”[Garmin boss] Jonathan Vaughters is doing a phenomenal job,” says LeMond. ‘What they’re doing is good, but really that testing has got to be done by an independent group, and not policed from inside. What good is self-policing? It’s like a wolf guarding a hen house. You’ve got to have a group with no self-interest.’
Greg Lemond is a moron. there are no “public” interests. there are no “private, corporate” interests. there are no “doping” interests. there are no “anti-doping” interests.
there are only interests. we all got em. we’re all interested in our survival.
our “institutions” are only as good as the people in them. and, well, there you have it. to think that these independently operated and publicly (or privately) funded anti-doping groups have no self-interest, or no interest in their own survival, or even yet, no interest in the perpetuation of the justification for their own existence, and thus the continuation of their existence and operation, is ludicrous. Jonathan Vaughters has no interest in protecting his team and his sponsors from positives? of course he does, and that’s what he’s selling: clean riders doing their best. so you mean to tell me that USADA has no interest in popping people and showing that they’re doing their job, fighting the good fight? yeah right. look at how arbitrarily and stupidly the rules are applied.
if you set it up, they’re going to do their job, and do it “well.” you’ve gotta let riders be riders and do their jobs. there’s always going to be positives. team and rider self-interest is not necessarily a bad thing. and I would not be surprised by a Garmin positive, would you? disappointment is not, you’ll note, surprise.
But even the libertarian position has at its core the flawed idea that state power can be constitutionally constrained, that if we write it down and enforce it vigilantly, the state can be confined to a limited sphere of acceptable action that will secure life and liberty and property and a few other basic rights. Yet in order to achieve even these limited ends, the libertarian concedes that the state must at least be granted a minimal monopoly on the use of force, and in particular the use of deadly force, and in that exchange he gives up everything in return for nothing, for the moment he hands the gun to the policeman and says, ‘Protect me from thieves,’ he has handed the state the mechanism through which it will go on to invalidate all its bargains and charters with its citizens.
