Deal or no deal? Repeal or no repeal?

[JakeStarkey]

So we just have to work harder to get the message out that you can deal constructively with issues without socializing a huge chunk of the American economy, imposing a lot of unconstitutional mandates, and dismantling the best healthcare system in the world.

Oh good lord, tell me you don't actually think that's what this law does.

Can you show me the part of the Constitution that grants government the power to force people to buy something?

Misdirection. The bill requires no one to buy anything, whereas the government does force you to pay for Medicaid and Medicare and Social Security.

 

[JakeStarkey]

That won't happen.

 

[rightwinger]

Can you show me the part of the Constitution that grants government the power to force people to buy something?

The Constitutional basis has been walked through in numerous places. Here's an older one from Georgetown (The Constitutionality of Mandates to Purchase Health Insurance) and here's a shorter brief out this week from the Urban Institute (Are State Challenges to the Legality of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act Likely to Succeed?). The short answer being that justifications tend to go in one (or more) of three directions: 1) the interstate commerce clause authority to regulate health insurance (as expressly indicated by the Court in United States v. South-Eastern Underwriters Association), 2) Congress's general power to levy a tax, or 3) a necessary-and-proper clause justification, since the individual mandate only exists to make the guaranteed issue rules functional.

But of the "socializing a huge chunk of the American economy, imposing a lot of unconstitutional mandates, and dismantling the best healthcare system in the world" trifecta of wild claims, this is the least interesting since even it were struck down as unconstitutional, the individual mandate could easily be restructured to get exactly the same effect in an undeniably constitutional way.

I don't know why you people even bother with the Constitution any more. None of you seem to give a damn about it.

In other words....I just got my ass handed to me and am now pouting

 

[daveman]

Oh good lord, tell me you don't actually think that's what this law does.

Can you show me the part of the Constitution that grants government the power to force people to buy something?

Misdirection. The bill requires no one to buy anything, whereas the government does force you to pay for Medicaid and Medicare and Social Security.

Obamacare does not force you to buy anything? I guess that's why they can fine you if you don't, huh?

Perhaps you need to do a little research. And I don't mean reading DailyKOS.

 

[JakeStarkey]

Can you show me the part of the Constitution that grants government the power to force people to buy something?

Misdirection. The bill requires no one to buy anything, whereas the government does force you to pay for Medicaid and Medicare and Social Security.

Obamacare does not force you to buy anything? I guess that's why they can fine you if you don't, huh?

Perhaps you need to do a little research. And I don't mean reading DailyKOS.

Son, you better drop your bias and look at the world as it is. (1) The government can make you buy stuff. (2) The government is not making you buy HC, but if you won't then you help subsidize others who can't.

Get over it.

 

[Polk]

So we just have to work harder to get the message out that you can deal constructively with issues without socializing a huge chunk of the American economy, imposing a lot of unconstitutional mandates, and dismantling the best healthcare system in the world.

Oh good lord, tell me you don't actually think that's what this law does.

Can you show me the part of the Constitution that grants government the power to force people to buy something?

Go ask George Washington about that one, who signed the very first federal law which required the purchase of a good.

 

[daveman]

The Constitutional basis has been walked through in numerous places. Here's an older one from Georgetown (The Constitutionality of Mandates to Purchase Health Insurance) and here's a shorter brief out this week from the Urban Institute (Are State Challenges to the Legality of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act Likely to Succeed?). The short answer being that justifications tend to go in one (or more) of three directions: 1) the interstate commerce clause authority to regulate health insurance (as expressly indicated by the Court in United States v. South-Eastern Underwriters Association), 2) Congress's general power to levy a tax, or 3) a necessary-and-proper clause justification, since the individual mandate only exists to make the guaranteed issue rules functional.

But of the "socializing a huge chunk of the American economy, imposing a lot of unconstitutional mandates, and dismantling the best healthcare system in the world" trifecta of wild claims, this is the least interesting since even it were struck down as unconstitutional, the individual mandate could easily be restructured to get exactly the same effect in an undeniably constitutional way.

I don't know why you people even bother with the Constitution any more. None of you seem to give a damn about it.

In other words....I just got my ass handed to me and am now pouting

No, I mean what I say...liberals don't give a shit about the Constitution. Look at the financial reform bill. It violates the 4th and 5th Amendments. Inarguably.

So you found a lib law professor to rubber-stamp the leftist agenda. Color me shocked.

 

[daveman]

Misdirection. The bill requires no one to buy anything, whereas the government does force you to pay for Medicaid and Medicare and Social Security.

Obamacare does not force you to buy anything? I guess that's why they can fine you if you don't, huh?

Perhaps you need to do a little research. And I don't mean reading DailyKOS.

Son, you better drop your bias and look at the world as it is. (1) The government can make you buy stuff. (2) The government is not making you buy HC, but if you won't then you help subsidize others who can't.

Get over it.

See? "FUCK the Constitution!"

 

[daveman]

Oh good lord, tell me you don't actually think that's what this law does.

Can you show me the part of the Constitution that grants government the power to force people to buy something?

Go ask George Washington about that one, who signed the very first federal law which required the purchase of a good.

*citation needed*

 

[JakeStarkey]

Son, you don't understand the Constitution, so move along until you can offer something knowledgable.

Don't like my language: then try being polite.

 

[Polk]

Can you show me the part of the Constitution that grants government the power to force people to buy something?

Go ask George Washington about that one, who signed the very first federal law which required the purchase of a good.

*citation needed*

Second Militia Act of 1792.

That each and every free able-bodied white male citizen of the respective States, resident therein, who is or shall be of age of eighteen years, and under the age of forty-five years (except as is herein after excepted) shall severally and respectively be enrolled in the militia, by the Captain or Commanding Officer of the company, within whose bounds such citizen shall reside, and that within twelve months after the passing of this Act.

...


That every citizen, so enrolled and notified, shall, within six months thereafter, provide himself with a good musket or firelock, a sufficient bayonet and belt, two spare flints, and a knapsack, a pouch, with a box therein, to contain not less than twenty four cartridges, suited to the bore of his musket or firelock,

The Militia Act of 1792

 

[daveman]

Son, you don't understand the Constitution, so move along until you can offer something knowledgable.

Don't like my language: then try being polite.

Ahhh, leftists...such an amusing combination of unmerited arrogance and unintended irony.

I believe you meant to say, "...so move along until you unquestioningly and immediately agree with everything I say because that's what I feel I deserve".

 

[daveman]

Go ask George Washington about that one, who signed the very first federal law which required the purchase of a good.

*citation needed*

Second Militia Act of 1792.

That each and every free able-bodied white male citizen of the respective States, resident therein, who is or shall be of age of eighteen years, and under the age of forty-five years (except as is herein after excepted) shall severally and respectively be enrolled in the militia, by the Captain or Commanding Officer of the company, within whose bounds such citizen shall reside, and that within twelve months after the passing of this Act.

...


That every citizen, so enrolled and notified, shall, within six months thereafter, provide himself with a good musket or firelock, a sufficient bayonet and belt, two spare flints, and a knapsack, a pouch, with a box therein, to contain not less than twenty four cartridges, suited to the bore of his musket or firelock,

The Militia Act of 1792

Don't let ThinkProgress do your thinking for you...they're not very good at it.

Apparently, the people at Think Progress believe a requirement to buy health insurance is akin to the requirement under the Second Militia Act of 1792 that soldiers equip themselves for duty in case of invasion. The provocative title attached to this insipid argument is "Why George Washington would disagree with the right wing about health care’s constitutionality".

This is what your father meant when he said a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing. What does it say about progressives -- or, at least, the sort of progressive who would nod approvingly at such stuff -- that a law enacted when the United States was young and in constant danger from foreign enemies would be cited as precedent for mandated health insurance? It almost reads like a parody of progressivism, with its slipshod conflation of national defense with the welfare state. I'm surprised we haven't heard that health care reform should be treated as "the moral equivalent of war."

 

[Greenbeard]

Can you show me the part of the Constitution that grants government the power to force people to buy something?

The Constitutional basis has been walked through in numerous places. Here's an older one from Georgetown (The Constitutionality of Mandates to Purchase Health Insurance) and here's a shorter brief out this week from the Urban Institute (Are State Challenges to the Legality of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act Likely to Succeed?). The short answer being that justifications tend to go in one (or more) of three directions: 1) the interstate commerce clause authority to regulate health insurance (as expressly indicated by the Court in United States v. South-Eastern Underwriters Association), 2) Congress's general power to levy a tax, or 3) a necessary-and-proper clause justification, since the individual mandate only exists to make the guaranteed issue rules functional.

But of the "socializing a huge chunk of the American economy, imposing a lot of unconstitutional mandates, and dismantling the best healthcare system in the world" trifecta of wild claims, this is the least interesting since even it were struck down as unconstitutional, the individual mandate could easily be restructured to get exactly the same effect in an undeniably constitutional way.

I don't know why you people even bother with the Constitution any more. None of you seem to give a damn about it.

It appears that multiple people in this thread give a damn enough to express a willingness to openly discuss the constitutional issues, which is more than I can say for you.

 

[Polk]

Notice that all you've done is launch a personal attack. Your statement doesn't even attempt to address the issue at hand (and it's pretty obvious why).

 

[daveman]

The Constitutional basis has been walked through in numerous places. Here's an older one from Georgetown (The Constitutionality of Mandates to Purchase Health Insurance) and here's a shorter brief out this week from the Urban Institute (Are State Challenges to the Legality of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act Likely to Succeed?). The short answer being that justifications tend to go in one (or more) of three directions: 1) the interstate commerce clause authority to regulate health insurance (as expressly indicated by the Court in United States v. South-Eastern Underwriters Association), 2) Congress's general power to levy a tax, or 3) a necessary-and-proper clause justification, since the individual mandate only exists to make the guaranteed issue rules functional.

But of the "socializing a huge chunk of the American economy, imposing a lot of unconstitutional mandates, and dismantling the best healthcare system in the world" trifecta of wild claims, this is the least interesting since even it were struck down as unconstitutional, the individual mandate could easily be restructured to get exactly the same effect in an undeniably constitutional way.

I don't know why you people even bother with the Constitution any more. None of you seem to give a damn about it.

It appears that multiple people in this thread give a damn enough to express a willingness to openly discuss the constitutional issues, which is more than I can say for you.

Not much point discussing it, really, when the Left says "The Constitution means whatever we say it means!" If you can find justification to support your agenda in there, somewhere, no matter how convoluted or outright fabricated, there's simply no way to argue against that.

 

[JakeStarkey]

Son, you don't understand the Constitution, so move along until you can offer something knowledgable.

Don't like my language: then try being polite.

Ahhh, leftists...such an amusing combination of unmerited arrogance and unintended irony.

I believe you meant to say, "...so move along until you unquestioningly and immediately agree with everything I say because that's what I feel I deserve".

Son, I am as centrist as they come. You simply avoid civic virtue not out of ideal or principle but because you want to live in America and benefit from it without doing your bit for the better good.

See, I can be polite. So can you.

 

[daveman]

Notice that all you've done is launch a personal attack. Your statement doesn't even attempt to address the issue at hand (and it's pretty obvious why).

So you're really going to stick with the equivalence of a struggling young nation at war with mandatory insurance.

 

[rightwinger]

I don't know why you people even bother with the Constitution any more. None of you seem to give a damn about it.

In other words....I just got my ass handed to me and am now pouting

No, I mean what I say...liberals don't give a shit about the Constitution. Look at the financial reform bill. It violates the 4th and 5th Amendments. Inarguably.

So you found a lib law professor to rubber-stamp the leftist agenda. Color me shocked.

Strangely, the rightwing thinks that their being voted out of office was unconstitutional. They have claimed that every initiative passed by the Democrats somehow violates the Constitution.

It is clearly obvious that the conservatives have never read anything other than the second amendment.

If you think anything that has been passed is unconstitutional, take it up in the courts. Because it is the courts that get to decide....not rightwing pundits

 

[daveman]

Son, I am as centrist as they come.

I've heard that before. Usually from the left.

You simply avoid civic virtue not out of ideal or principle but because you want to live in America and benefit from it without doing your bit for the better good.

"Civic virtue"? Obeying unconstitutional laws is now patriotic, huh? Do you really think you can shame anyone into worshiping the Nanny State? What's next -- "Do it...for the children!"?

I enlisted in the USAF 19 and a half years ago. In half a year, I retire with twenty years of service. I don't need to be lectured on civic virtue.

See, I can be polite. So can you.

Indeed. If you object to something I write, please, by all means, avert your eyes so your tender sensibilities aren't offended.