Sunday, February 17, 2008

Roger Clemons - Guilty or not...who cares?

I happened to catch the testimony of Roger Clemons and Brian McNamee before Congress the other day while waiting (as is my lot these days) in a doctor's waiting room.

While watching them, and then the blustering whathisname Dem from Maryland continue to ask Clemons whether he thought his friend lied. I was struck with the absurdity of it all.

I know there are answers to my questions, but I would like to be enlightened.

First, why is this a federal issue? Let's just say Clemons did take HGH to enhance his performance. Let's just say that was a crime. Would it be considered a federal crime? If so, why? This seems to equate to the silliness that prohibits me from using my mailbox, purchased with my money, for other things.

States have constitutionally granted police powers. If Clemons had been accused of murdering his trainer for saving syringes and cotton balls, the federal government wouldn't be touching it. He would be tried in the state that the murder occurred, unless for some reason he was accused of violating the civil rights of the person he murdered...the infamous "hate crime" legislation.

The justification for this probably has something to do with the national character of the game he allegedly besmirched. It's so easy to justify when we want grandaddy federal government to cure everything.

Second, don't our august legislators have anything better to do? Listening to our elected officials sounding off on one or the other was just a display of their own egos. Really, why are these people doing this? Linda Chavez, in her article today put this in perspective:

We are a nation at war. We have a Social Security and Medicare crisis looming. We have a tax system that rewards borrowing instead of saving or investing. Our education system is failing, despite exponential growth in federal funding over the last several decades. We have an immigration system that stifles economic growth and encourages lawlessness. These are the issues Americans want addressed, not more investigations into whether athletes are using performance enhancing drugs.
I tend to agree...

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

In my opinion Congress has no business, perhaps not even the right to be prying into the business known as professional baseball. If it is baseball's rules that its "employees" cannot use drugs, then it is only baseball that can enforce the violation of same.

So why is Congress holding these hearings? Keep in mind that Congress is now controled by the Democrats, and as such all committees are chaired by same. Since the Democrat party leaders are left wing zealots, we see a more openly Socialist Democrat party, making it understandable that their chairs (tables & chairs--I am so politically correct)are social engineers whose job it is to mold America to the utopian socialism of "equality" that they are working for.To see this socialist heaven come into being, they must make society dependant on them to make all wrongs right. Baseball is only one of the institutions that they intend to remake into their own image! wb