Radiofree West Hartford - The Constitution Doesn't Mention Sports or Steroids by Judson Cox

The Constitution Doesn't Mention Sports or Steroids

By Judson Cox

December 15, 2004

I am a baseball fan - especially of the Atlanta Braves - so you might expect me to decry the evils of steroid use. Well, I don't particularly care whether or not Gary Sheffield used steroids; he is still one of the most amazing athletes to ever step onto a diamond. Maybe athletes shouldn't use anabolic steroids; maybe baseball should be purged of steroids - but, that should be up to baseball.

Congress is threatening legislation to ban steroid use in professional baseball. Okay, let me dig out my copy of the Constitution…"We the people"…….etc., etc., "Congress shall make no law"…….. Nope, nothing in there granting government the power to dictate supplementation by professional athletes. In fact, that document is mostly comprised of limitations on government.

John McCain disagrees, "government intervention if baseball owners and players don't agree on a stricter steroid-testing program…I threatened them last March, and they didn't do anything. I don't know what choice we have unless we act now."

Contrast McCain's statement with one by a true Republican, the man whose seat he now holds:

I have little interest in streamlining government or in making it more efficient, for I mean to reduce its size. I do not undertake to promote welfare, for I propose to extend freedom. My aim is not to pass laws, but to repeal them. It is not to inaugurate new programs, but to cancel old ones that do violence to the Constitution, or that have failed in their purpose, or that impose on the people an unwarranted financial burden. I will not attempt to discover whether legislation is 'needed' before I have first determined whether it is constitutionally permissible. And if I should later be attacked for neglecting my constituents' 'interests,' I shall reply that I was informed their main interest is liberty and that in that cause I am doing the very best I can. - from The Conscience of a Conservative by Barry Goldwater

Those are words that can transform a party and win the hearts and minds of America. John McCain is no Barry Goldwater. Thank God we didn't elect this would-be dictator president!

We live in a country where estrogen is essentially forced on a woman after a certain age, a woman can get testosterone to increase her libido and a man can get estrogen to make him more feminine - but if a man tries to increase his testosterone level, the DEA will knock down his door and send his doctor to jail! I smell the stench of radical feminism here. Maybe anabolic hormones are bad for you, maybe they are immoral - I don't know. I do know that government is meddling in matters where it has no place.

Earlier this year, our benevolent nanny state of a government moved to outlaw the hormonal precursors to natural testosterone commonly known as "andros". Last year, you could walk into nearly any vitamin store in the country, and buy andro products that would help your body produce peak levels of testosterone. These products were legal, safe and relatively cheap. Even though there is no documentation of anyone ever being harmed by such products, the FDA moved to ban them.

The full story of the andro ban can be found at www.t-mag.com, as well as information on alternative products that are still legal. This site is run by sports nutritionists, bio-chemists and doctors, most of whom are also body builders and power lifters. They know a bit more about the subject than the pasty and flaccid denizens of Capitol Hill.

Most of the people who read this column will never be directly affected by McCain's meddling in professional baseball or the ban on andros, but we are all affected by government interference in the private sector. Whenever our government oversteps the bounds of our constitution, all liberty is at jeopardy. Is it too much to ask that before congress passes legislation, the sponsor of the bill should show where in our Constitution congress is authorized to do so?