noname2200 said:
Except that he didn't spring fully-formed as an adult from the ground. And I'd be very interested to meet this adult American who's made it past his minority without once using healthcare. It's an interesting hypothetical, but I sincerely doubt it stretches any further than that.
And what's the legal principle behind this argument? All I see is a policy argument. You're again trying to use the slippery slope argument ("if we let gays marry, how can we stop people from marrying their dogs?!"). Your position is that that "if something WAS legal because it was inevitable ONLY the inevitable could be covered." Why? Under what constitutional, statutory, or even judicial rule? I can't think of it; if you can find one, I'll be happy to change my tune.
I'm afraid I don't understand this point, or how it relates to the discussion as a whole.
Now THIS is the strongest argument you've made so far. It's also one of the bigger reasons why I'm not completely convinced of the constitutionality of the law, although I still lean towards rather than against. The greatest reason why I can see this point being insufficiently persuasive in court comes back to the fact that medical emergencies are, almost by definition, unpredictable, so engaging in ex post facto analysis strikes me as flawed.
Actually, I don't believe this is true at all. If driving was a right, it would still impact interstate commerce, and therefore fall under the commerce clause. There might be more restrictions on the mandate, most likely that the impoverished can forego insurance at their option, but again, the commerce clause does not contain an exemption that says that economic activities that are otherwise constitutional rights are exempt from the commerce clause. Those intervening rights might restrict the applicability of the commerce clause (again, see the above example), but unless the intervening right is some absolute that states it's impervious to other regulation, I don't see the issue. Consider, for example, how even the Free Exercise Clause does not constitutionally protect a religious group's business from being subject to most regulations that apply to non-religious businesses, and most (all?) of those narrow exceptions are specifically carved out in the statutes for political rather than constitutional reasons. The Catholic Church isn't going to get its way on the contraceptive issue because of the Free Exercise Clause, it's going to get it because of political pressure.
This is factually untrue. Demonstrators who violate time and place restrictions don't get off scots-free just because they were exercising their free speech rights. These folks have to pay the fine, just like any other violator. Rights are not absolute, and they are far from immune to regulation. I suspect this is at the heart of our disagreement. |
1) There are plenty of Americans like that. Immigrants mostly, but there are also children who are given birth too live and don't use medical facilties when young, or if they do, use ones that are totally free. I know plenty of poeple who's kids have done that.
2) You don't seem to understand waht a slippery slope arguement is. A Slippery slope arguement is "If A) Happens, then B) which is different and worse will happen".
Gay marriage vs Dog marriage is a slippery slope arguement because Dogs aren't human and have no ability to consent.
There is no similar reason that forcing people to buy food is worse then forcing people to buy health insurance. I'm making a lateral arguement. A better example of my arguement using gay marriage would be. "If you don't let gay people get married, then why do we let infertile heterosexual couples get married' because they're both pairs of consenting adults who can not have children.
This is a lateral example. It shows that why A) is stupid, put into context of a roughly analgous situation with which a person doesn't have a predefined emotion towards.
3) You might not think it's true... but it is. Note even the car insurance lobby is stating so, there has been many lawsuits on the arguement which largely just ended in "Driving isn't a right, therefore you can regulate it." Furthermore, these are state laws... specifically because most people won't ever drive out of there state. Which really is another reason why calling Healthcare interestate commerce is really questionable.
4) No... actually it is factually true. There have been large numbers of cases thrown out due to free speech or freedom of expression etc. They have a case like this once or twice a year that catches the news in New York.
Demonstraters only get arrested if they resist being moved aftewords. Also, time, place and content laws have to be nuetral for all parties and not be biased towards one group. Which this healthcare law is. It would be more aplicable to content restrictions.
Where there are plenty of cases of things like people defecating on sidewalks and getting aroudn other laws by argueing "freedom of expression."
Well that combined with prior restraint. Which is making the arguement that someone act is going to have direct, immediate harm to other people.
Which, clearly this does NOT meet the burden of. Your arguement has been based on vague, indirect harm.
Which really, is an arguement you can make for all taxes... since all taxes involve people paying more, because other people need to pay less. The same arguements you make for this law.... essentially would be used by the staunchest of libretarians against all taxes.
