Quote:
Originally Posted by scottw
of course it doesn't  when you believe that you can use the power of government to require participation, require the level benefits and all that they must include, set the price for those benefits including designating certain free benefits that must be provided(and probably require they be used...or else) and those that can be denied, arbitrarily tax and penalize based on your need to "provide" and maintain the bureaucracy that is doing the providing.....what do the actual costs and the drivers of those costs matter? you have the power to control everything....don't you?
The Dream of Command Economics - By Yuval Levin - The Corner - National Review Online |
Yes, the fedgov now has the power to control everything, granted by the rewriting of the Constitution, not by Congress through ammendment or convention as prescribed by that Constitution, but by judicial "interpretation." Though, how could honest interpretation of a document conclude something that does not exist in the document and is opposite of what it intended? By learned scholars of the document, not by ignorant amateurs?
There is a tradition in all sorts of scholarship to change little things in original texts to make them "better"--more up to date, more understandable, more relevant, to improve even if by some sly little change of word or meaning that more suits the taste of the sholar than what he considers imperfect text. What follows are more "improvements" by others, even on the previous alterations. This might kindly be looked on as "evolution' of the document. If done with honest revrence to the original text, it rarely becomes a mutation that utterly destroys it. When that occurs, it was intention not evolution.
We have been deceived. The "interpretations" of our Constitution were not honest. Nor was there in the Constitution a mechanism to "interpret" the words as if they were a foreign language. Nor was there an expressed means to "interpret" what the words mean as though they changed meaning with every review. There is no article or provision to "interpret" with varying degrees of scrutiny, nor to expand original meaning to make it elastic so that powers denied become powers granted. Interpretation largely is to determine if the Constitutioin is applicable, and, if so, to apply it. The great difficulties in "interpretation" have mostly been in trying to make the Constitution bend to fit legislation, to make constitutional that which is not.
Which is what Roberts has done with the HCB. Which is what progressive jurisprudence has been doing for 80 years. The Constitution has become the elastic man that can touch all bases while remaining on first and create home runs out of errors. It is a fictitious and ungainly mutation of a once elegant expression of government of, by, and for the people, into a cumbersome, unpredictable license to rule the people.
And I am genuinely curious to know if those who approve of this new Constitution understand what has happened? The HCB and the massive fedgov bureacracy with all its programs and regulations can be repealed, but how do we fix the damage to the Constitution? Do we care? Do we truly believe what has happened is for the best? I ask Spence, likwid, Paul S, and Zimmy, once again:
Were you under the impression that Congress had unlimited powers of taxation before this decision?
If not, do you believe that it now does?
Did you believe that the Interstate Commerce Clause gave Congress unlimited power to regulate individual behaviour?
And, if not, would SCOTUS validation of the HCB under commerce clause power have given Congress unlimited power to regualate behavior?
Does it matter to you if Congress has the power to regulate all your behavior or has unlimited power to tax you?