Tuesday, February 26, 2008

Lobbyist: "Freedom has no constituency"

The hysteria over performing enhancing drugs continues. A bunch of baseball players used these substances to make them better baseball players. For this reason, we should panic and curtail our freedom.

Seriously people: if professional baseball wants to outlaw these substances and punish players who violate their rules, fine. I don't know that that's the best way of addressing this "problem", but that's their business.

On the other hand, what we as citizens in a free country choose to ingest into our own bodies is our business. I'm a mature, (reasonably) responsible adult. Through the efforts of my parents and Wise County schools, I have learned to read. Thanks to the efforts of Verizon and my payment to them of a large monthly fee, I have access to the internet, which is the largest repository of information ever invented in the history of the world. The point being, when you take all these things together you will find that I am capable of researching any drug, sifting through all publicly available information, and forming my own conclusions as to whether purchasing and ingesting that particular drug is a good idea for me personally.

I do not need the United States Congress, the FDA, the DEA, or any other group of bureaucrats to help me make this decision. Certainly I do not need them to threaten to put me in prison if I choose to ignore their advice.

But I suppose most people don't feel this way. I suppose most people are ok with trusting large bureaucracies -- biased by money pouring in from hosts of lobbyists with mysterious agendas of questionable societal value -- deciding what they should and should not put into their bodies. And I guess most people are ok that, in this instance, the "should not" is delivered -- quite literally -- from behind the barrel of a loaded gun.

Which is why, I suppose, a lobbyist, speaking in favor of the U.S. Senate's impending classification of Human Growth Hormone as a Schedule III substance, making its possession without a subscription punishable by a long prison sentence, is probably correct when she states "I don’t think there’s a constituency" for opposing the further criminalization of HGH. (although, if you click through, you will notice that her quote, in typically dishonest lobbyist-speak, conflates opposition of the bill (i.e., supporting the freedom of people to take the drug if they choose) with "promoting the use of HGH". Can these people ever be honest?)

2 comments:

Anonymous said...


Ain't nobody's business if you do...


See, the problem with democrats is they don't have a book you can point towards to highlight the inconsistency of their arguments.

At least with a right wing conservative, I can pull out the line from the bible,

“Are you still so dull?” Jesus asked them. “Don’t you see that whatever enters the mouth goes into the stomach and then out of the body? But the things that come out of the mouth come from the heart, and these make a man ‘unclean.’ For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander. These are what make a man ‘unclean’; but eating with unwashed hands does not make him ‘unclean.’”
—Matthew 15:10-20, NIV

So, from a bible point of view, who cares what you shot in your ass, just don't lie about it to Congress and your soul will be intact.

But, with libs, they don't have a book to which I can point.

Years ago, I would have pointed to the Constitution, but no one really believes that protects the rights of anyone who is not a disabled, african-american, pregnant woman from El Salvador with fake visa documents, a SS# that allows them to collect welfare and entitlement programs. All that is needed is a little amnesty and "the Vote" and democrats will be in power longer than the PRI in mexico (70+ consecutive years).

HHL said...

excellent comment. I read Peter McWilliams' book some time ago. For some reason I've never done a blog post about it, but I'll remedy that soon.