Steroids and Plastic Surgery

In a true free market, as private organizations, professional sports leagues have a right to ban the use of steroids and performance-enhancing drugs. If a professional sports league does not ban performance enhancing drugs, that is the functional equivalent of the league requiring every player to take performance enhancing drugs.

I disagree with State laws banning possession and use of performance enhancing drugs. In a true free market, private sports leagues can and should ban their players from taking performance enhancing drugs. This ban can be enforced by the free market, and should not be enforced by the State.

There are many valid reasons to ban performance enhancing drugs.

1. Performance enhancing drugs have proven negative side effects.
2. Fans consider athletes who use performance enhancing drugs to be cheating.
3. If the league does not ban performance enhancing drugs, that is the functional equivalent of requiring players to take performance enhancing drugs. Then, players would have a valid fraud complaint against the league. Players who do take performance enhancing drugs could blame the league for contributing to their later illness. Players who don't take performance enhancing drugs could blame the league for adversely impacting their career.
4. If the league does not ban performance enhancing drugs, then someone might form a competing league that does ban them, and attract more fans. (I wonder how many fans a "steroids allowed and encouraged" league would attract. When you consider that professional cycling has been nearly ruined by doping scandals, my guess is "not very well".)
   

If you ask most people, "Should professional sports leagues ban performance enhancing drugs?", the answer is "YES!"

What about professional actors/comedians/journalists/politicians? Nearly all of them have had some type of plastic surgery.

If it's wrong for a professional athlete to use performance enhancing drugs, then it should also be wrong for professional actors/comedians/journalists/politicians to have plastic surgery.

Many plastic surgery procedures have negative side effects. Silicone implants were proven to be harmful. Botox is literally poison.

Effectively, plastic surgery has become mandatory for an entertainment career. You'll almost never see a mainstream media personality decried for plastic surgery, unless it's in the "too much and obviously bad" category.

Consider a professional athlete who is discovered or suspected of using performance enhancing drugs. They are roundly decried as cheaters. Consider Bonds, A-Rod, Clemens, etc., all of which were publicly shamed for having used steroids.

How come there's no media outcry for people who have had plastic surgery? Isn't having plastic surgery cheating as much as using performance enhancing drugs?

Shaming athletes who use performance enhancing drugs serves the needs of the bad guys. The fnord is "The State ban on certain drugs is legitimate."

Mainstream media personalities are practically required to have plastic surgery. This also serves the needs of the bad guys. The fnord is "The average person should be insecure about their appearance. The people on TV and in movies are better looking and smarter than you are."

Mainstream media personalities are statistical outliers genetically. Their characteristics are further exaggerated by plastic surgery. This makes the average person very insecure about their appearance.

I'd never noticed that contradiction before. Professional athletes who use performance enhancing drugs are decried as cheaters. Mainstream media personalities are not decried for using plastic surgery. This effectively makes plastic surgery mandatory. The same logic that leads to "Professional athletes should not use performance enhancing drugs!" also leads to "Mainstream media personalities should not have plastic surgery."