Fyodor Dostoevsky: All is Lawful

Investigation of the anti-doping crusade does periodically produce some bizarre stories that seem absolutely incredible, beyond belief, astounding.  The newest trickery attributed to the athlete?  Animal urine in the samples.

How the animal urine was substituted for the athlete's urine is an astounding question, using the distorted logic of the sport pundit that asserts that when the sample is collected a foolproof container is used, there is a chaperon witness, that the container is sealed with a seal that changes color when tampered with, that the container is initialed by the athlete, consequently there should be no opportunity for urine substitution at the collection point.  So how do you logically suggest with all of the above security precautions that the athlete is responsible for animal urine being introduced into the sample at the collection point?

Of course, with the meltdown of the Ryan Braun doping case where the integrity chain-of-custody procedures were questioned, where for forty-four hours the sample disappeared into a proverbial black hole, unguarded and unsecured, prone to possible manipulation by criminals who have an agenda, or interests in the welfare of their teams, including possibly financial interests, or career vindictiveness against certain individuals, serve as motives for crimes of opportunity.  What better conditions could possibly exist than an unsecured sample where the identity of the athlete is known, where it would be a very simple matter to insert a pipette or a syringe in the bottom of the container and add a little tainted urine that contains an anabolic steroid, and presto! the forces of evil prevail once again.  The dolts at the laboratory would never be vigilant enough to inspect the container for sabotage because the damage would be so small as to not be noticed under a cursory inspection; a small hole filled with epoxy!  The seal is intact!  The athlete is blamed!

Fyodor Dostoevsky:  "All is Lawful."

Fyodor Dostoevsky (1821-1881) Russian man of letters, developed a concept of "all is lawful" in two of his most notorious characters, Ivan Fyodorovitch Karamazov (The Brothers Karamazov) and Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch Stavrogin (The Possessed), although hints of the same concept is expressed by Rodion Romanovitch Raskolnikov (Crime and Punishment.) Raskolnikov thinks that all great men of genius may overstep all moral bounds, including murder and robbery, when the proceeds of the crime is useful in a quest of a career, without pangs of consciousness, much like the modern psychopath who feels no compunction for his victims in the pursuit of greed.  This thinking by Fyodor Dostoevsky is an embryo stage for the more complicated reasoning used by Ivan Fyodorovitch Karamazov and Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch Stavrogin, who insist that since there is no God, there is no moral sanction for crimes committed, thus through a degenerate evolutionary process, the Geological Cataclysm, all things become lawful.  However, much like Raskolnikov who could not maintain his position in the face of scrutiny from the prosecutor, Ivan Karamazov and  Nikolay Stavrogin could not maintain a stance of indifference to Christ and the Russian Orthodoxy.  Thus Stravrogin's confession to Father Tihon, the omitted printed sheet in the confession, and the conclusion from Father Tihon that Stavrogin had committed an unforgivable crime against the maiden Liza which lead to her suicide.  Although Nikolay Stvrogin maintained the strictest facade of atheism, blaspheme, and heresy among his drunken companions in the St. Petersburg corners, his admissions to Father Tihon convey a man bent on repentance, a man who in spite of his hideous crime against the maiden wishes to shun his cheap cynicism to end the hallucinations of a taunting insignificant devil who has been jeering his sudden need to accept Christian values and to reform his behavior to Christian standards.  Tihon understands Stavrogin's remorse, pointing out to Stavrogin that his undertaking would be of considerable value only if his motives were pure, not merely a need for aberration, or a need of punishment from a jaded public, or the desire of Stavrogin to stick out his tongue to mock the onslaught of public censure.  Father Tihon suggests to Stavrogin a solution to his inward struggle, become a novice in secret under a man of unusual Christian perceptiveness, and with hard work, study, and diligence, he could reach the highest Christian plateau, self forgiveness.  When Stavrogin scoffs at this suggestion as absurd, Father Tihon in a moment of supreme psychological insight declares to Stavrogin, "the second before you publish your terrible confession you will perpetrate another horrible crime."  Stavrogin commits suicide unable to muster the courage to reconcile his internal conflict, or perhaps to end the torment of the maiden Liza appearing in hallucinations, wringing her hands and sorrowfully shaking her head: visions that inspired fear and terror in Stavrogin's soul.   

Ivan Karamazov on the other hand is a much simpler matter.  Simply put Ivan wanted his brother Dmitri to murder his sick, licentious father Fyodor, in order to end uncertainty over the money Ivan and Alyosha would inherit if Dmitri committed patricide.  Ivan's reason erodes after it is determined that his father Fyodor was murdered not by Dmitri, but by his probable step brother Pavel ( Smerdyakov, "the stinker.")  From this moment Ivan begins a decent into madness suffering the same hallucinations that plagued Nikolay Stravrogin, visits from a paltry devil who taunts Ivan's theories formulated in his dissipated youth and discarded as useless rubbish as an adult; notions such as "the Geological Cataclysm," or the viewpoint that man has an inherent selfish baseness and callous disregard for social conventions that reaches a crescendo when through a degenerate evolution the concept of God is eliminated and replaced with the concept of the "man God," who through selfish self interest may engage in any behavior without compunction, for if there is no God, "all is lawful."  Compare this ideology to Alexey Nilitch (nihilist) Kirillov who had a similar concept of the "man God," (The Possessed) although Alexey Nilitch Kirillov had a confused rational for his belief: defeating fear.  But Ivan cannot resolve the issue within his own mind as to the existence of God, and this inability to resolve the issue that is so contrary to his inherent nature leads Ivan to madness.  Ivan's decision to testify as a witness in Dmitri's upcoming trial to prove that the murderer was the suicide Pavel (Smerdyakov, "the stinker") and not Dmitri as was alleged by the Russian state, personifies for Dostoyevsky the highest Christian value of self sacrifice to rectify a wrong committed upon an innocent person.  Ivan's new resolution to testify in court prompts the devil to accuse Ivan of pulling a cheap publicity stunt in order to garner public favor, a fact Ivan vehemently denies.  Ivan was endlessly tortured by the fact that Pavel (Smerdyakov, "the stinker") would never have murdered his parent without Ivans' influence.  Ivan also failed to realize that Pavel (Smerdyakov, "the stinker") had an endless desire to seek revenge for his mother Stinking Lizaveta, a poor crazy homeless lady whom Fyodor Karamazov raped and impregnated on a return of a drinking bout with some worthless compatriots.  Ivan failed to discern the true motive for the patricide: the endless subjugation, humiliation, and neglect Pavel (Smerdyakov, "the stinker") was subjected to by Fyodor Karamazov.  Ivan also made a serious error in his reasoning based upon a drunken letter Dmitri had written in a tavern where he declared to Katernia Ivanovna that he would kill his father Fyodor to reclaim the missing three thousand roubles that Katerina Ivanovna had entrusted to Dmitri to send to her maternal aunts. Ivan reasoned that the letter constituted "mathematical proof" that Dmitri had killed his father and stolen the three thousand roubles Fyodor Karamazov had hidden in an envelope under the pillows for his "little chicken" Grushenka: a woman whom both Fyodor and Dmitri were both desperately in love with.  This contest between father and son for the hand of Grushenka would prompt a jealous rage and would serve as a motive for murder in the mind of the examining magistrate.  Ivan reached the same conclusion based upon the inherent tendencies of the Karamazov family to engage in extreme licentious behavior and violence.  Ivan declared to Pavel (Smerdyakov, "the stinker") at one point that "one reptile will devour another," as a psychological statement of fact as to the abhorrent Karamazov family nature, and Ivan's statement indicates a crass indifference to the outcome of the dispute between Fyodor and Dmirti, an outcome Ivan calculated could only end in blood shed.  When Pavel (Smerdyakov, "the stinker") confessed to Ivan that he murdered Fyodor Karamazov instead of Dmitri, Ivan reached the conclusion that without his prompting Pavel (Smerdyakov, "the stinker") would have never formulated a conclusion that murder could be committed without a moral qualm under the pretext that since there is no God, there is no moral sanction, therefore, "all is lawful."  Consequently, Ivan reached the conclusion that he was partly responsible for the murder of his father Fyodor, a murder Ivan could have prevented had he intervened.  Thus the notion by Ivan that his philosophical viewpoint prompted Pavel (Smerdyakov, "the stinker") to commit murder prompted Ivan to question his atheism.  The impossibility to reconcile Ivan's internal acceptance of the possibility of God lead Ivan down a path of madness that intensified over time.  Ivan was seen in the street having conversations with dead people, and, of course, there were the persistent visits from the devil where the endless philosophical arguments ensued.  When Alyosha arrived at Ivan's abode with news that Pavel (Smerdyakov, "the stinker") had committed suicide, Ivan experienced a serious nervous breakdown, exclaiming that the devil that had been persistently taunting him was not himself in various forms, but an independent entity.  Alyosha recognized that Ivan was experiencing a spiritual crisis, a crisis that he realized that Ivan could only resolve within himself.  After a routine examination in court as a witness, Ivan had another bout of madness. Suddenly Ivan demanded that the court release the monster, Dmitri,  "he is singing a hymn," and to arrest Ivan who was the true murderer.  When the judge asked Ivan if he was in his right mind, Ivan snarled that he was the murderer because he desired the death of his licentious father whom he ardently desired to be rid of.  Ivan accused the gallery of court spectators of being guilty of the same desire of wanting the death of a parent under various pretexts, and he accused the gallery of appearing at the trial to satisfy a cheap desire for sensationalism: "bread and circuses."  Ivan was lead away from the courtroom after a brief struggle with the bailiff shouting incoherent phrases, thus he vanishes from literature forever, a tormented man.  The reader is left wondering if Ivan will ever resolve his philosophical dilemma and accept Christ as his personal savior.

WADA and the concept of "all is lawful."

WADA as an organization has adopted a similar concept of all is lawful, or permitted, when dealing with athlete samples because in their monopoly of the process from sample collection to control of the Court of  Arbitration for Sport (CAS) panel adjudication, there is no higher power who could challenge or contest their arrogance and abuse of the anti-doping process.  But unlike the tortured souls of Dostoevsky, WADA has no compunction, there is no internal conflict of spirit, there is no spirit among these people, only an absolute need for financing, power, control, submission, dissimulation, spin control, and cover up of criminal mistakes and disinformation.  The athletes wrongly accused of committing "crimes" are merely collateral damage of this degenerate process, which regards athletes with a collective consciousness of the most hardened psychopath. Chain-of-custody is not required, needful, or helpful to the demented fools who will accept any sample for testing not matter how compromised it may be, under the guise that the ends justify the means.  Samples of undetermined origin are being accepted at WADA accredited laboratories as valid representations of athlete urine, samples that in most cases would have been refused by any other diagnostic laboratory in the world, and even if the sample was determined acceptable a "red flag" would be attached with an explanatory note that would question the authenticity of the results.  It appears that WADA has degenerated into a state that no athlete would dare allow WADA or any other alphabet soup organization affiliated with them to handle a sample under any conditions without a legal escort from a private attorney hired for the occasion.  There is no other way unless the athlete is determined to fight an endless litigation.  There must be a reform from the prevailing WADA culture of "all is lawful" into a metamorphosis of athlete safety and a right to a fair and lawful process, where the interests of the athlete is paramount and the selfish interests of WADA and it's affiliates are secondary.  But don't expect WADA to adopt this position soon, for a degraded sample reduces the quantitative amount of a prohibited substance in the sample, which would make no difference in the outcome of a doping case.  Excepting the T/E ratio and synthetic EPO tests where degradation in the samples generate false positive results, a fact that WADA denies.

Velovortmax poetry appropriate to the occasion:

But piously relies on lies?

Contorted gifts of malice scorned.

And in love with duty! Oh! Death be warned.

I had intended to write a little missive "Stavrogin the Sybil" but this post has run much too long as it is, so the analyses will have to wait until another time.  But to conclude:  WADA you have opened the door to endless chain-of-custody lawsuits and you should be embarrassed enough to reform your position from pure shame, you dolts!