The Rules are the Rules

By Crispin Sartwell

"The rules are the rules," said International Olympic Committee Vice President Dick Pound, explaining why the Committee stripped all-around gymnastics winner Andreea Raducan of her gold medal. That decision was upheld by the Court of Arbitration for Sport on Thursday, which apparently exhausts the appeals process.

Raducan, a charming 16-year-old Romanian, was punished for treating a cold with pseudoephedrine, which is commonly marketed in the US as an over-the-counter decongestant under the brand-name Sudafed. The medication was given to her by the Romanian team doctor, who has been banned for his trouble from the next two Olympics.

You have probably used cold medications containing pseudoephedrine, and I want you to think for a moment how much the stuff would help you win a gymnastics gold medal. The decision is absurd, cruel, and unjust on its face.

However, "we really had no choice [except] to do what we did," said IOC medical commission member Donald Catlin. "We had to do what we did because it was part of the new IOC code."

Now let me make a few bald assertions. Rules are little stains on pieces of paper. They are incapable of making anyone do anything. That one was just following the rules is never a good reason or excuse for any action whatever. That one has no choice because rules are rules is always false and always an expression of moral cowardice. The next time someone tells you that the rules are the rules, I suggest that you start stockpiling weaponry.

I live in York, Pa. We had a case out here last year in which a six-year-old student, Timiere Crosby, was expelled for a year for bringing nail clippers to school, on the grounds that nail clippers are prohibited weapons. (Later, his punishment was reduced to a ten-day suspension.) The teacher said she had to report it to the principal because that's the policy. The principal had to report it to the superintendent because that's the policy. The school board had to expel Timiere because that's the policy.

As these vicious fools bowed and scraped before their policies, the fact that a small child and his family were being publicly humiliated for no reason whatever didn't seem to register with anyone. The teacher, the principal, the superintendent, and the board said they had no responsibility. I say they displayed their slavishness, stupidity, and savagery to anyone who was paying attention. And I say the same thing to the IOC.

Remember the My Lai massacre? Just following orders. The defense offered by the Nazis at the Nuremburg trials? Just observing the chain of command. In fact the entire culture of Germany was mobilized to slaughter millions of people, in accordance with policy. The history of the twentieth century is a history of the greatest barbarities ever inflicted by and on our species. The Cultural Revolution under Mao, Stalin's forced collectivization of agriculture, the Killing Fields in Cambodia, the bloodbath in Rwanda: everyone involved was just abiding by the rules when they saturated the earth with blood and the air with the stench of decomposition. And the rules are the rules.

Bad things sometimes happen when people disobey the rules. Rape, murder, theft: they're against the rules unless they're done by the authorities. But the true horror starts when people start obeying the rules just because they are the rules. That's when the cattle cars start hauling away the corpses.

Real morality is based on relationships with real people. It's based on concern and decency and love expressed toward real other people in real situations. The rules, laws, policies - even the good ones - lurch toward nightmare when they are applied without that sort of real engagement with the situations of particular people.

Obviously, the International Olympic Committee is not the Khmer Rouge. But just as obviously, there are people there who can decide to give Andreea her medal back. You know what the right thing is, and so do they. All they need is a little less idolatry for ink and a little more guts.

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