The Fall of Lance Armstrong

How about LIVEHONEST?

We probably could all see this coming. Lance Armstrong, the testicular cancer survivor, the seven-time Tour de France winner, the founder of the Livestrong Foundation is a a confessed cheater and liar. At least that's what we believe we will finally find out on Thursday.

For years rumors swirled around the cycling world that Armstrong, like so many other cyclists, had used steroids or other outlawed performance enhancing drugs or therapies. He spent years denying those charges which had dogged him much of his career...vehemently denying them. That is, until recently.

For whatever reason Armstrong decided to change his course. Last August he said that he would no longer fight the doping claims made by the United States Anti-Doping Agency, essentially clearing the way for him to be stripped of his seven Tour titles and the bronze medal he won at the 2000 Olympics. Former teammates were willing to testify against him providing details of the elaborate manner in which he broke the rules. Finally trapped in the corner, Armstrong said "no mas."

On Thursday, it is widely believed that he will admit to Oprah's worldwide television audience that he, in fact, cheated. Which also means he lied.

So Lance Armstrong has come clean. Really? Don't I mean that he finally got caught and then confessed when he could no longer keep up the charade? Is there a difference? Uh....yeah.

The Baseball Writers Association of America members vote annually to decide who gets into the Baseball Hall of Fame. In order to be elected, an eligible player on the ballot must receive 75% of the votes cast. Approximately 570 ballots were cast meaning 427 writers have to vote for a player to make it into Cooperstown. This year the ballot included newly eligible candidates Barry Bonds, Sammy Sosa, Roger Clemens and Mark McGwire; all of whom have been associated with steroid or other performance enhancing drug use. Just a few years ago all these players were considered likely first time ballot inductees. None of them were elected. In fact, no living player was elected for 2013. The last time that happened? 1996. Maybe there are some consequences, albeit slight...to cheating in baseball. I say slight because all four of these players got extremely rich playing baseball despite their alleged doping. But they may have lost the more "eternal" prize of being in the Hall of Fame.

So, Lance Armstrong is a cheater, a liar and a thief (the US Postal Service, who sponsored Armstrong and his teammates from 1996 to 2004 wants some of its $31 million sponsorship money back.) I guess they believe that Armstrong took that sponsorship money under false pretenses. You know...like stealing.

So how should we feel about all this? Are you sad for Lance? Happy he finally got caught? Glad to see justice prevail? Yeah, he cheated, lied and stole....big time.

I, on the other hand, have never cheated, lied or stolen on such a grand scale.

There, I feel better already. #Livehumble

The 2nd Amendment and other messy things

The last thing you need to read is another blog about the 2nd Amendment. There are plenty of others out there writing about the history of, the reasons for, the importance of, the reasons against...that 2nd entry in our Bill of Rights.

Here's a news flash. Many people are of the opinion that personal protection is a fundamental right. They also believe that protecting their home and property is equally fundamental. The reality is that there are bad guys (this is a gender neutral description) out there that want to break in, to rob, and/or to do harm or kill. It happens. Every single day. I have a primal instinct to protect myself and my family. I cannot adequately do that with a broom handle, baseball bat or 7 iron behind my bedroom door.

Here's a dilemma. In order to make firearms available to law-abiding citizens for protection, for hunting, for shooting competition and other sporting uses, those same firearms can and do end up in the hands of people that will do harm to innocent people. Freedoms can have that kind of outcome.

In America, we also have the First Amendment which provides some very important rights including the right to freely exercise our religion, to freely express ourselves, and to peaceably assemble. But even these rights can get messy. Sometimes the way others use these rights can be hateful, offensive, hurtful, divisive, controversial, appalling and inconvenient. But that is no reason to abridge those rights. Some think we should make some of these activities illegal. I strongly disagree.

There are many people that are very uncomfortable with all these rights. I think it is because it requires people to take some personal responsibility for their choices and actions. It is much easier to just let someone else tell us what to do, tell us what is allowed, take the responsibility (and the right) out of our hands.

When our kids were young, we looked into the idea of homeschooling them (which we ultimately did.) Admittedly, we had a little difficulty grasping the concept that we were allowed to take on this task and responsibility. Is this even legal we asked? See, we had been so conditioned that we did not have some basic rights...that those rights had been totally turned over to "the state" that we felt like we were doing something wrong. In retrospect, we saw that raising our children was OUR responsibility...and that included deciding how they would be educated. Fear not to all those that want to protect us and our children from ourselves...the state of Georgia still maintains some basic oversight. I had no problem with that basic oversight.

I also have no problem with there being some reasonable limitations on the use of and ownership of weapons. I don't think I want my neighbor owning and using rocket propelled grenades or true military hardware. But let's make sure we don't try to confuse the issue with a false and misleading glossary of firearm terms. For example, the 15 round clip in my Glock 19 9mm is not a high-capacity magazine but some would like to outlaw it.

Human violence is a terrible thing and has been around since Adam and Eve's son killed his own brother. If we are going to try to reduce the amount of violence (and who would ever disagree with that goal) maybe it would make better sense to address the causes of this human condition. But...that requires looking at the hard things... acknowledging politically incorrect things... making the difficult decisions... addressing what we know is wrong with all of us.