(08-09-2013, 12:29 AM)kandrathe Wrote: Who is to say what is cheating? The preponderance of bike racing enthusiasts, who write the rule book. If the biking rules were rewritten to allow certain performance enhancing, then it is akin to changing the rules on the 1st amendment freedom to spend money placing political ads.
I am puzzled by this entire line of argument. Either you're trying to confuse the issue, or something is somehow not being made clear.
Election law is passed by congress and interpreted by the judiciary, same as anything else.
Cycling competitions have rules. They are set by the organizers of the individual events. If you violate the rules, you're cheating. If you don't, you aren't. It's not a popularity contest; the "preponderance of biking enthusiasts" don't get to vote on it. And even if they did, there would still be one given set of rules for each event, and if the rules changed, then the next event would have new rules. Simple.
(Afterthought: To make the analogy square, imagine a Tour de France where last year's winner sets next year's rules!)
Quote:If you fight against changing the biking rules, and lose that battle -- do you go against your principles and then do what you fought against, because the rules say you can?
If the rules were changed to allow doping, then it would not be cheating to dope, nor would it be unethical or hypocritical for someone to be doping, even if they supported a ban. If that's what the sport allows, then that's what it allows, and the competition is by the rules. Erythropoetin and blood transfusions aren't unethical or illegal in and of themselves. (And neither is advertising.)
Quote:Like the guy who said, "If elected, I will fight against the growing money in politics and not take any PAC contributions." Who then goes on to become the largest consumer of PAC contributions.
... which would be hypocritical. But, of course, the Democrats have not said anything like "we will not allow anyone to (quasi-) advertise on our behalf." So, this is still not the same thing.
-Jester