ROXANA ASTEMBORSKI/Art & Design Editor
SHANNON KELLY
Contributor
Baseball is the great American pastime and now it’s the great Congressional pursuit – that’s just great. Last week a room full of indifferent, unproductive politicians squandered tax dollars and time in a wasteful hearing over steroid use in Major League Baseball (MLB). In the meantime, war wages on, social security is in shambles and government spending is out of control (to name just a few problems).
The media cover this trial as a necessary interrogation and investigation into steroid use and are reporting proceedings as if Americans should care and as if the government has any business doing this in the first place. But this hearing is nothing but a congressional circus act, an opportunity to ignore real problems and a chance to start a witchhunt so as to appear powerful and important to the public.
Washington is reaching into taxpayers’ pockets to put an award-winning pitcher on trial for making the personal choice to use performance-enhancing hormones. Roger Clemens has also made the personal choice to be a dedicated athlete, a hard worker, someone motivated to perfect and improve his skill, a productive executor who plays his game and who brings in millions of dollars from fans who pay to watch. On the contrary, Congress has few fans (20 percent approval rating), has no concept of personal choice (it would rather Americans weren’t allowed this right), and is horribly unproductive. And this hearing is a perfect example of the hypocrisy and waste in Congress.
It’s sordid on too many levels.
Misusing governmental resources at the taxpayers’ expense is grossly irresponsible. Bluntly meddling in a matter unrelated to the purpose of government is disgusting. Jumping at MLB steroid use because it’s a much more comfortable issue to confront than illegal immigration is just depressing.
To those who think the government is doing its job by cleaning up Major League Baseball so that children aren’t negatively influenced by the drug use, here’s a thought: MLB should clean itself up (if it wants to) and parents are responsible for setting the example for their young people and teaching them right and wrong, not the government.
MLB is a private enterprise with the money and the resources to do as it deems necessary for its reputation, progress and success. It’s up to team owners and coaches to employ stricter drug testing and harsher consequences for player infractions. Furthermore, the fans are another private party in this matter who have a right to use their own money to pay for what they want to see. If they want to see players pumped on Human Growth Hormone (HGH) slam homers out of the park, fine. If they don’t want to subject their children to grand slams, they can take the youngsters to a college softball game, where they can be 84 percent sure players aren’t using enhancers (or hitting grand slams).
Families are a private entity in which parents are responsible for the lessons their children learn and the shows (or sports) they can watch on TV. They can encourage Johnny not to consider performance enhancers in his aspirations to become the next MLB star. In the meantime they can tell Susie not to use even more dangerous drugs in her pop star pursuits (my guess is the next Congressional hearing will involve Brittany Spears).
In either case, the government has no appropriate role. While MLB fixes its problems and parents play role model to their children, the government can get back to what it should be doing and start protecting our rights and ensuring our safety.
But doing its intended job is harder for this government than pointless Congressional proceedings.
The MLB hearings should be a wake-up call to the public.
Wake up, our government is fiddling while Rome burns.
02-21-2008