The GOP's little rule change they hoped you wouldn't notice

[Hotdoger]

"The ACA is constitutional and it is law. If someone wants to get it repealed, they need to word hard to get people elected that represent their views so they can repeal it. The tactics the Republicans have been using recently (including this little rule change) are legal, so again if anyone does not like them they need to get their own people elected and get the rules changed."


Yea that's why all the Obama waivers are so great......It is the Republicans fault he has to give them out. LOL

 

[Bummer]

I can agree that the words do not grant the govt the ability to make persons purchase anything. However, the words do allow for a "taxation" for the general welfare. And I use "taxation" loosely.

Article 1, Section 8, Paragraph 1 lists Taxes, Duties, Imposts, and Excises. All are the same thing with small detail differences. In other words, the guys who wrote the Constitution didn't use words loosely. They also stated what taxes could be used for, and punishment isn't one of the things listed.

Article 1, Section 8, Paragraph 1 says they may do these things to provide for the national defense and promote the general welfare. In the following paragraphs the specific things the Congress is authorized to do in order to provide for the national defense are delineated, one paragraph at a time. In like manner the specific things the Congress is authorized to do in order to promote the general welfare are spelled out. The only thing the first paragraph authorizes is taxation. The argument that the General Welfare clause authorizes the Congress to do whatever it wants is proven to be intellectual fraud by the very fact that the rest of the Section lists specifics. If the General Welfare clause had been meant as authorization for everything they would not have bothered to make a list.

You understand the root of the problem, and I agree completely. The problem is that from the very outset, precedents were set that contradicted the intention of the Constitution. These were contradictions, unfortunately, came from the pens and mouths of the very men that were there when the Constitution was first drafted. Subsequent courts, I imagine, when asked to interpret law, looked at these precedents and used them as guidelines.

The only thing we have to go from is the Constitution itself. What any author of the Constitution might have said may well speak to what he hoped for, but in the end it's all meaningless in the face of the words of the Constitution. We can see what the words meant then by comparing them against the notes from the Constitutional Convention, the Federalist Papers, and the Constitutional ratification debates. Nothing else, not even the fertile imaginations of the Justices of the Supreme Court mean anything at all when any individual studies the meanings of the words in the Constitution.

Certainly the Supreme Court gets away with telling the government what it can do, but they have no authority whatsoever to tell me what the Constitution says. As such I must insist that members of the Supreme Court have acted in bad behavior and should be removed from the bench, since they hold office unconstitutionally. (Article 3, Section 1.)

The glaring problem is that this, while correct, runs afoul of natural rights. No man should be compeled, nor conscripted, to serve in a military capacity. This is a far more egregious attack on liberty than requiring one to obtain/purchase an item/service (in this case, a musket, flint, ball, ect). And yet, the Militia Act did BOTH of those things, and obviously passed. Interestingly enough, the cost of a musket during that time was approximately $13, the fine could be as high as $12 (as cited from NY), and if the fine was not paid, one could be imprisoned for debt. Now, I haven't researched if anyone ever challenged the Militia Act, and if it wasn't challenged, it still could be law while also technically being unConstitutional. However, if one looks to it as an example, I seems obvious (militia or no) that at least since 1792, the govt has been able to mandate what citizens should buy. Fair? Certainly not, ridiculous is more like it. I despise the ACA (but respect it's intentions) but I could say the exact same about the Militia Act.

In all the history of the philosophical discussion of Natural rights, I see no person asserting a natural right to not have to defend oneself. (Of course, if you have something, please point me to it.) In like manner I've seen nothing asserting that one need not defend one's home. After all, if not the individual, who?

My family researched our family tree when I was a youth. Those were some really boring vacations, sitting around in courthouses while Dad and Mom went through giant books and photographed the pages. Along the way we visited Luray Virginia, where my earliest ancestors in the New World settled, c.a. 1735. One of my earliest ancestors there died on his front porch, along with almost all of his fairly large family, because he was a Mennonite preacher who had an exemption and kept no arms. Turns out Gun Free Zones didn't work even then. The Indians, and one worthless scoundrel of a white man (Kerchival's History Of The Valley) killed all but one, who was enslaved. In short, there was a very good reason to demand that all adult males be armed. Failing that was quite often fatal.

Article 1, Section 8, Paragraph 16 specifies that the Congress may provide for the arming of the Militia. That's what the Militia Act did. As such the Militia Act has direct authorization in the Constitution.

And so, we return to my point: There is no direct authorization in the Constitution for Congress to force all citizens to buy healthcare.