UCI: Run the Gauntlet

Spring!  Nature's regeneration after the long, abysmal winter, the first flowers of the season are emerging from long hibernation.  It is time for the spring classic races, the era of stagnation is over, the sweetheart suspensions are over, it's time to get back on the bike and do some racing!

However, being the eternal pessimist, being deprived from the endless Lance Armstrong spectacle that was supposed to result in cauterizing the metastasizing cancer that infected cycling, and deprived of the happiness of seeing the UCI publicly humiliated with a total confession of complicity in crime, cover up, and hypocritical dissimulation of self righteous rhetoric that was enough to make you puke; deprived of the extermination of bad influences and a total revamping of the system, well who would not feel disappointed?

A good public whipping or hanging sets a deterrent example for others and these forms of barbarity have been in existence since Cain murdered his brother Able.  Oui?  So what deters the UCI executive committee from using similar methods to purge their ranks of undesirables?  There is no use in pretending that these untoward brigands will ever repent or cease, given the opportunity, to resist temptation.  Graft and corruption is wrong, accepting bribes is wrong, moral turpitude is wrong, and invites bad behavior from others similarly inclined.

So why not force these undesirable scoundrels to run the gauntlet?  We could follow the Tsar Russian military example, issue birch switches to the riders, then run the scoundrels through the ranks.  But these tactics though acceptable in an autocratic state are certainly unacceptable in civilized society and would amount to murder, would it not?  But something has to happen because the infection has to be cauterized before the parasite proliferates leaving a wake of corpses.  To do nothing is a positive hazard to public decency.

A good woman who I spoke to was positively offended with the treatment that Lance Armstrong was receiving from USADA and the press.  "They have taken everything from that man already, so why don't they just leave him alone?"  She tried to counter my argument that people love nothing more than a good spectacle of public brutality, with an irrational argument that equated goodness to people.  This is a fallacy, goodness is not an inherent trait in people.  People are inherently evil and they will take advantage of any opportunity of avarice for money or advancement, even if the collateral damage leaves a wake of corpses.  People are callous and jaded, they do not have empathy or compassion toward the welfare of others, or their families.

That is why USADA could not simply leave Lance Armstrong alone, ambition trumped.  The sadistic nature of our natures demands that ritualistic sacrifice prevail over common sense and good taste. Absolute power without restraint gives reign to undignified barbaric rituals like running men through gauntlets.  There is a public appetite for these spectacles, people derive an internal satisfaction at the misfortunes of others, and of inflicting pain on others, especially when there is no fear of adverse consequences to themselves.

These arguments are self-evident, so in conclusion I ask: When will the UCI inflict a flogging and clean house?