OK, “pirate scum” was a bit hyperbolic perhaps. I do have some respect for some of the Founding Fathers. I rather like Washington & Paine despite their flaws. But if I ever quote Madison in support of one of my positions, it’s just going to be, “Hey, random dead guy you may have heard of sort of [can be read to have] agreed with me!” & utterly self-serving. I honestly don’t care what he thought, & arguments from his authority make me scoff.
That said:
The health care bill was passed in accordance with the principles of limited government. The limit on the government is the legislature having to pass laws. Non-limited government would be the administration unilaterally & arbitrarily deciding to do something without the authorization of the people’s representatives. In this case, the people’s representatives passed a law, within the constitution–they even bent over backwards to get past an extra-constitutional filibuster requirement–that’s how the system was designed to work. It may not be a law Madison would have voted for, but it is consistent with the present constitution, & with the one he designed.
Granted, a few parts of the law might be more coherent if they’d come from an autocrat’s decree–but that process would be unconstitutional under our constitution.
Not to toot my own horn, but I’ve got ten years on these boards and almost 7,000 posts, so to throw the term “troll” at me seems a wee bit over the top, especially for what’s basically just a few posts back and forth on half a page of a thread.
For what it’s worth, I think your responses have been intelligent and well analyzed. But it’s clear from reading what you’ve written that the crux of my argument is just going right past you. Whether that’s because you’re not taking the time to listen or because I’m not explaining myself clearly enough, I don’t know. We’re just talking right past each other at this point though, so I don’t think any headway is being made on this issue.
I’ll leave you with this though. The reason every one of my arguments seems so silly and so out there to you is because you’re sitting here looking at it from 2010’s perspective.
Of course you have the right to publish satirical articles about celebrities! Of course people have the right to equal protections if they have disabilities! Of course women have the right to vote! Who would have thought differently?
Lots and lots and lots of people. It took activists and legislators and judges years and tons of work before what’s assumed by you to this self-evident right even came to be.
And my hope is that your equivilant in 2030 will be sitting at a computer writing “Of course all Americans have the right to equal, universal health care! Why would you think it should be any other way?”
To clarify my intent was not to call you a troll. I may not have clearly expressed myself with the end of the(my) last post. Perhaps I should elaborate, arguing with a troll, never goes anywhere and is generally pointless. I wrote that sentence as I did to imply that we both have our minds made up, and continuing the discussion seemed pointless. I was not trying to state your posts lacked cogency, or relevance. No disrespect was intended, sorry if that is how it came off.
As a final note, I hope health care as a right does happen I am just opposed to the current iteration of laws which have been passed. I do not believe the law is written in the interest of the people. I do hope the next iteration will improve it, but if you won’t oppose laws you consider wrong than you are part of the problem.
(the last sentence is directed at the majority of Americans, not anyone here)
But government is an institution of society. If you believe that society has an obligation to give aid, why do you believe that its primary institution should not be involved?
If private organizations and average individuals are far superior at providing social services, why have they not done so? Why is there any perception of need for government to get involved?
Not to speak for Rafe, but my answer is that there’s a distinction between a moral obligation, one that springs from the heart, and a rule that government should impose.
I also, for example, believe there’s an obligation to be faithful to one’s spouse, but I don’t believe the government should criminalize adultery.
Of course, there is a huge amount of private charity in this country. But of course, when the amount “given” to charity is a result of mandate, it can be huge. The perception arises from people who believe that it’s the proper role of government.
How about instead of a moral obligation, it just, to some people, makes sense.
If you believe the health care system was not working, and you had tried to reform it or allow the insurance companies to reform the system and they have failed, then should not the government step in and try to fix it again?
Not sure why the 10th Amendment is relevant. The Supremacy Clause explicitly says state laws can’t violate federal ones (or at least, if they do, state judges can’t enforce them).
Not much point in having a federal gov’t if the states can ignore it at will.
Federal drug enforcement rests mainly on the power to regulate interstate commerce. This doesn’t mean necessarily that a perpetrator has to cross state lines, or an international border, while committing a drug crime; in Raich v. Gonzalez the a conviction for cultivating MJ for intrastate medicinal use was upheld on the principle that anyone who resorted to growing their own MJ, and thereby withdrawing from the illicit market, was complicit in the fact that the dealers would find other more vulnerable buyers. At this point, according to this Rube Goldberg-like convoluted logic, interstate commerce could be impacted. (At the time, the Feds did not recognize any therapeutic value of unrefined cannabis at all, but this is beginning to change*). Early drug prohibitions, including the 1937 Marihuana Tax Act and the 1914 Harrison Narcotics Act, in fact, had to be framed as revenue statutes because the power to prohibit outright wasn’t assumed. As for the constitutionality of state MJ laws that are more permissive than the Federal statutes, I’d say the 9th and 10th Amendments makes it constitutional for a state to vote itself out from under the Federal laws, within limits. International narcotics treaties require some sort of strict regulation, but not necessarily prohibition of cannabis.
On the other hand, a state voting itself free of the provision that everyone must carry health insurance seems to me to have a greater direct impact on interstate commerce, by undermining the average health of the insured population.
*According to a recent L.A. Times article, the Department of Veteran Affairs was no longer going to terminate benefits, or otherwise penalize vets, who were using MMJ for pain.
No they can’t. If a State thinks a federal law is unconstitutional, they can challenge it in the courts. But so long as the law hasn’t been ruled against by the SCOTUS (or whatever federal court), the Supremacy Clause holds.
The State Legislature can’t just decide for themselves that the law doesn’t fall under the enumerated powers and pass their own law invalidating it.
Dole v. South Dakota had nothing to do with it. South Dakota retained the right to enforce an 18+ drinking age. It chose not to in order to accept federal highway funding.
The idea that states could nullify federal law (both statutory and case law) has been dead since at least 1958, and had pretty much been put to rest by that whole Civil War thing anyway.