Comments on: More Balko-B.S. (But I Repeat Myself)

By: Patterico’s Pontifications » Why Would I Say Radley Balko Isn’t Always Accurate? Because He Isn’t.

Thu, 24 Aug 2006 16:44:33 +0000

[...] Xrlq has caught Balko on other distortions (see here and here). [...]

By: Xrlq

Xrlq — Tue, 13 Dec 2005 04:22:47 +0000

Games between teams from a single state are the exception, not the rule. In any event, Balko can’t have it both ways. If professional sports aren’t interstate commerce, the Sherman Act can’t apply to them, and therefore, the teams can collude all they want and the Justice Department shouldn’t have a f’n thing to say about it. State attorneys general might, provided they only enforce state laws rather than any federal law Balko claims Congress had no power to enact in the first place, but the result would almost certainly be an impossible patchwork of state-specific rules that would make nationwide sports leagues very difficult, if not impossible, to run. Maybe you think that’s what the framers of the Constitution wanted. I don’t; it strikes me as precisely the sort of crap the Commerce Clause was intended to prevent.

By: Tom Trigger

Tom Trigger — Tue, 13 Dec 2005 02:59:46 +0000

“To argue that professional sports is not interstate commerce is every bit as preposterous as arguing that medical marijuana grown in a single state and never sold, is.”

Not so fast. The fact that a business or industry is conducted in multiple states does not make it “interstate commerce” according to any natural reading of that phrase — or more importantly, as the founders intended. If the feds wanted to pass a law saying that baseball teams travelling from state to state had to travel by bus rather than plane, that would be a regulation of interstate commerce. But if they decided that the distance from home to first should be shortened to 80 feet, the fact that there are MLB franchises in multiple states would not make that a constitutional exercise of Congress’ commerce power.

The Commerce Clause is not — except in the fevered, power-mad dreams of liberals — a general grant of comprehensive regulatory power over everything that happens in two or more states.

By: triticale

triticale — Sun, 11 Dec 2005 18:55:51 +0000

I am perfectly willing to accept Major League Baseball’s claim not to be a business. This is, I trust, reflected in the non-deductability of any expenses related to it.

By: Xrlq

Xrlq — Sun, 11 Dec 2005 06:54:59 +0000

What are Balkons? German balconies?

By: TM Lutas

TM Lutas — Sun, 11 Dec 2005 03:49:08 +0000

Oh no you don’t! You won’t get away with palming Radley Balko on the Balkans. Have you no shame sir? Have you no decency?

Perhaps you meant Balkons? That’s the only way I’ll ever forgive you.

>B-)