For the second time, a federal judge (Dem appointed) has ruled that the prospect of potential future commerce is actively engaging in a type of commerce presently, such that this activity of inactivity falls under the purview of the Commerce Clause, and makes a mandate requiring you to purchase insurance perfectly in keeping with the intent of the founders and framers.
It says so, in fact, right there in the Constitution, Article 1, section 8, clause 3: “The Congress shall have the power to” (among other things) “regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes;”
See it? Right there in between “several States” and “Indian Tribes”…?
“I hold that there is a rational basis for Congress to conclude that individuals’ decisions about how and when to pay for health care are activities that in the aggregate substantially affect the interstate health care market,” ruled U.S. District Judge Norman Moon, a Clinton appointee. “Nearly everyone will require health care services at some point in their lifetimes, and it is not always possible to predict when one will be afflicted by illness or injury and require care.…
“Far from ‘inactivity,’ by choosing to forgo insurance, Plaintiffs are making an economic decision to try to pay for health care services later, out of pocket, rather than now, through the purchase of insurance. As Congress found, the total incidence of these economic decisions has a substantial impact on the national market for health care by collectively shifting billions of dollars on to other market participants and driving up the prices of insurance policies.”
The act of foregoing insurance, you see, is economic, because health care may eventually be needed, and when it is, money will be involved. Therefore, it clearly follows (argues Judge Moon) that when we fail to buy something, we are engaging in economic activity that therefore can be mandated by the federal government.
Of course, under this description, I don’t see how the federal government can’t step in and mandate that you purchase a burial plan that they hope to one day put together for you under a single pay system — but then, I guess they aren’t much interested in controlling your choices once you die. So we got that going for us.
Textualism. Nuance.
Soooo. “Among the states” applies to stuff you can’t purchase across state lines.
Got it.
I would suggest maintaining a master list of neo-definitions that these people are coming up with, but when you’re playing Calvinball, even THAT doesn’t help.
By that line of reasoning there is nothing precluding the Federal government from assuming control of all professional licensure.
Who needs State Bars anyway…
You are exactly right, ThomasD. Every thing we do can be construed as interstate commerce. If a man can’t feed his own fucking chickens with his own fucking crops, then that slope has not only become slippery, then it’s not an actual slope anymore but rather a very steep cliff.
So buy table salt or don’t buy table salt – what’s the mandate?
I need to buy a desk chair. What’s the Approved Federal Government Position on that?
So, the Federal government could mandate that you no longer prepare your own food, but rather that you must buy it from large chain restaurants, and that would be Constitutional.
What I wouldn’t give for the Revenge of the Zombie Founders.
al, I think we all know there’s a mandate against salt. Quit being evil!
Ever since that tortured abomination of jurisprudence Wickard v. Filburn, Congress has effectively had the power to do anything it wishes to call “interstate commerce”, meaning that the main practical limit on its power is its own self-restraint.
<Pause for laughter to subside>
It is time and past time to repair the damage to the balance of powers wrought by the 17th Amendment. It must be repealed, and the excuses for its passage addressed by permitting the 49 bicameral state legislatures to write whatever rules they deem appropriate to deal with a situation where the chambers can’t both give a majority to the same candidate.
I would go one step further and grant to state legislatures the power to recall a sitting Senator with a 2/3 vote in one chamber and a majority of any other chamber (which wouldn’t apply to Nebraska). Again, the legislature would be able to by law spell out one specific chamber for the 2/3 provision (House proposes removal by simple majority, Senate removes by 2/3, just like impeachment process at Fed level).
The Senate must again become a body of delegates of the state legislatures, or we might as well not even have state governments.
Sometimes I just hate our legal system. The courts seem to be nearly blind to consequences; these are just abstract arguments.
Or, worse, they’re partisan interests dressed up as abstract, academic arguments.
Man Controlling Trade: unifying a repulsive idea with a repulsive art.
FREEDOM is SLAVERY
There’s a precedent after all, as The Monster has reminded us.
According to modern rewriting of the Commerce Clause, the Federal Government owns your ass.
Welcome to serfdom.
president bumblefuck’s cowardly decision to not drill oil has a substantial impact on the national market for oil by constraining domestic supply and driving up the price of imported oil
” -but then, I guess they aren’t much interested in controlling your choices once you die. So we got that going for us.”
Not if you count the return of the death tax… Oh, your will says “X”? Make it “X-55%” now, sucka!!!
Lawyers (may they be scorned and/or scourged) have established a “legal tradition” through a long march of precedent that essentially centers around the belief that a document means exactly what you want it to mean, regardless of the intent of those who wrote it.
That’s why the law makes no sense anymore, and “limited government” is about as limited as terminal velocity in a vacuum – i.e. limited only by the impact at the end of the fall.
Fixing that is the biggest challenge. Oh, and also vote fraud is the biggest challenge. And the debt. We have too many biggest challenges.
Supine, I believe.
Nearly everyone will require desk chairs at some point in their lifetimes, and it is not always possible to predict when one will be afflicted by a desk job and require ergonomically healthful seating.
In other words, we’ll all soon belong to the Federal Office Furniture Exchange. Purchasing the finest union-made chairs and desks whether we want to or not. Oh, joy.
The idea that NOT buying something across state lines is the same as buying something across state lines, because – if you hadn’t NOT bought it across state lines, you would have HAD to buy it across state lines, so it’s like a -1 interstate purchase – is long engrained in our jurisprudence and not at all new.
This is why congress has the authority to regulate it when you attempt to grow your own corn, and feed it to your own cow, and then eat your own cow, all on your own property. By growing your own corn and feeding it to your own cow, you’re making -1 interstate corn purchase, because had you not grown your own corn you’d have to feed the cow with somebody else’s and so it clearly effects supply and demand market rates across state lines.
The supreme court, including the normally unimpeachable Scalia, recently reaffirmed this.
You see, if the Feds cannot do this, why then there is NOTHING to stop a person in California from growing his own pot and smoking it. Certainly we cannot trust the California government to stop it. So it’s either this, or else your goofy neighbor who smokes pot all day with impugnity starts smoking pot all day with impugnity legally.
I hope I have sufficiently frightened you that you now understand the gravity of this situation.
So, there is no free lunch people. This is what we must pay to keep the children safe. You can either have the cake or you can eat it, but not both. It’s either that, or accept that the children are in mortal peril and we don’t give a shit.
The NEW thing here is, that whereas in the past, you had to do SOMETHING within state boundaries for it to count as NOT doing something else across state boundaries.
But now we can also count doing absolutely nothing at all as NOT doing something across state boundaries.
And when you think about it that way, it makes complete sense that it ought.
Thanks for straightening that out for us, mate. I feel like I’m *this close* to achieving enlightenment.
How do we end up with these crackweasels on the bench?
Yeah, that’s rhetorical.
I’m *this close* to achieving enlightenment.”
– Yeah….I saw the penumbra aura of enlightenment circling your head as you were picking your nose.
– There has to be a way of stopping this crazyness in the courts.
I can’t have cake or eat it I’m on cake restriction
I can have cauliflowers though.
use blue cheese dressing
for the feetthatarehappy
Sarah, She Wolf of the GOP
Good luck with that idea. Around half the judges are wanna-be tyrants; the other half treat “precedent” as if it were their personal God.
If buying a new office chair is not forbidden, it is mandatory. Check with your local Commerce Commission to see if your district is in an “on year” or “off year” for office furniture.
Another good reason to hang all the lawyers. Get ’em before they grow up to become judges!
Cite? You’re harshing my SCOTUS mellow.
The tyranny of socialism will not be voted in by the people or their elected representatives, but rather handed down from the Courts.
Why do you think Democrats are so adamant about blocking Republican Presidential appointees to the Federal bench?
I believe he’s speaking of Gonzales v Raich, Pablo. From Scalia’s concurrence:
Under that ruling in comment #30, everything you grow at home or make at home is subject to government regulation and taxation. Neato.
Yup. And he’s supposedly the staunch one, too.
The system is not sustainable. Either we wind it down politically, or it collapses under its own weight. Work for the former; prepare for the latter.
I’m fairly late checking back on this, dead thread no doubt. But.. for posterity’s sake…
Under that ruling in comment #30, everything you grow at home or make at home is subject to government regulation and taxation. Neato.
YES. Gonzales was not a new ruling. It’s a reaffirmation of a precedent set by Roosevelt’s court back in the 30’s that originally decided it. In that case, it was not weed, but in fact corn. A farmer was growing his own feed corn to feed to his own animals on his own property, and ran afoul of agricultural regulations.
Like I said. It’s been going on 80 years now that the government can regulate anything you do on the grounds that it effects interstate commerce, even if the logic is what you’re doing effects interstate commerce precisely by virtue of the fact that it isn’t interstate commerce.
What’s new with Bambicare is now they can also regulate anything you don’t do on the grounds that it effects interstate commerce, especially when the logic is that what you’re not doing effects interstate commerce precisely by virtue of the fact that you’re not doing interstate commerce.
Once you accept point A as truth, point B follows from that. I’m suprised it took 80 years. But I suppose slow and steady is the way to avoid pushback and implement creeping totalitarianism. Can’t argue with results.
At least Scalia kept us safe from pot.