And the Tomato Children Shall Lead Us...

Nick Gillespie | December 1, 2004

The Rolling Stone blog (god help us all, everyone) points to this interesting, Dr. Demento-esque comment by Justice Stephen Breyer during the medical marijuana arguments earlier this week:

JUSTICE STEPHEN BREYER: "You know, he grows heroin, cocaine, tomatoes that are going to have genomes in them that could, at some point, lead to tomato children that will eventually affect Boston.

Tomato children? Didn't they chase Diane Linkletter out that window? Whatever happened to the real America, the one filled with marmalade skies and plasticine porters with looking-glass ties? That's one wacked-out mofo, the justice from the Bay State. I'm having two of whatever he's drinking....As Leonard Nimoy might sing it, Breyer's statement is "highly illogical."

More exchange highlights here.

Comments

|12.1.04 @ 5:56PM|#

Maybe he meant tomacco.

|12.1.04 @ 6:01PM|#

Another giant of jurisprudence.

Nominated by the smartest man to ever be president.

QFMC cos. V

|12.1.04 @ 6:07PM|#

"Listen to the flower people ..."

|12.1.04 @ 6:08PM|#

Sandy beat me to it.

|12.1.04 @ 6:15PM|#

Put not your trust in rough transcripts.

|12.1.04 @ 6:23PM|#

WHAT THE FUCK?!?!?!

Jeff|12.1.04 @ 6:25PM|#

Perhaps Boston Italians are building an army of killer tomato children to overthrow the Irish power structure...

|12.1.04 @ 7:47PM|#

Ataaaaaaack of the killer tomato children!!!

OK, it's no where near as funny as the original but it's the best I could come up with today.

|12.1.04 @ 9:32PM|#

Tomato children and reverse supply and demand. Damn, congratulations to Barnett for further revealing the men behind Oz.

|12.1.04 @ 11:29PM|#

Term limits for the SCotUS, anyone?

|12.2.04 @ 4:26AM|#

I actually listened to that Nimoy song...damn your eyes, Nick, damn you...

But "Hothouse Tomato Children" are my favorite band right now...

|12.2.04 @ 9:21AM|#

Not to mention that you can't grow heroin or cocaine. Both are manufactured from plants, and I have never heard of anyone manufacturing heroin or cocaine except for commercial purposes. Which means that they have nothing to do with the basic argument in this case, which is that the Commerce Clause does not grant power over activities that aren't, you know, commerce.

Given the shockingly idiotic tenor of the questions at oral argument, I am bracing myself for what could be the worst SCOTUS decision of all time.

|12.2.04 @ 9:26AM|#

So, do you all really not get the point he's making, or is just more fun to play dumb?

He's inventing, off the top of his head, scenarios in which the private growing of substances for personal use could have serious impacts across state lines. It's a reasonable point to bring up, given the legal issues in the case.

"Gee, what he's saying sounds weird to me. He must be really stupid!" Uh, yeah, Breyer's the stupid one here.

|12.2.04 @ 9:39AM|#

it is a reasonable point, made in that style.

but try re-writing your post in the context of tomato children affecting boston.

ESPECIALLY DUE TO THE FACT THAT TOMATOES ARE NOT FUCKING NARCOTICS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

sorry.

but it's still stupid. plus that whole supply and demand thing. and being a paternalistic cunt. etc.

|12.2.04 @ 10:23AM|#

This asshole should've stayed in the ice cream business.

|12.2.04 @ 12:05PM|#

I don't think it's alarming or evidence of insanity, but it is weird as hell. It's like he's sick of Scalia being "the funny one", so he tried his own joke and it fell flat. Tomato children!

|12.2.04 @ 1:01PM|#

Is joe, this livid luminary of the left, really saying that cocaine and heroin are substances which could be

a) homegrown = produced in a private residence in a quality which roughly matches that of (legal or illegal) commercially produced stuff

b) produced in a quantity, apparently due to the number of homegrowers and/or the size of their output, which would have serious impacts across state lines?

Well, if that's a reasonable point to bring up, I really would hate to see what an unreasonable point of Mr. Justice Breyer would look like, if he ever brought one up.

|12.2.04 @ 1:27PM|#

joe would swear the earth was flat if a Democrat said it.

|12.2.04 @ 2:19PM|#

"scenarios in which the private growing of substances for personal use could have serious impacts across state lines. It's a reasonable point to bring up, given the legal issues in the case."

joe,
I haven't read the context, but could he be mocking how thinly stretched is the Interstate Commerce precedent?
Already it reminds me of the "butterfly effect."
Surely, when the Founders called it Interstate Commerce, they meant, uh, interstate commerce.

|12.18.04 @ 6:01PM|#

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