BAD SPORTS IN BEIJING

Since China finally finagled the Olympic games for 2008, the New
Republic is again recommending the torch be thrust into a pile of
dung.

Echoing a similar call the magazine made last year when the torch
went out in Sydney, TNR wrote Friday, "Defenders of Beijing's bid
maintain that the Olympics will open Chinese society and give its
leaders a reason to protect civil rights."

Mind repeating that? Sports will push Beijing to protect civil rights?

Are these guys bucking for Chris Rock's job?

People have absurdly short, selective and underdeveloped memories.
Only last month the world found out what a peculiar understanding of
sports China possesses.

The U.N. annually sponsors the International Day against Drug Abuse
and Illicit Drug Trafficking. "Every year," according to U.N., "a
theme for the day is established and thousands of people around the
world are mobilized - to celebrate the day." This year, on June 26,
the theme was sports.

Vienna celebrated with "basketball and soccer clinics and 'test your
skills' competitions." Colombia played much the same way: "Planned
activities include soccer, basketball and volleyball matches." In
Thailand it was tennis. In Pakistan, badminton. Afghanistan went all
Taliban with "An organized knock-out football competition for youth."
China, however, in recognition of the "Sports, not Drugs" theme
played an entirely different game.

It just lined folks up and shot them.

Knock-out football of far more permanent nature.

After mass trials in stadiums, packed with onlookers, convicted drug
offenders were taken away and shot. Not forthcoming with the death
tally, conservative estimates pin the toll from China's "Sports, not
Drugs" day between 50 and 60. No appeals, no nothing. Just the
sentences and the executions.

Bang.

Sports sure have a funny effect on China's civil rights. Tell me if
I'm mistaken, but they seem to get worse, not better.

Do you remember when the International Olympic Committee decided last
year to strip Romanian gymnast Andreea Raducan's gold medal for the
women's all-around? The 16-year-old tested positive for
pseudoephedrine, the same ingredient found in Sudafed. Andreea better
hope if she makes it to the 2008 games she doesn't develop a case of
the sniffles. It'll be straight off the balance beam and outside for
a fatal injection of lead.

Other athletes would be well advised to play helmeted and get fitted
for flak jackets before serious competition begins.

"Promoted to foster 'friendship, peace, and solidarity,'" wrote TNR
editors, "the games now subvert the ideals of freedom and human
rights on which any meaningful international solidarity must be
based."

Far less about competition and much more a saccharin suck-up to
globalists, the Olympics don't represent anything the U.S. should be
involved in anyway, and now we're playing in China because somehow
pole-vaulting and volleyball will make the Pooh-Bahs in Beijing less
likely to brutalize their citizens. If that doesn't float past your
bull filter, you're not alone.

China is much further away from democracy and liberty than a 100-yard
dash. If you want to have the games there, fine, but don't pretty it
up like some sort of cure for the crushing tyranny endured by the
Chinese people. As WND columnist Geoff Metcalf would say, that dog
won't hunt. It won't even get up after a few swift kicks.

The New Republic may be right: "For its endorsement of a dictatorship
- - the Olympics ought to be abolished."

Even if we don't officially shove that torch where the sun don't
shine, the U.S. should think more than twice about fielding athletes.
Taking part in this sham is less than becoming of what I hope is
still a great nation.

Joel Miller is the commentary editor of WorldNetDaily. His publishing
company, MenschWerks,recently published "God Gave Wine" by Kenneth L.
Gentry Jr.

Due to time constraints, he cannot get back to every reader's e-mail,
but he does enjoy receiving feedback -- both pro and con -- and
swears that's what keeps the joy in it.