Sports and Congress Hall of Shame

At our attention in recent days has been the story of a great pitcher Roger Clemens. Clemens was indicted by a federal grand jury on charges that he lied about his use of performance-enhancing drugs when he testified before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform in February 2008.

We are also reminded of many others in baseball and other sports who have enhanced their bodies to greater feats by cheating, or should we say enhancing, sports. The mind set is that it is okay to cheat, to take the shortcut to a better life. The Mitchell report named over one hundred players in baseball for ties with performance-enhancing drugs. This report signifies the growing demand that it is proper to cheat your way through life and get paid top dollar for doing so.

But there is a bigger picture to be looking at here. Experience tells us that these ways are learned, and usually it is learned by rolling down hill, or from the top down. Which bring us to our Government or to Congress specifically and it’s Congressional authority.

Each member of Congress was voted in by a majority of the people. Each one ran on a platform promising the American public to reciprocate the vote given to them for the promises their platform was built on. How many of them perjured themselves to their constituents? How many of them said they would promise to do something while in office, and have they worked toward or completed that expectation. If any Congressman has not, maybe the federal grand jury in Washington should indict Congress for perjury to the American people.

Congress has used (sort of) performance-enhancing drugs. These drugs come in the form of selfishness, power, and greed. For if Congress does not follow through with the platform they were elected with, and then they are using that same power that was given them for other means and purposes. It is a misuse of the authority and performance. Have heard the many excuses of why Congress cannot complete the course of action that they were voted in for, but we get a different performance once they are voted into office. Congress enhances their performance to suit themselves and not their constituents.

Most of us forget that we are not a democracy, we are a republic. We vote people into office to run our government. Can we do a better job of voting and giving responsibility and power to others, yes? Maybe we need to put in safeguards to assure the American voters that the ones we vote in do the job they were voted in for.

We learn from our leaders, top down. If we are wondering why sports in recent years are cheating their way through life, maybe it is because sports has seen our leaders for decades doing the same. If things are to change it takes all of us to change, but it starts from the top down. Everything else will roll downhill from there.

Only Some People are Created Equal

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

If your not born in this country and you also presently live in Arizona the above statement from the Declaration of Independence is not true. Xenophobia, the 14th Amendment, being Mexican, being whatever is different from you means that all men are not created equal? Our Government is now backtracking and say that we are not sure what the drafters of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence had in mind. I guess we all have been out to lunch the past two hundred and thirty four years.

The problem with men learning from history is that they have not learned from history and that is why history repeats itself. All the historical facts, writings, musings do not mean a thing about how this country was founded. From the mind set in Congress this is apparently so. Our country ideals are based on jurisprudence, so lets just change the rule of law to suit whatever whim and fancy that comes our way. Let’s see, the Declaration of Independence also says

“ Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. “

Light and transient causes, may we all stop and ponder this. Maybe a visit to Ellis Island will awaken our senses from where we come from. My great grandparents were immigrants, glad that they did not cross over from Mexico to Arizona. My parents who were born here were not shipped back to Ireland and the history that we have all come from this ideal is where we have not learned from that historical fact.

When the people have spoken and it is declined by one judge that sure is a problem for jurisprudence. In Lincoln’s Gettysburg address where he ends by saying “But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate, we can not consecrate, we can not hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

Apparently our government does not want to honor freedom for all, especially in our own country, and dishonor all who died for those freedoms in the past. Only some are created equal is the rally cry in our economic downturn, it is only a light and transient time. We will throw our history and equality aside for a temporary fix that will disfigure us in the years ahead. Let us learn from history.