The adage says, "You can't legislate morality." This writer is uncertain of the provenance of that observation, but presumes that it hearkens back at least to the 18th Amendment-Prohibition--which was certified in 1919. In the entire history of the United States, it is the only Amendment to be repealed (in 1933).

Early Progressivism gave birth to the Temperance Movement, and the Temperance Movement gave birth to Prohibition. Prohibition failed.

But, the Progressive mentality underpinning the 18th Amendment will not go away, and seems to be gathering strength in many aspects of our society under the influence of the current leadership in Washington. Thus, we can read in Fox Sports, that it is time to expunge alcohol from the locker rooms of Major League Baseball.. Why? Because are some professional baseball players, earning millions of dollars but battling alcoholism, for whom it is unfair:

....The Tigers are supporting Miguel Cabrera in his battle with alcoholism....A universal ban on alcohol in major league clubhouses is long overdue. Until every team removes beer from the working quarters of its employees, each day on the baseball schedule will include the most unsettling of possibilities - that alcohol consumed in a clubhouse could contribute to injury or death on the road.

I struggle to think of a good reason why baseball clubhouses should be viewed differently than all the other workplaces where alcohol is forbidden. The NFL gets this. Roger Goodell has a simple, easy-to-remember policy: If you're in the locker room, bus or airplane of an NFL team, you can't drink. Period.

It's time for Major League Baseball to do the same thing, rather than continue leaving the decision to individual teams [emphasis added].

Both Progressivism and its progeny, Temperance, were founded in the idea that the collective society could define individual rights, and thus should dictate societal behavior.

Of all of the Constitutional Amendments, the 21st, repealing Prohibition might be the most overlooked in terms of significance, because, with the 21st Amendment, Americans shed themselves of a concept that was anathema to the Constitution. Prohibition stood in direct contravention to the ideals of personal liberty that guided the framers of the Constitution. The repeal of Prohibition was the first defeat of Progressivism.

The moral motivation of the Temperance movement should not be denied, but neither should that movement's ham-fisted approach to an issue that was grounded in individual liberty. It took almost fifteen years for the American people to correct the Prohibition mistake, but the repeal was the greatest affirmation of Constitutional values that, perhaps, we have ever seen. Passage of the 21st Amendment sent a clear message that ideologues should not dictate how we live our lives; we would not accept a "top-down", command-and-control society....

If MLB wants to ban alcohol for PR purposes, because it's good for business, fine. Do it. But don't step on the Constitutional rights of the majority to protect the MSM's newly-minted rights of the few. If the Detroit clubhouse wants to impose an alcohol ban to support their teammate, that's great. But this is not a top-down society.

Just look at the 21st Amendment.

John Peeples welcomes comments at HomelandDefenseC@bellsouth.net