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Originally Posted by valo403
What about the second question? This is a modern interconnected world, so at what point do human rights or other abuses become enough to make a boycott okay? I honestly paid very little attention to the Beijing games in any capacity so I don't recall if there was any talk of boycott there, but should there have been? What if Russia's policy was based upon race as well as sexuality? Would that be enough?
Btw, I'm not calling on you to decide one way or the other here, I'm just sort of spitballing on the idea of where you draw the line.
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You know your putting me in a tough spot where no matter how I answer I look like a cold callous ####### right.
I don't know if there's an equivalency level.
Personally I thought that China should have never gotten the Olympics because of their horrendous human rights record, and on top of it environmentally they are a disaster who has never been called out on it.
But in terms of Boycotts, the only Olympics to be boycotted were Moscow (invasion of Afghanistan, the world called the boycott to punish the Soviet Union) and Las Angeles (retailiation by the Eastern Bloc, which was great because of Canada's medal haul
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The only other times the Olympics have been cancelled were 1916 (WW1) and 1940 and 1944 (WW2).
For the most part I believe that the IOC views the Olympics as an international event not predicated on countries internal politics, neither host or participants.
Now here's where I am callous. Why aren't nations calling for Iran to be excluded for example (execute Homosexuals), or Russia during the cold war (horrible human rights, institutionalized and brutalized homosexuals classed as mental illnesses), The United States (minority rights up until the 70's).
The IOC is not an international force for good, its a massive marketing and administration team. They don't really see themselves as forces for governmental change.
Boycotts would be up to individual countries at this point, this is why the Moscow Olympics were boycotted. However I do know that a lot of athletes were crushed.
Let me put this question back to you though. While a lot of countries have done great things with equal rights for Gays etc, is it an important enough issue to completely screw up foreign relations and policy with Russia who right now could be classed as an ascendant world power. Same question with China who owns almost every country in the world, are homosexual rights and human rights in China a big enough priority nationally to potentially screw up relations with China?
Its easy enough to stand up and scream yes, and in an ideal world it would be the right thing to do. To punish a nation for a major transgression, but there are countless other factors.
Its up to the individual nations, but for the U.S. or Canada or UK or whatever to boycott would have major diplomatic repercussions.
It would come down to the athlete level if they want to do something. However they would probably need to get approval from their nations Olympic Committee.