I used to complain about how much of Northern Virginia winters were spent in the rain, but the deluge overnight here, which is going to restart any minute, could not be more welcome. My neighborhood has been iced-over for weeks, with snow on the ground longer than any time during my decades long residence. (Naturally, this is just more evidence of climate change and global warming, “experts” say, and they know best.) The warm rain is ending that, meaning that walking my over-enthusiastic dog, Spuds, will no longer be life-threatening…at least not as life threatening.
I have too many things I want to write about, and as always, I am hoping to find some guest posts (as in “you write about it so I don’t have to” posts) here today when the dust settles. Olympics ethics stories will be especially welcome, because I refuse to watch the hypocritical spectacle or read about it unless someone sends me a tip. I am very tempted, however, to write about Elaine Gu, the all-American super-star skier who competes representing China in this Winter Olympics. According to the Wall Street Journal, Gu and Zhu Yi, a fellow American-born figure skater who now competes for China, were paid a combined $6.6 million by the Beijing Municipal Sports Bureau in 2025 for “striving for excellent results in qualifying for the 2026 Milan Winter Olympics.” In all, the two were reportedly paid nearly $14 million over the past three years. The payments were revealed when the Beijing Municipal Sports Bureau budget was posted online with the names of Gu and Zhu. Their names have since been scrubbed from the public report.”
Nice. Gu is revolting, and it also proves how far the Olympic have come from their original roots of extolling amateur athletic competition. Gu still is paid by some American corporations to be their sponsors. They are also revolting. Gu’s betrayal of her own nation raises the ethical issue of dual citizenship. She’s a great walking, talking, greedy, ethically-inert example of why we shouldn’t allow it.
But don’t get me started. You get started…
Ethics Alarms 
I am curious about commenters’ feelings about the Olympic Games. I of course follow what the Dutch team is doing, and I am proud of the team. Watching ice skating is like watching national soccer in the Netherlands, with families or pub patrons staring at the television and cheering. Sports is one of those things that arouses warm national feelings in the Netherlands. That is one of the things I miss in the USA.
I wonder what the USA commenters think about their team. I see a lot of complaints on conservative channels about the spirit of the USA team and their lack of ambassadorship. Amber Glenn was mocked for her performance. Here is what Yahoo had to say:
“During a press conference on Feb. 4, Glenn, who is the first openly queer woman to represent the United States in Olympic figure skating, said it has been “a hard time” for her community under the Trump administration, adding she hopes to use her platform to “try and encourage people to stay strong.” Her remarks came after she was asked how she felt about the president and his treatment of LGBTQ people.“
Then there is Eileen Gu, a dual citizen of both USA and China who lives in the USA but decides to represent China at the Olympics.
What does the Olympic Games tell us about the national self-awareness and patriotism in the USA? My impression is that there are some health issues with how the citizens of the USA see their own nation.
Ms. Glenn’s “hard time” is a figment of her imagination as well as the projection of a notion (“the Trump Administration will be hard on LGTBQ people”) into a perceived reality…which is no reality at all. Those people have the same rights and privileges they had when Slo Jo was slobbering down his Jell-O in the captain’s chair of the ship of state…ok, maybe some of the “T” people can no longer go into a girls’ bathroom or play in sports in which they’re not biologically pre-disposed to compete, but that’s it.
Clearly, some of the “letter” people are delusional in more than one dimension. I wonder why Ms. Glenn didn’t go to a devoutly Muslim country and seek to represent them in the Olympics. Could it be that the “hard time” she would face there is somewhat more visceral than here in the U.S.?
I agree. Glenn should have concentrated on her skating. The error she made in free skate prelims was a result of lack of focus. That 6 point loss determined the outcome of the finals.
As for her sexuality, nobody – and I mean nobody – cares. All spectators want to see is high level performances. The gold medalist, Alysa Liu, was a joy to watch. The silver and bronze medalists from Japan were wonderful. The wolf dog bronze medalist in the crosscountry ski showed the heart of a champion. And those downhill and slalom racers are from another planet. Curling is the best though, even when the Canadians are accused of cheating – they even argued politely. The Italian curler is fantastic.
As for the overall question, though, it has been obvious for decades that the Olympics has not been about amatuer competitors. The Soviets always had professional skates on their hockey teams. Swimmers, runners, hockey players (mostly professional players), basketball players, skaters, snowboarders, and the like, sign huge endorsement deals (I read somewhere that Gu is worth north of $20 million from endorsements). Track and field athletes born in Desmoines, Iowa, attending colleges in Texas, Georgia, and/or Florida somehow have Jamaican citizenship to compete on that country’s track and field team. There was a snowboarder, born and raised in the Northeast competing for Great Britian. That means nationality and citizenship are irrelevant to the Games. It is all about Big Olympics. Nothing more. Oh, and don’t ecen think about steroid “scandals.”
jvb
Then, there is Alysa Liu. She has dual citizenship but rejected China’s bid for her to represent China.
jvb
Cees: U.S. population in 2024 approximately 340 million; Netherlands population approximately 18 million. The games of the Winter Olympics are all niche sports. Skeleton? I bet there are more than 18 million rabid U.S. ice hockey fans watching the men’s tournament. Norway’s population is 5.4 million, fewer than the population of metropolitan Phoenix. Norway is leading the medal count over the U.S. who are in second place. I bet there are five million rabid U.S. fans of each of the various winter Olympic sports. With baseball, football and basketball, who has time for speed skating when it only freezes in certain parts of the country?
European countries are small and homogeneous. The U.S. is large and heterogeneous. No comparison. But I will say, European countries such as Germany, the U.K., and The Netherlands are well on their way to losing their homogeneous populations due to bone-headed immigration policies.
What does the Olympic Games tell us about the national self-awareness and patriotism in the USA?
Forgive that I feel the question must be re-structured. “What does the fact that the truth cannot be frankly stated mean for the health of the nation and national patriotism?”
The entire is in truthfulness and its opposite.
entire issue!
“What does the Olympic Games tell us about the national self-awareness and patriotism in the USA?”
Won’t speak for other states/municipalities, but here in America’s Dairyland generally and the 77 Square Miles Surrounded By A Sea Of Reality specifically, women’s hockey was Da Bomb; students cut class and workers called in sick.
That “(A) total of 11 current and former Wisconsin Badgers (DISCLOSURE: Class of ’79) women’s hockey players competed in the 2026 Winter Olympics gold medal game, with 6 winning gold for Team USA and 5 taking silver with Team Canada” were participating should be factored in.
ON WISCONSIN!!!
PWS
Don’t have time to analyze, but: thoughts on Colorado’s decision to legalize protitution?
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/colorado-bill-to-decriminalize-prostitution-sparks-fierce-opposition-debate/ar-AA1WHT8q?ocid=BingNewsSerp
-Jut
Interesting that the first justification for the bill is that “sex workers” need to feel comfortable reporting crimes to law enforcement. This is the same justification used for not enforcing immigration law, i.e., illegals need to be comfortable reporting crimes to law enforcement. The same argument could be made for legalizing bank robbery: bank robbers need to be comfortable reporting crimes to law enforcement.
My proposed solution for bringing illegals out of the shadows (in part so they can be comfortable approaching law enforcement) is to crack down on illegal immigration hard, and then to work to move all the remaining illegals in the country into some kind of legal status. The biggest complain I have regarding illegal immigration is that it, interestingly enough, creates an underworld of human trafficking, especially sex trafficking and especially of minors. But what we’ve seen in the past is that handing out amnesty (or making illegal entry devoid of any penalties) increases the illegal immigration, which creates larger groups of illegals that can’t approach law enforcement in fear of being apprehended for their illegal status. So the crackdown has to come first.
The legalization of prostitution does not, from what I’ve read in other places, help prostitutes very much. Where prostitution has been legalized, the demand for prostitutes has increased, and usually beyond the supply of prostitutes, which then drives up the number of illegally trafficked people. So there may be prostitutes which find the situation improved from legalization, but there are many others who are hurt because of the legalization. Once again, any new law typically carries with it unforeseen consequences.
One of the issue with trying to make it easier for prostitutes to approach law enforcement is that a number of people who are trafficked are caught in a situation where they risk not just legal consequences (though that can be frightening enough) but also personal. We had someone come talk to our school teachers a few years back about noticing signs that a child might be caught up in trafficking. Apparently a common occurrence is that a teenage girl moves to a new town, and is hit on by an attractive boy who is actually a front for the trafficking ring. He entices her over, drugs her, takes nude (and maybe even sexually explicit) photos, and then threatens to send those photos around the school or to other entities unless she complies with demands. To sweeten the deal, her “customers” then provide fancy gifts, like new iPhones, jewelry, expensive designer handbags, and so on. So while there’s the possibility that she could face jail time for being a prostitute, the social fear of having her pictures circulated so that her parents and peers find out is the initial thing keeping her from seeking help. So teachers were asked to watching the girls in their classes for any signs of suddenly having expensive accessories that they normally wouldn’t have, especially if they are the quiet sort who don’t seem to have any close friends.
In situations like these, the legality of prostitution doesn’t really help. The blackmail, the mutually assured destruction if the trafficked girl seeks help, remains. Having nude photos spread around, especially since electronic copies can proliferate rapidly and never go away, can be very destructive socially. People have had to move to escape the proximity of people who know them and have possession of those pictures.
The legalization of prostitution can also make matters worse by making it seem that prostitution is now a viable option, which will lure in more people who won’t consider how being a prostitute impacts the way peers view them, or how employers will look in askance at someone who for a time made money through sex-work.
Colorado really is trying to race other Democrat-controlled states down the tubes.
There are many ways in which you can legalize or decriminalize prostitution. One option is via licensing. E.g. you can only get a license to be an escort or work in a brother if you are an American citizen, pay taxes, no criminal record, no criminal connections, and subject to regular health checks.
Any legislation should have as target to reduce evils such as sex trafficking and conditions of slavery.
I do not see the purpose of saddling women with a criminal record because they do or are forced to do sex work.
Prostitution is legalized in Nevada in the non-metropolitan counties. My impression is that Pahrump NV is known for high crime rates and sex trafficking cartels. In other words, we have precedent here in the USA that legalized prostitution can work without significant negative social side effects such as crime, drug addiction, STDs, money laundering.
Prostitution was legal in many places in the USA in the nineteenth century, an era with much stricter sexual morals than today. We can think of saloons in the Wild West, and Storyville in New Orleans. However the abolitionists who succeeded in ending slavery were in the early twentieth century successful in the prohibition of alcohol and prostitution.
Prostitution is also legalized or decriminalized in many countries such as Australia, New Zealand, Germany, and the Netherlands. Looking at Dutch history, prostitution laws have differed throughout the centuries. In the Middle Ages prostitution was allowed. A decree from the City of Amsterdam in 1413 stated:
Because whores are necessary in big cities and especially in cities of commerce such as ours – indeed it is far better to have these women than not to have them – and also because the holy church tolerates whores on good grounds, for these reasons the court and sheriff of Amsterdam shall not entirely forbid the keeping of brothels.
This attitude is in line with the attitude of famous doctors of the Church such as Augustine and Aquinas who condemned prostitution and fornication as grave sins, but argued in favor of legal tolerance using the “Lesser Evil” argument, noting that prostitution acts as a safety valve, preventing the disruption of social order, chaotic lust, and dangerous vice including rape and seduction of married women. Aquinas did not regard legal tolerance as moral approval, as he did not see it as the role of human law to ban all vice.
Considering Amsterdam and other port cities I can see the wisdom of the Church doctors, as sailors during the age of sail were a rough bunch of men who were sex starved during their long travels at sea. Many of the red light districts were conveniently located for sailors on leave. Ditty’s like Barnacle Bill the Sailor memorialize the wanton attitude of sailors regarding women.
Attitudes about sexuality and prostitution have changed in the Netherlands over the centuries due to religious changes such as the Spanish Occupation and the Reformation as John Calvin had much stricter ideas about regulating vice. But in the Dutch Golden Age the attitude of the magistrates became more laissez faire as long as brothels did not cause trouble. In 1911 brothels and pimping were officially forbidden, however in a typical pragmatic way condoned or tolerated with an eye to harm reduction. Prostitution was defined as a legal profession in January 1988.
The article gives a nice overview of the history of prostitution in the Netherlands.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prostitution_in_the_Netherlands
About my own views on this matter:
CVB,
Just letting you know I’m tickled you referenced Aquinas and Augustine. I was contemplating mentioning their toleration as the “lesser of two evils,” but left it out because my conclusion essentially states that legalizing prostitution doesn’t amount to said lesser evil anymore. Maybe it is because we have such an interconnected society today that you have much harder time running from your past, or maybe because, as I said, electronic photos seem to stick around forever.
One question for clarification: You said, “In other words, we have precedent here in the USA that legalized prostitution can work without significant negative social side effects such as crime, drug addiction, STDs, money laundering.” Was that meant to be cannot, or were you taking a contrasting position to your previous observation Pahrump, NV?
To say nothing of how the federal government (and, presumably, the states, too) is supposed to promote the general welfare (it’s in the Constitution). Prostitution, like gambling, does not promote the general welfare. It costs money, can be become easily addictive and can (and does) destroy families. A leading cause of poverty in the United States is divorce which can result from destructive addictions to gambling and prostitution.
One of the biggest marketing lies in history is the motto, “What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas”. No, it doesn’t.
Government should not be in the business of promoting destructive habits that destroy families, leaving them broken and impoverished. The amount of tax dollars gleaned from legalized gambling and prostitution is negligible compared to the extensive needs of women and children left destitute. And, of course, any government will find all kinds of shenanigans for new tax streams beyond what the intended use is
An excellent response and great food for thought!
Prostitution in Amsterdam is being reexamined. Objectifying and monetizing women just doesn’t play as well as it has in the past. Cheap air travel has turned Amsterdam into a sexual tourism hot spot. Sailors have been replaced by blokes from the U.K. on holiday or a weekend binge.
What does the Olympic Games tell us about the national self-awareness and patriotism in the USA? My impression is that there are some health issues with how the citizens of the USA see their own nation.
Some difficult facts need to be put forward and accepted in order to be able to understand the present condition and situation of the US. Here, in a (supposed) CWWllrvative environment, understanding the truth and speaking the truth (I only mean the real truth of facts and conditions and not Truth of another sort and level), is quite difficult, risky and even perilous.
The US has itself sold itself out. I think it is as I have tried to say in other posts and even though it sounds like a *lefty* talking point. It is the business class of America — the Reagan class — that transferred to core of America’s strength (manufacturing) to China and other nations in their grand plan of creating a ‘global economic order’. I guess this was a natural evolution after dominating in WWll and having the power, and the vision, to create the ‘postwar order’.
As the Nation sold out its *identity* as an Anglo-Saxon nation (it is perilous to even mention this in some environments), and as the object of the Neo-imperial nation was no longer the health and well-being of America (the business class does not give el culo de una rata for national health in a genuine Republican sense) for the vast wealth that could be gathered by becoming a world-power and a globalized nation, it could not do else but import the masses — initially for labor purposes, but now because the Anglo-Saxon population will not produce enough babies to maintain the needs of the business class. So it becomes an imperative to repopulate the nation with *other peoples*. Now, the very definition of *American* is not clear. Or put another way they are competing versions. But the business class, who also controls the intelligence apparatus, will in the end get things worked out to their liking. And the *propaganda-making class* will sell this cultural project as American patriotism.
…like at half-time games of American football. Like in television ads. Like in patriotic speeches. Like within the halls of the American industries.
“My impression is that there are some health issues with how the citizens of the USA see their own nation.”
It requires a ‘doctor’ to perform an examination of the social and political body to test the state of its health right? But what doctor? This one thing I have been trying to think about and think through: Who makes the analysis? Whoever does so does so in accord with some defined doctrine. I could list 5 different fountains of such viewpoint and they do not accord with each other.
The real fact seems to be this: the System itself must not allow a whole set of truths (in the small-t sense) to be discussed, broadcast and known. It functions as a smoke-screen against clear seeing and realistic understanding. I was thinking about this when considering Jack’s experience watching the morning TV. The purpose is not revelation, the purpose is obfuscation.
(I could not correct the italics).
People seem to think that there is something noble in amateur sport. From what I have read, amateur sport was something cooked up by the upper class so that their competitions would not be sullied by the great unwashed who could not compete in sport because they had to work for a living so had no time to train or compete.