The Mitchell Report has been issued, outlining the extent of steroid use in professional baseball. There is a predictable swell of outrage that is fundamentally anti-freedom and anti-individual.
While no players on the current Braves roster have been implicated, eleven past members have been, including John Rocker, Gary Sheffield, David Justice, Kent Mercker, Mike Stanton, Matt Franco, and Ken Caminiti.
As one would expect from a political culture that denies individual responsibility, the report blames everyone but the fans: the owners, previous Baseball commissioners, and the players union. Oh, and the players, too.
The Libertarian Party of Georgia thinks the entire controversy is just bread and circuses.
The Libertarian Party of Georgia platform states: “…we advocate repeal of all laws restricting or prohibiting the use or sale of alcohol, sexually explicit material, sexual acts between consenting adults, [and] drugs within and without the standard pharmacopoeia.” Our reasoning is simple (again quoting our platform): “We strive for the repeal of all state and local laws creating “crimes” without victims.” In the current baseball steroids hysteria, not one person has been harmed by another. Since all activity has been consensual, it is our belief that no crime has been committed.
The Libertarian Party of Georgia believes in personal responsibility, and the players who choose to use steroids or human growth hormone will have to live with the results. Long-term effects of prolonged use of these substances are thought to include joint pain, nerve compression, fluid retention, hypertension, cardiovascular disease, impotence, and jaundice. If any punishment is owed to the players who have used these drugs, it will be dealt in due course by their own bodies. Each player has to decide for himself if improved performance is worth these risks; it should not be the job of the government, the players union, or Commissioner Selig to protect the players from themselves.
Whatever outrage some are feeling toward Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Jose Canseco, Andy Pettitte, and the other players named in the Mitchell Report, fans need to be honest with themselves: did you enjoy watching these players perform? Were you excited to see their world-class performances? Did you not experience the vicarious thrill we get from those modern gladiators with which we identify emotionally?
No fans were harmed by steroid use in baseball. Instead we jumped and cheered to watch our heroes play so well. The players were using Human Growth Hormone? So what? They played great, and that’s all we can hope for from grown men who are, after all, getting paid enormous sums to play a game.
