From a reader:
My name is Deepinder Gill and I am a 29 year old Canadian libertarian who has been visiting LewRockwell.com for the last five years. I admire the strong defence of individual freedom, property rights and market economics by the folks at the Mises Institute, and I also greatly admire their strong opposition to war as a tool of foreign policy.
I am sending you this email today with regard to your blog post from yesterday related to the Chris Benoit story and the media-created hysteria over steroids. A quick update on that story which may of interest to your readers: on Wednesday night, federal agents raided the office of Chris Benoit's personal physician near Atlanta, Dr. Phil Astin. Apparently, they were searching the office for records and other items in a search warrant, and more information related to what medication Dr. Astin's office was prescribing to Chris Benoit leading up to the double murder-suicide. Here are three links related to this raid by the feds:
http://www.wsbtv.com/news/13589422/detail.html
http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2007/06/28/wrestler-raid.html
http://www.postchronicle.com/news/original/article_21288961.shtml
The investigators have yet to assign a motive to Chris Benoit's horrendous actions, yet the feds (and their minions in the so-called "mainstream" media) immediately used the tragedy as an excuse to continue their crusade against steroids. Why is the federal government even inserting itself into a local criminal investigation? The hypocrisy is shameful. While the feds and the media believe it is important to examine whether or not steroids played a part in the double murder-suicide, even before a motive has even been officially determined; they criticize, ridicule and vilify Ron Paul for having the audacity to do the same thing, when he called for a look at how American foreign policy in the Arab-Islamic world may have helped provide a motive for the 9/11 attacks. In addition, the feds think it's okay to seize a local doctor's patient records and personal correspondence, while protecting the records and personal correspondence of Vice-President Cheney, and other corrupt politicians.
The war on steroids will be as successful in reducing their use among bodybuilders, athletes and weightlifters/powerlifters, as the war on marijuana, cocaine and heroin has been in reducing recreational drug use across the United States. Or as successful as prohibition during the 1920's was in reducing alcohol consumption. All it will really achieve is the further erosion of personal privacy and turning thousands of innocent people into criminals.
The WWE is correct in its comments related to the Chris Benoit tragedy: the crime showed no signs of being related to so-called "roid rage;" the crime was obviously premeditated and so-called "roid rage" is most evident in sudden bursts of anger and aggression (Nancy Benoit's body showed no evidence of blows from the fists of a 220 lb. wrestler); and Chris Benoit tested negative for steroids in April 2007, under the WWE's own testing program. Of course, having an industry regulate itself and establish its own standards isn't good enough for the big-government socialists and proponents of a nanny state who believe only they can determine how best to regulate and control other people's businesses and personal lives. In all of the media hysteria over steroids, they have (perhaps on purpose) ignored some important points:
(1) Dr. Phil Astin admits that he had been prescribing testosterone to Chris Benoit, but only because his testosterone levels were below normal -- something that was most likely related to Benoit's previous (non-prescribed/black market) use of synthetic hormones, that consequently, shut down his body's natural production; but is also something that afflicts hundreds of thousands of middle-aged men.
(2) It is actually low testosterone (andropause) that causes many of the things now being blamed on steroids (i.e. depression; irritability; paranoia; loss of interest in life; mood swings). Wrestlers and bodybuilders who commit serious acts of violence, start taking other drugs and/or suffer from mental depression are usually "off the juice" after a testosterone cycle, and therefore, are suffering from the effects of a "crash" in their male hormone levels.
(3) The media is trying to paint Chris Benoit (and other professional wrestlers) as violent, out-of-control Neanderthals -- most likely part of the media (and the rest of popular culture's) hatred for any expression of old-fashioned masculinity. Witness the media's similar disdain for NASCAR, hunting, guns and the South.
Recently, Benoit had been experiencing marital problems related to the care of his (now deceased) son, who had been diagnosed with Fragile X syndrome -- a form of cognitive retardation. Was Chris Benoit taking anti-depressants to deal with the mental stress of taking care of a mentally handicapped son and a rigorous work/travel schedule? Why aren't the feds and the media looking more closely at depression and the dangerous use of prescription anti-depressants?
In general, what this latest tragedy has shown is that politicians and "journalists" are less concerned with actually dealing with (and investigating and reporting) the facts than exploiting people and events in order to push alternate agendas -- i.e. the "war on drugs," "war on terrorism," "war on poverty," gun control, etc. All the more reason for individuals to continue tuning out the newspapers and the idiot tube, and to turn to the Internet, and websites like LewRockwell.com, for the truth.
