Sport Abuse: a Libertarian Viewpoint

"virtually all sporting activities ... are an abuse of the body to some degree"

sport abuse  “Th’ expense of spirit in a waste of shame, is [sport] in action” (or so the immortal bard should have written: “lust” on a ^*libertarian basis being a ^*healthy delight). While exercise is healthy in cautious moderation, virtually all sporting activities—including athletics—are an abuse of the body to some degree. Sport abuse, unlike so-called ^*“drug abuse”, is almost a pleonasm. It is an irony and a ^*hypocrisy that many people who are otherwise “health fascists” often encourage and even participate in this so-called ^*natural and healthy activity.

It might be suggested in its defence, that this is a valuable physical ^*addiction involving naturally occurring opiates from exercise that are as good and as harmless in themselves as heroin (as long as one does not overdose, that is). But this is not a sound defence just because of the alternatives of such safe recreational drugs or moderate exercise. It is also a psychological addiction, but there are myriad beneficial psychological addictions that could better replace it.

Sport abuse will inevitably result in a variety of sporting injuries throughout the time that the abuser continues with his dangerous habit, and some of these injuries can last the rest of the abuser’s life even becoming exacerbated with time. With many of the hard sports, such as football, running, and ^*boxing, there is a significant risk of permanent ^*disability and even ^*death. And most of this entirely foreseeable damage will be treated using ^*state ^*healthcare at the expense of innocent ^*tax-victims, which is inexcusable (see ^*seat belts and helmets). There is also the fact that many sport abusers become insidious sport pushers of one kind or another, and often push sports on to very young ^*children (including their own) and, at the very ^*extreme, even participate in its compulsion within state child-day-prisons (state ^*schools).

Apart from the damage done to human bodies, the amount of time and ^*money that is spent indulging in active and voyeuristic sport abuse is phenomenal: a not insignificant proportion of most ^*countries’ ^*national products. And yet the state often grants ^*criminal ^*privileges and ^*tax-extorted subsidies for sport, especially athletics (e.g., ^*compulsory purchases for national sports grounds and vast sums of money taxtorted to fund the next Olympics). This is part of the same “bread and circuses” tactic used by Roman emperors to distract people from the infinitely greater damage caused by ^*politics. Sport is also the very opposite of a safety valve for ^*national differences. For it is used to stoke up the ^*nationalism that the ^*nation-state requires to survive and to go to ^*war.

And yet, despite all this, it remains the ^*libertarian prerogative of an individual to pursue this addictive, ^*harmful, mindless, life-wasting depravity at his own expense; and even viciously to entice others into doing the same. One has a ^*right to choose how to spend one’s own life. Naturally, if one can still affirm individual ^*liberty even in this most extreme of cases, one should have no problem with tamer areas such as those involving sex, drugs, and ^*gambling.

(This is an entry from A Libertarian Dictionary: Explaining a Philosophical Theory [draft currently being revised]. Asterisks indicate other entries.)