"Who is Lance Armstrong to give moral lessons? He stole cycling, he drove a lot of people away from cycling" - Eurosport commentator slams former Tour de France winner

voldemort

You cannot, and should not try to erase ANYTHING from history, it should be used to analyse, learn, teach, avoid making further mistakes. What we can do is find the right way to go about it and prevent those responsible from profiting from past wrongdoing in any way, be it monetary, reputational or whatever. Really the only thing he should be allowed to discuss, and for free, is doping in the way it might help catch others or prevent users.

look, as far as i’m concerned, lance can talk about whatever the hell he wants to talk about, as long as he’s not giving instructions on how to separate anthrax spores or build a fissionable weapon out of your cell phone. with lance as with most everyone and everything, the marketplace of ideas will decide his legacy, and whether or not he has one. that’s a-ok by me.

Look, I respect your view but you need to question them out of principle too so I’m going to ask you to ask yourself the same question as someone else, should a living Adolf have been given a platform for discussing war tactics? Should Alex Jones have been allowed to continue his Sandy Hook accusations? Somewhere along a scale society has to draw lines, individuals in their head don’t but the internet is open, it’s society, those who want to exchange non-compatible societal IDEAS can still do so, in private amongst themselves but not market them publicly. Besides wasn’t it part of the deal he was not to be involved in cycling? A public show about cycling seems to fly in the face of that but I guess as so often, it was a poorly worded « contract » and with a lack of morals, limits were bound to be tested, again ;-)

this has diverged from being a per se cycling discussion, but that’s cool with me. so i live in the united states. for background, i grew up in southern california, educated at UC Irvine and UC Berkeley, and except for chunks of a 22 year Navy career i’ve lived here most of my life. there are things about this country, the way its social, political, and economic institutions function that IN MY OPINION fail considerably in comparison to other developed democracies. BUT, one thing that i think the US does excel in is that we have an extraordinarily high level of freedom of speech. now, that certainly opens the door for the alex joneses of the world to weaponize/monetize speech in utterly disgusting ways that do actual damage. it also gives freedom to politicians to say that the press is corrupt and should be jailed, like in russia, iran, or venezuela. these are DANGEROUS uses of freedom of speech. but as much as that freedom may imperil the well being of individuals and ideas — like the idea of liberty itself — it’s that freedom that has, over time, marked the SLOW movement toward greater equality and well being. this extreme level of free speech is certainly the primary fundamental right in the united states that has functioned, over time, to actively drive social progress. i mean, quack quack quack, right? the kind of speech that MOST needs protection is UNPOPULAR SPEECH. we KNOW this. but if you can only engage in unpopular speech IN PRIVATE, as you suggested, and be BARRED from a public platform to share those unpopular ideas, then your freedom to speak means very little and the whole project of social change and social progress grinds to a halt. “YES, you can talk about all races being equal to your friends, but you can’t publish any articles making that argument.” “YES, you can say that homosexuality isn’t a dangerous perversion that must be legislated against so long as you ONLY say it to your friends, but you can’t say it on a radio show.” so the problem is, if there’s going to be prior restraint of speech, the only person I’M gonna trust to decide who can say what before they say it is ME. if somebody wants to let me and my friends make all those decisions, then i’m IN. i’d expect a little pushback on that idea though. alex jones would probably like that job, too. lance would love that kind of power i bet. sooooo…. maybe it’s better to just leave things like they are. it’s ugly and messy and people get hurt, but once you SURRENDER that nearly unlimited freedom you’ll never get it back. and yes, society has drawn lines: still can’t threaten to blow up a mosque or share child pornography, etc. — that’s a pretty good idea. but erring on the side of freedom rather than censorship has been critical in preserving valuable free speech rather than seeing it slowly winnowed and legislated away. so yeah, there WILL be another alex jones, neonazis get to deny the holocaust, and lance gets to talk about cycling all he wants. and if you don’t like the source or the content then YOU are free to rail against it, or just not listen. as always, totally appreciate and respect YOUR perspective, brother. and i do get where you’re coming from. there are individuals in the US who have (or are about to have) the biggest platform there is who say things that drive me mad because i find them so dangerous and misleading, but the american version of democracy, with all its notable failings, has survived by preserving freedom of speech in the face of these types, not by limiting it.

and yeah, i’m a ridiculous blowhard for writing THAT MUCH. seriously, f me…

Like I said before, everyone will place the cursor in a different place but I can guarantee you there is no such thing as true free speech, and if you were to take a small group (say 20, men and women unequally distributed to make it less artificial) of true believers, stick them on a deserted island with unlimited food and water I’d say it would take way less than just a year for them to destroy their civilization. Free speech advocates are almost always hypocrites too, arguing for it when it suits them but very quickly turning to censorship or whatever other tactics they feel comfortable with to silence those they can’t live with, That Eel on Mist is the latest to have succumbed to the reality of not being able to practice what he preaches. If you think about it probably the most perfect FSA you can find is completely the opposite of how you’d imagine one, the confessional priest, he allows you to say whatever you want without risk of consequences. The US has done many great and awful things but one thing it does very little, unlike you, is to reflect, being too busy reaching for goals (again not always very deeply thought through ones). Things people say lead to things people think, feel and act upon, if you give people total immunity for what they say it will provoke acts (every imaginable kind), often irreversible and destructive. If the US wants to enjoy the risks and accepts the costs, fine but please fight amongst and keep it to yourselves, stop exporting it. You can feel good about the artificial advantages you can claim to have obtained (let’s ignore how and the hypocrisy of preaching others shouldn’t do likewise because all of us in similar civilisation are more or less in that position) over those of us living in safer, stabler, healthier, happier, longer-lasting, more respectful and humbler societies. Nothing personal but it’s clear that if it hasn’t yet, it won’t be long before the good that comes or came from a form of free speech that existed but which users exercised with wisdom will be submerged by the harm being done by a few who are manipulating the original (contextually good, obvious and logical) INTENT of it for their agenda. Current FSA are like lawyers looking for loopholes in contracts in order to argue against the original purpose of the contract, protecting both sides equally and not allowing one side to technically knock out the other for personal gain.

And before anyone says this is not cycling related, sorry but issues such as FS are related to EVERYTHING. Once you understand that everything is connecting and influencing, you see through the fake safety of imagining cycling is not affected. False doping accusations would be an evident subject which could lead to catastrophic real consequences one day. If someone had spent efforts building a public accusation campaign against someone like MVDP, those beer throwing rival « fans » might have resorted to a worse form of assault believing they were justified.

i really do relate to your deep concerns about the perils of allowing dangerously manipulative discourse in a largely unchecked way. in the current social/political climate in the US you can FEEL that peril constantly if you’re paying any attention and you’re willing to actually think through it. really, man, i get it. the problem for me, though, is i can’t really find an example of a country that limits/controls/restrains speech via its institutions and institutional state apparatuses that i would actually prefer to live in. all the places i look at and think YUP, I MIGHT WANNA LIVE THERE are countries with levels of free speech that equal (some might argue they exceed) that of the united states. if it weren’t for the incessant cold i’d be totally up for living in denmark, norway or switzerland. i AM going to live at least half the year in portugal (having already bought a house there precisely because my mind is quieter and i feel more peaceful when i’m not in the US), and there are lots of other places that are on that list that all have protected speech to nearly absolute degree. conversely, i NEVER spend ANY time thinking “maybe i’ll take my wife and dogs and move to Belarus.” or russia, or china, or hungary, or central african republic, or yemen, or…” You get the idea. i’m well aware of my ignorance of so many of the world’s cultures, so if there’s somewhere out there that’s figured out how to LIMIT SPEECH and, by doing so, produce a more enlightened, more peaceful and compassionate and HAPPIER way of life for its citizens, then i’ll sell everything and move THERE (as long as there are nice places to pedal a bicycle and they have rideable surf and plenty of sun).

I don’t get the Voldemort comment but much appreciate what you wrote. As there was no other return regarding my idea, it seems they’re ok to continue posting in this article and as we have freedom of speech I’ll go OT, if anyone other than you reads on, I warn you, it’s probably a waste of your time, but, your choice ;-). Portugal is a pretty good choice, only negatives are price rises but maybe you bought in time and anyway downscaling from the US or many other EU countries that is just a first world citizen problem, worse is the rising risk of foreigner resentment but in my experience this is more a social and media discussion than an individual one, if you behave correctly (many feel the need of that freedom to behave like they wish and then wonder why others turn against them) you’ll never have personal issues with anyone just because you’re from elsewhere. CH, D, A kill joy, spirit and curiosity, though south CH (Ticino, lake areas) mixes a bit of I mentality and has sun so might be worth exploring. H is sitting on a fence geopolitically, too unclear how it’ll go. Budapest is great and relaxed but nature aside there’s little more of interest to a seasoned traveler. Scandinavia, Iceland, FI GB all very interesting and beautiful but without reasons the weather is too off-putting, yes. F bureaucracy can kill you, most of the Mediterranean places are good if you pick well, many generally ignored issues can become crucial. Greece is often overlooked. Crete as an example would suit me. Have lived in B, NL, F, UK, E, L and spent a lot of time in I, visited friends/travelled to NY, Cali & Hawaii, Barbados, Iceland, Belarus, Turkey, Vietnam, UAE, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Sierra Leone, Rwanda and more than 80% of the rest of Europe. Never had a real problem except with individuals, even during tensions (war/civil unrest). Freedom of speech is an exaggerated problem outside certain very well known places. I mean who of us would feel like standing on a box in public preaching stuff to strangers, do many of us really have such strong agendas to promote? As long as people can talk to each other openly when they feel like it, let’s just live life.

planning to NOT be an ugly american while living in portugal! learning portuguese is a massive goal and already underway. objective is to leave a small and gentle footprint of our own while embracing the people and everything else that made us want to live there. unlike you, my only extended and repeated experiences in countries other than the US are iraq and afghanistan. i have not considered emigrating to either. •my voldemort comment: i probably was being a sloppy (and tired) reader but i thought you suggested not using lance’s name, as in “he who must not be named.” but i don’t think that’s actually what you were suggesting, hence my lame comment made zippo sense to you. at best it was a DAD JOKE anyway.

It was actually my aim to suggest using as many different alternatives for the Texas Turd as people’s imagination allows but from the disappointing feedback as to my more important suggestion I can only assume that despite all the « tough » talk here, nobody really cares that much about change. Respect for your « travels » even if idealogically and politically I was 100% against both and I think history has shown neither did much good except maybe for a select group of mostly egoïst who had nothing to lose like shareholders in companies best not named either. I think your experience in Portugal will work out just fine, don’t forget to take your bike ;-)

neither did much good.