Obamacare easily survives supreme court

[scottw]

Originally Posted by detbuch

Your article does not go into the reasons for the high costs, especially the most fundamental reasons. And, if we just can't stand the idea of charities paying most of the cost of the rest, how about some gvt. programs (preferrably States) to pay for them rather than destroying the Constitution?

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

[detbuch]

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?

[scottw]

the Progressive agenda has been moved forward for most of the last century through lies, distortions, threats and thuggery and always at some cost to our Constitutional Guarantees and Protections and through the misuse of power by elected and unelected(appointed) officials each who swear to uphold and defend the Constitution...this healthcare "reform" is no excepton if you consider the way in which it was passed....they justify, in their minds, doing the wrong(Un-Constitutional) thing by claiming that they are doing the "right thing"(increasing government dependence on one of their many social programs in an expression of "compassion") which appears to be the goal of nearly every major Progressive Agenda Point and implementing them always seems to require tricks, deception and excessive political pressure....you'd think that if you are doing the "right" thing it would be self-evident and not require such thuggery and the Constitution would not be such a frequent obstacle for you.....

the people that you mentioned will not answer questions of Constitutionality because I believe, like the officials who swear to uphold the Constitution and then trample it or seek to find ways around it in order to establish their agenda, the have little or no regard for the Constitution, it is evident from their comments that the fancy themselves above all of that and certainly not bound because their ideaology is far superior to....well...anything that has existed to date......not altogether different from a cult.....they place their leaders "philosopher kings" on high pedestals and regardless of how flawed(have you seen their "leaders"?), dangerous or overinflated their sense of self(and who can blame them because they are truly worshipped) might be, they can do no wrong and are to be defended regardless, because the ideaology that they share is more important than anything else(right, wrong, Constitutionality) and the source where each draws their own sense of self-importance, entitlement and feeling of superiority over and quite often, disdain for those with "lesser views"....if their idols, leaders or fellow thinkers fall...then so do they and their precious ideaology, better to go off a cliff (see Europe) than give up on the Utopian Dream....sadly, the Constitution suffers and will continue to until we go off the cliff and it can be replaced with whatever the Progressives have in mind(which no doubt includes many thousands of pages or regulations and taxes and fees), the early Progressives leaned heavily facist(some would say the European facist leaned heavily American Progressive, some form of mutual admiration society at the least) particularly regarding the Italian version in terms of mingling state and private enterprise, go read the words of Mussolini regarding these matters and his state visions and arguments and let me now if anything sounds familiar to you...we continue to move toward one contrived form of statism or another...or perhaps, Americans might wake up and fight for the Constitutional Guarantees and Protections that are our birthright..................

just as FDR was emboldened by re-election, this President would be frightening with a new mandate