I’ve never really understood the particular fascination of Congress for Major League Baseball. I have a vague understanding that MLB has a Congressionally sanctioned monopoly of some sort. Anyway, Sylvia Smith has an article on Mark Souder’s interest in baseball’s steroid scandal. Souder says that MLB has to make serious changes on its drug screens or Congress will apparently micromanage this process.
First, doesn’t he have anything better to do? Fight against the expansion of government authority, perhaps? Second, shouldn’t the free market be taking care of this? The way I hear it from Souder’s brethren, the free market is infallible.
I don’t have strong feelings about the well-being of baseball, but I figured I’d point out the discrepancy between Souder’s proposed intervention and small-government, free market rhetoric.
[tags]IN-03[/tags]
I think I see your problem there, Doug. You’re confusing “small-government, free market rhetoric” with “responsibility to take actions to effect such a system even when such actions would not be popular with constituents and/or (especially) campaign donors and regardless of their political consequences, or when such a stance would require the citizen legislator to forego a photo op due to head-spinning self-contradiction”.
Common error. A lot of people have made it over the last thirty years.
I’m terribly embarrassed about the error. Thanks for setting me straight.
The drug use scandal needs to be addresses, but I still don’t get why congress is doing it. Someone fill me in here. Why baseball and not other sports?