Concordia res Parvae Crescunt
The following essay is provided as an educational service by our friends at the Downsize DC Foundation
Quote of the Day: “All substances are poisons: there is none which is not a poison. The right dose differentiates a poison and a remedy.” — Paracelsus (1493-1541)
The baseball pitcher, Roger Clemens, is in the news. He has been charged with the supposed crime of lying to the politicians in Congress about his use of steroids.
* How should we think about this?
* What are the Constitutional issues involved?
To answer these questions we offer you some imaginary testimony — things Roger Clemens could have said to Congress, instead of what he did say.
* You’ve heard of people “pleading the 5th” — invoking the 5th Amendment’s protection against self incrimination, but . . .
* James Wilson argues that Clemens should have “plead the 10th” — invoking the 10th Amendment’s limitation of federal power.
* You’ll see why when you read the imaginary testimony below.
An earlier version of this was published on Thursday, January 10, 2008, when Clemens was first called to testify before Congress. This slightly edited version makes points that are just as relevant now.
*******
Has anyone ever refused to answer a question from a federal inquisitor on Tenth Amendment grounds? I don’t know, but I’d love to hear it from Roger Clemens when he testifies at a House Oversight and Government Reform Committee next month:
“Mr. Chairman, I have read the Constitution and it does not grant you authority to hold a hearing on steroid use. Therefore, I will exercise my rights as an American citizen under the Tenth Amendment, and my natural rights as a human being, by refusing to answer your questions.
“But let me clarify one thing: I do see under Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution that Congress has the authority to regulate commerce among the states and with foreign nations. It’s possible that this includes anything that relates to the selling of goods across state lines. I will therefore affirm that . . .
“I do not know how or where steroids are produced or distributed, and even if I may have known someone who sold steroids, I never saw him or her transport them across state lines. Therefore . . .
“To the extent that a Congressional hearing on steroids might conceivably be Constitutionally legitimate, because the steroids may have been produced in one state and sold in another, I do not have any information to help you.
“And to the extent that this hearing is illegitimate because there is no federal power to regulate such substances, I refuse to help you, and instead suggest that you obey the Constitutional limits on your power.
“My non-cooperation does not mean that I endorse performance-enhancing drugs in baseball or anywhere else. Major League Baseball is a private organization, and has the right to ban steroid use, and suspend or fine those who disobey. I can see the merit in this. Young men shouldn’t have to choose between a huge paycheck today and poor health tomorrow. So . . .
“I agree with Major League Baseball’s decision to ban steroids, but your help isn’t needed. Tens of billions of dollars have been squandered on waste, fraud, and abuse in Iraq, yet you insist on holding a hearing on a problem that the private sector is taking care of by itself.
“The Constitution you have sworn to obey gives Congress few and specific powers. Prohibiting individual drug use is not among them. Such things are clearly left to the states and to “the people,” as the Tenth Amendment says.
“If steroid possession or use should be illegal, the states should have laws and enforce them. But better yet, if drugs are so bad, the private sector could provide drugs tests, and indeed much of the private sector, including baseball, already does this. We do not need federal police and federal prisons warehousing thousands of non-violent drug dealers and drug users. The whole War on Drugs, of which the War on Steroids is a part, is a Constitutional travesty.
“I will not defend steroid-dealers, or any other kind of drug-dealer, but if they are bad, you members of this Committee are much worse. At least steroid-dealers serve willing customers, whereas you use threats of violence against the unwilling, as you did when you forced me to appear before you today.
“The federal republic was formed to provide an internal free-trade zone and a common foreign policy for the states. The federal government has the power to arrest and try people in only a few narrow areas, such as treason and counterfeiting. Steroid use may be dangerous. Steroid use may possibly be immoral. But steroid use is none of your business.
“I do not recognize the legitimacy of this hearing. I will now leave.”
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The black hole that the U.S. Congress uses to sap energy out of the American Republic, known as the commerce clause, does not apply in the Clemens case: FEDERAL BASEBALL CLUB V. NATIONAL LEAGUE, 259 U. S. 200 (1922).
This entire situation is really a non-event and we all need to contact our Congressmen and Congresswomen for a response on where they have the authority to do these types of investigations. I have yet to hear from mine here in Georgia.
I wrote to Roger Clemens and his attorney, pointing them to this article. Who knows, they just might plead the Tenth!
The war on drugs is a tale of a once great and free nation which fell down a rat hole into a fantasy world riddled with peculiar and dystopian logic.
No amount of money, police powers, weaponry, wishful thinking or pseudo-science will make our streets safe again; only an end to prohibition can do that. How much longer are we willing to foolishly risk our own survival by continuing to ignore the obvious, historically confirmed solution?
If you support prohibition then you're doing nothing but helping evolve local gangs into transnational enterprises with intricate power structures that reach into every corner of society, controlling vast swaths of territory with significant social and military resources at their disposal.
There are just three groups of people who still believe in drug prohibition:
1. Fairly retarded true believers; ignorant Calvinists that have never lost their vindictive fervor for punitive hatred and who actually think it's better that way. They get high on their own stupidity while protesting the taking of any non-liquid intoxicants.
2. Those who profit from the law enforcement/ prison industrial complex.
3. Those who profit from the manufacture, sale, and distribution of prohibited drugs.
The thing that's really important to keep in mind is that the second group is oftentimes inexorably intertwined with the third group, while they both pretend to be part of the first group.
No amount of money, police powers, weaponry, wishful thinking or pseudo-science will make our streets safe again; only an end to prohibition can do that. How much longer are we willing to foolishly risk our own survival by continuing to ignore the obvious, historically confirmed solution?
If you support prohibition then you've helped trigger the worst crime wave in history.
If you support prohibition you've a helped create a black market with massive incentives to hook both adults and children alike.
If you support prohibition you've helped to make these dangerous substances available in schools and prisons.
If you support prohibition you've helped raise gang warfare to a level not seen since the days of alcohol bootlegging.
If you support prohibition you've helped create the prison-for-profit synergy with drug lords.
If you support prohibition you've helped remove many important civil liberties from those citizens you falsely claim to represent.
If you support prohibition you've helped put previously unknown and contaminated drugs on the streets.
If you support prohibition you've helped to escalate Theft, Muggings and Burglaries.
If you support prohibition you've helped to divert scarce law-enforcement resources away from protecting your fellow citizens from the ever escalating violence against their person or property.
If you support prohibition you've helped overcrowd the courts and prisons, thus making it increasingly impossible to curtail the people who are hurting and terrorizing others.
If you support prohibition you've helped evolve local gangs into transnational enterprises with intricate power structures that reach into every corner of society, controlling vast swaths of territory with significant social and military resources at their disposal.
If you support prohibition then prepare yourself for even more death, corruption, sickness, imprisonment, unemployment, foreclosed homes, and the complete loss of the rule of law and the Bill of Rights.
Sure is part of the problem! Freedom of personal choice went down that rat hole a long time ago....we aim to turn that around (someday).
What a great exemplification of the abuse of our constitution by the power hungry elete!
I was beginning to wonder myself what power they had to hold hearing since only the judicial branch can do that. It should makes us wonder the danger we are in because if they can hold hearings then they can try people who break the laws. Who will dare declare their own creations unconstitutional then?
even in its broadest sense, the ability to do what they're doing is nonsense. Great article from DDC!
The commerce clause is a mess. The word 'regulate' was meant to 'make regular' in the VERY big sense of import tariffs, blockades, favoritism, etc. (along the lines of trade wars among nations). It was not intended to allow federal micro-management of every transaction in the nation.
I have a unique interpretation of the commerce clause that shuts it down to just transactions involving STATES but I don't have the energy to defend it here yet again. Sadly, the language in the commerce clause practically begs the power-mad people in Washington to use it for virtually everything.
Every time I read of its use for crap like this (baseball!), I see red!!!
Tenther Radio!
"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."
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[...] Clemens Should Plead the 10th! Posted on August 26, 2010 by Bill Miller This article by Downsize DC on TenthAmendmentCenter.com. The baseball pitcher, Roger Clemens, is in the news. He has been charged with the supposed crime [...]