While many would likely say ‘athletes shouldn’t be penalized for the actions of their governments at the #Olympics’, I ask ‘when will citizens out of government start becoming responsible for the transgressions of their nations—whose governments operate at their behest and with the flow of their tax dollars?’
If a country were barred from the Olympics for military incursion, domestic denial of human rights or human rights abuses—its citizenry would feel shame, the athletes disgust, and then the true, natural state of affairs would re-emerge which disappeared long ago: social penalty for anti-social (and anti-democratic/despotic) bad behavior.
The Olympics is supposed to be about peace—so why are we honoring #despot nations by accepting their participation?; we would be barred for our transgressions as well. Fair is fair. The penalty for bullying nations or the denial of human and civil rights would apply to any country that otherwise wishes to participate.
If athletes thus leave their repeat transgressor nation (when allowed!) in favor of immigraion to true democracies, let those loser, jilted nations deal with it. Maybe it would move their people to better manage their governments and societies. We must stop awarding atrocity. What message does it send—to other nations, to our nations—to our children?
Currently, nations like China, Russia, Vietnam, Myanmar, Saudi Arabia—they have no right (but they certainly have business and political agendas —meaning moneyed interests—in showing off at the games) participating at games which are to be about good will and good faith—yet they regularly opperate in bad faith.
Why should such transgressor nations benefit from the glory and brotherhood at such legendary and honored events on the world stage—treated as equals? They don’t believe in equality!
China exerts pressure on Taiwan to call itself by another name, threatening Taiwan and Taiwan’s allies over the issue they roundly lost out on—historically!
Since when is being a sore loser a gain in sports? These countries are giant “Trumpers” in the form of nations, pretending legitimacy—which we award in recognition, diplomatically and in sport—as they are perpetual bad sports: bellicose, rude, domineering, troublesome—cheats!
We are honoring behavior we don’t morally agree with; that’s reprehensible—and it places us in concert with bad actors.
China exerts pressure on us as well! And we listen! We can’t deal with Taiwan as an independent nation! We cannot recognize their democratic republic. Even Tom Cruise had to take the Taiwan flag off his flight jacket in his upcoming Top Gun film! More importantly—the Dalai Lama gets threats from China—as do we—when he speaks at US universities! What did they do to Tibet? What are they doing to Hong Kong? What are they doing to the Uighurs? Genocide!
Russia is bullying Europe and invading Ukraine. They #murder their operatives in broad daylight and poison them in foreign lands. They target the #LGBTQ community! They, China—and Vietnam are supporting the #Myanmar
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THESE NATIONS DO NOT BELONG IN THE OLYMPICS—at which Russia and China cheat! Russian sports doping is a regular occurrence!
We tarnish our image by participating with these nations at the Olympics.
Stand up America and show some integrity!
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