Chris Lewis was for many years a world-class professional tennis player, and today remains New Zealand's most successful tennis professional ever. Among his achievements: reaching the final of the 1983 Wimbledon Tennis Championship against John McEnroe.

Today a coach, Lewis is also active with Libertarianz, New Zealand's libertarian political party.

Lewis had an article in the New Zealand libertarian magazine Free Radical. Entitled "Forced Funding vs. Freedom," the article is a blistering attack against government subsidy of sports -- or anything else. An excerpt:

"Imagine if each time money was needed to provide something that most people wanted, you heard someone say, 'I know how we can get enough money, let's go out and rob a bank.' In such an instance, it wouldn't be necessary to point out the immorality of such a suggestion, which would quickly be dismissed as a joke. Why is it, then, when one considers the fact that governments acquire their money the same way bank robbers do -- by coercion -- that most people are willing to not only tolerate government theft, but to actively encourage it?

"Even when you point out the immorality of taking money from some to pay for the unearned benefit of others, no matter who commits the crime, most people still believe that the government is exempt from condemnation!

"Whatever way you look at it, theft, whether it's in the name of funding student education, sponsoring talented artists, or assisting athletes in their quest to win gold medals, is a violation of property rights and what should be sacrosanct in any decent society -- the freedom to pursue our own dreams, goals and lives without interference from anybody, including the government.

"...Such acts are moral crimes, they are direct attacks on what life requires -- individual freedom -- and why I am totally opposed to government funding of sport, Olympic or otherwise, or to any other government programmes or agencies that are funded with stolen money."

(Thanks to Kenneth Irvine )