy nor Bud Selig’s 1997 restatment of MLB’s Drug Policy defined steroids are performance enhancing drugs with penalties for cheating. Both of these documents defined steroids as drugs of abuse (like say pot) with medical treatment required (conselling) for being caught using for the first time. Punishment only took effect if caught using more then once and the stated purpose of this punishment was to reinforce the treatment for the medical condition of drug abuse not to prevent or punish cheating.
The blogger wrote: “You cannot argue, in good faith, that PED’s are seriously harmful to your health. You cannot. They are no more harmful than almost anything you can buy at your local drugstore.”
However, here is some evidence to dispute that (source: http://www.ohsinc.com/steroids.htm):
“The major side effects of anabolic steroid abuse include liver tumors and cancer, jaundice (yellowish pig-mentation of skin, tissues, and body fluids), fluid retention, high blood pressure, increases in LDL (bad cholesterol), and decreases in HDL (good cholesterol); others side effects include kidney tumors, severe acne, and trembling. In addition, there are some gender-specific side effects:
For men – shrinking of the testicles, reduced sperm count, infertility, baldness, development of breasts, increased risk for prostate cancer.
For women – growth of facial hair, male-pattern baldness, changes in or cessation of the menstrual cycle, enlargement of the clitoris, deepened voice.
For adolescents – growth halted prematurely through premature skeletal maturation and accelerated puberty changes. This means that adolescents risk remaining short the remainder of their lives if they take anabolic steroids before the typical adolescent growth spurt.
Scientific research also shows that aggression and other psychiatric side effects may result from abuse of anabolic steroids. Many users report feeling good about themselves while on anabolic steroids, but researchers report that extreme mood swings also can occur, including manic-like symptoms leading to violence. Depression often is seen when the drugs are stopped and may contribute to dependence on anabolic steroids. Researchers report also that users may suffer from paranoid jealousy, extreme irritability, delusions, and impaired judgment stemming from feelings of invincibility.
Nick,
If you look through my steroids and baseball section, you can find a bunch of writings, as well as the US governments own website. On none of those sites can you find a definitive study or research article that concludes that any of the major side effects most often listed can be proven to be associated with steroid use.
Many, if not all of the side effects listed on the site you l inked to are merely anecdotally cited, which would never be considered definitive in any scientific study. In fact, there have been but a handful of actual blind studies done on the effects of steroids, and none of them have ever concluded that any of the side effects most often cited actually happen.
That list of side effects you cite is part of the propaganda that is behind the governments efforts to qualify steroids as a Schedule I banned drug, which allows them to control their distribution and use.
Ask the next question, Nick: How do you know that these side effects occur? What study is cited, where are the footnotes, the bibliography, that shows the foundation of such claims? In fact, the site you listed uses NIDA as a reference. Follow that trail, and find what I found; a circle of claims, all leading back to each other.
My statement is the one that is defensible; not theirs.
John,
I am worried that the pros and cons of steroids use are being split into illusory extremes. One one hand, I agree that many reports of the potential risks seem poorly informed, if not downright fictitious, but I also think that proponents of steroids’ benefits, or those who claim their relative harmlessness, are likewise too quick to dismiss the other side of the equation, which is that steroids have such a profound effect on the natural functioning of the body that some questionable side effects are inextricably linked to their use. Whether these side effects are apparently negligible, or controllable under expert supervision, does not necessarily make them “safe” for general use. Steroids may have some wonderful applications, but that doesn’t qualify them as an over-the-counter type drug, to be self-administered for non-medical reasons.
Regardless of the sociological implications of steroids use, on a pure medical level, the question of their harmfulness -or- harmlessness is still open-ended. It’s clear the drug is extremely potent, and could be put to good use with professional monitoring, but it’s also clear that the drug’s supernatural effect on the body requires us to proceed with caution. Just because the prosecution of steroids is overzealous doesn’t make it unfounded. The conclusion that steroids is harmful may be premature, but that doesn’t make them conclusively harmless in the absence of damning evidence. In any case, I don’t see how they could ever be considered an “everyman’s drug”. To the extent that we value professional athletes as “everymen”, and not “supermen”, I can’t see any justification for the use of steroids in baseball or any other sport. In my opinion, the more “superhuman” the professional athlete becomes, the less compelling the sport becomes.
Actually, “superhuman” performance is the very reason we watch professional sports. If we wanted to see “averagehuman” performance we could just go watch a neighborhood pickup game for free.
Perhaps instead of “superhuman” I should have said “inhuman”, as in disconnected from the reality of what the human body can achieve without using hard drugs that require needles, elaborate cocktail regimens, expensive medical consultation, and uncertain health ramifications. To me, what makes sports compelling to watch is the spirit of competition between athletes rising to extraordinary heights out of “superhuman” effort, and transcending the physical limitations of the body through sheer dedication to their conditioning and craft. The reason I watch professional sports, or amateur sports for that matter, is to connect emotionally with a particular side in a competition, and become engaged with the undulations of the contest until the catharsis of victory or defeat is reached. To me, sports is great drama, in which the outcome is a measure both of human desire and frailty–which side is hungrier for victory and which side can persevere in spite of their flaws. When PEDs enter the equation, the integrity of this great drama feels diminished, undercut, side-stepped, as I find it much harder to identify with athletes driven as much by chemicals as by their own willpower. Of course, my attitude about this issue is very much instinctual and subjective, and I don’t mean to disqualify the potential merits of PEDs on a grand scale…just on my own personal scale.
“Our government’s not trying to get bin Laden, they’re trying to get Barry Bonds. If you tell me I’m gonna make more money if I take a pill, I’d be freebasing.” — Chris Rock
http://www.nypost.com/seven/01032008/gossip/pagesix/rock_makes_the_garden_howl_816149.htm
I always seem to get to these after everyone else posts
Baseball players are entertainers…they play better, they are better entertainers. Absolutely any substance that improves performance is available easily enough to everyone, certainly if you’re making millions of dollars per year. In order to cheat, you need to be cheating someone. There has to be a victim. Is baseball so important that we as fans are victims? And even if we are, evidence has shown that there is real pattern, by position played, of usage. Also, in addition, I tremendously doubt that a Barry Bonds was popping steroids like candy – the media tries to portray steroid use as “drugs” as opposed to “medication”.
I really have to wonder if McGwire, Sosa and Bonds had stopped at 55 homers if the public’s reaction would be different. I suppose not, since I mostly believe that this is a ploy by the owners to get a one up on the player’s union. Still, though, if steroid use was such a scourge, where are all the 30 game winners, the .400 hitters, the 200 stolen bases, the 100 home run seasons? 73 home runs is not a ridiculous number – nor is Roger Clemens’ career. It has been shown to death that baseball has more athletic and talented players on average than 80 years ago – what’s unusual is it took this long for the home run record to be broken (I know, Maris), and for there to be a player where there can actually be a discussion of whether or not they are (were) as good as Babe Ruth. Not taking anything away from the Babe, but it seems his training regimen consisted of beer and prostitutes. If one soberly considers it, it’s more statistically abberant that it took this long for a “Barry Bonds” to exist than that he does exist.
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John,
To answer your question “Cheating is bad, true or false? Yes, Cheating is bad! But the worst form of cheating is to change the rules on what is cheating and then apply these rule changes to old behavior. Just think how many of us could be made into tax cheats by the IRS if the IRS were able to change the tax rules and then apply these changes to old tax returns. This is exactly what MSM and unfortunately MLB too is trying to do to baseball players that used steroids in 2003 or earlier. It is MSM and MLB that are the real cheaters.
It is MSM and MLB that are the real cheaters.
——————-
And that is precisely the point. Well and succinctly put Rainman
CJ and raiman,
You are correct, of course, but be ready to be told that steroids were illegal without a prescription.
Just remind those same critics that the Babe was drinking beer during the Prohibition years too.
So,
(1) if the player got someone to write a prescription, which hasn’t been very difficult to do
or
(2) spent the off-season in one of the numerous nice climate countries where there is no comparable law so he could get really jacked,
even that argument couldn’t be made.
“Illegality” is a silly argument.
To ban the substances they had to do what was done, that is, make an official, enforceable rule against their use.
I am well aware of the “against the law” arguement. But I see no validity in it. MLB until after the 2002 season treated illegal steroids no different then illegal recreational drugs like pot. MLB’s policy on steroids did not define their use as cheating but rather difined their use and danagerous to the health of the player and to his ability to perform his job as a baseball player. The CBA after the 2002 season redifined steroid use as cheating but this new defination was not made effective until after the 2003 season. Until then any use of steroids was no more cheating then smoking pot is now or as you said Babe’s use of beer during prohibition.
I’m still trying to understand how PED use prior to 2002 could possibly be considered cheating.
Someone please explain the leaps of logic it takes to get there.
2002? In 2003 there were no penalties and the only testing going on was to determine if testing with penalties should start in 2004. 2003 was an amnesty year so how the hell could users in 2003 be considered cheaters either? Any honest assessment of when use of steroids became cheating in Major League Baseball has no choice but to conclude that it was not defined as cheating until after then 2002 season and this defination did not go into effect until after the 2003 season.
I agree with you rainman and can’t make sense of another point of view.
The MSM peasants carrying pitchforks and torches have defined the pre-2003 use as cheating. I take it as a political propaganda argument that has used the repetition tactic to gain acceptance and depends on ignorance for success. .
Well, I think if you subscribe to John’s position, as many of us do, than the question of when peds were banned, and/or criminalized is moot. There are something like 60 plus named amphetamines on WADA’s banned list. MLB lists about half of those. So whats legal and within the rules MLB makes you a cheater in Olympic Curling.
Please. Spare me the righteousness.
Insofar as when or where peds where outlawed, I don’t give a shit. There are millions of laws, codes, ordinances, rules, regulations at every step of the way. Nobody, and I mean nobody even knows how many, yet to listen to the self-serving pricks in MSM, anybody and everybody who is accused of breaking any of these laws, regulations, rules, ordinances, etc and then perhaps fudges on the recollection of such infraction, violation, commission of and so forth is A BIG FUCKING CHEATER WHO IS RUINING THE CHILDREN OF THE FUCKING UNITED FUCKING STATES OF FUCKING AMERICA!
If we are going to enforce every stupid fucking politically decided ped rule with Federal Agents and the fucking Justice Department than lets try a few local City and County Grand Jury investigations on anybody who violates any of these California state laws.
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Animals are banned from mating publicly within 1,500 feet of a tavern, school, or place of worship.
It is a misdemeanor to shoot at any kind of game from a moving vehicle, unless the target is a whale.
Women may not drive in a house coat.
No vehicle without a driver may exceed 60 miles per hour.
I’m not making this shit up. This is shit that is on the books as California State Law.
So be warned those of you in the Golden State that allow their German Shepards to copulate next to the neighborhood bar, or shoot a coyote from a moving tractor, or you’re an old lady driving in a bathrobe…you could be next on George Mitchell’s list.
[...] They are just as illegal to possess and use as steroids. They are also only legally available with a prescription. Why is it OK to use them, but not steroids? Why is it OK for baseball players to use amphetamines? … Read the rest of the entry here [...]
Good stuff John. Those of us willing to question ourselves and question what we’ve been told about x,y, and z don’t seem to be in the majority in the world of ours, but I wouldn’t have my brain work any other way. Happy New Year to you and everyone here.
Please be safe with alcohol and driving.
All the best to everyone in 2008.