Australian Sports Doping .. Scandal or Political Beatup

Yet another stuff-up by the Australian Labor Government.

 Here we go again, everything this government touches becomes a farce.

It would seem that Federal Sports Minister Kate Lundy and Federal Justice Minister Jason Clare have presided over, either one of the most appallingly constructed investigations of all time, or the most baffling "witch hunt" that has ever been perpetrated on the Australian public and the world. 

It's been almost two weeks now, since John Lawler, CEO of the Australian Crime Commission, released their report on sports corruption with great fan fare and accusation. Aided and abetted with great indignation and chest thumping by Ministers Lundy and Clare. 

Yet now it founders, with the federal police, by their own admission, with little or no evidence to investigate, and sports administrators, players and more importantly fans, in a state of bewilderment with Australian sportsmen and women being branded around the world, as possible sports cheats with links to match fixing.

Still no charges are laid or even evidence produced, Yet this political grandstanding is overshadowing the launch of our summer football codes and casting a pall over our cricketer's tours to India and England, the most important and exciting tours for many years. 

I'll tell you how it looks from where we fans and punters sit. It looks as though the politicians have once again  decided that, for the sake of a headline and a photo op, they would treat their constituents as gullible mugs who'll believe anything, and then they duped some incompetent public servants into jumping without a parachute, in the hope that they could flush out a criminal or two in an election year, with the Government on the ropes.

It would seem that the Crime Commission has come up with some unproven, hearsay evidence connecting organised crime and a very small minority of sportsmen, and have decide to go on a fishing expedition by encouraging sportsman from all codes to confess to ambiguous accusations, instead of doing the hard yards and collecting proof and evidence, and the politicians have encouraged them to their own political ends, in the process sullying the good name of Australian sport both in Australia and across the world. 

All this without consideration of the consequences to a sports proud nation in having our pride in Australia's good name in world sport diminished, before any evidence is produced or anyone is convicted.

The media too have jumped on the band waggon when they smelt blood, but quickly changed sides when it started to show all of the hallmarks of a farce. In the last two days they have gone quiet on the issue. I would hope that they would stalk Lundy, Clare and Lawler aggressively, until they have come up with proof and charges or until they resign.   

Youth Violence On The Increase .. Why?

Is it just convenient for authorities to blame alcohol?

While there is no doubt that alcohol has a role to play in the youth violence we see splashed across our TV screens each night. Is the abuse of alcohol the real cause or is it just a symptom of deeper issues? 

Governments and authorities find it easy to blame alcohol because it always goes hand in hand with the violence. The fact that they can use this excuse to impose high taxes on it to rake in millions of dollars has it's attractions as well.

However, just in case they haven't noticed. Although they keep on heaping taxes on alcohol, the problem has not improved, in fact it continues to get worse.

While they are fooling around at the edges, they are ignoring the major causes of youth violence and wasting precious time while these causes become entrenched in our society.

Let's examine a few facts. Let's ask why this violence is increasing today and why it didn't start going viral until about 20 years ago.

For a start, the youth of each generation have been drinking alcohol for centuries, and I know in my generation the only kids that were out of control violently, were the kids who had questionable upbringing. Kids who never saw real discipline or love as they were growing up, those without a stable family environment. They were off the rails before they ever started on alcohol. Wagging school, out at all hours. You remember the type, we envied them there freedom.

However, what we didn't understand, was that our parent's discipline was guided by love and concern, and instilled into us a sense of good and bad and moral values. For example, as a male I learnt that if I happened to get into a fight, it must be one on one and that kicking someone when they were down was an act of cowardice. These values and those of respect and community spirit, were also drummed into me at school. I notice these cowardly acts are rampant today, probably because it is taboo to even talk about fighting in schools these days. Fighting is ingrained into male DNA and just has to be managed.

Then around the 1980s the do-good brigade got the upper hand, and convinced politicians that things like smacking kids and caning them at school was taboo. They started telling children (and still do), before their brains are properly developed, that they had the right to stand up to their parents, teachers and police if they felt that they were being mistreated. Which meant to them, that this was every time they did something wrong. Exactly the information their immature brains will treat as priority. I know, because my son was delighted to come home and tell me this. He didn't want to talk about English or Maths but he was cock-a-hoop about his new "freedoms". 

We now have a generation or two of youth and young adults, who don't believe they have a duty to their fellow citizens, and who have no respect for authority, the property of others or for each other.

I'm not saying that all youth are like this or it is even a majority, but there is a far greater percentage of the population that didn't have that discipline at home, and definitely don't get it at school, than was being produced in the 70s or before.

The people who made the mistakes and continue to make them, will continue to blame alcohol, drugs, violent video games and violent movies. However violent entertainment has been around for centuries along with alcohol and drugs, yet it didn't encourage groups of violent youth to create mayhem until comparatively recently. Because the concept of right, wrong and respect was drummed into previous generations at home, at school and in the community. This is being eroded and a major cause of out-of-control youth.

In my opinion ... what do you think?