You seem to have a clear misunderstanding of how the supreme court works.

I suggest more to yesterday's arguements.  Lateral arguements and questions were in VERY high use, and seen as VERY relevent because of how ruling that the law is consitutional leads to other lateral arguements that may more cleaerly be unconsitutional, therefore making the whole thing unconstituional.

50 possibly, 100 no.   In 1936 the Supreme Court ruled that it was uncosnitutional for the US government to regulate Agriculture.  It was said that the tax meant to regulate agriculture was illegal because regulating agriculture was a job for the states.

This eventually, got changed, partially thanks to FDR who kept pushing for an ammenment that made the Supreme Court limitless in position.   In otherwords, the President could basically just keep appointing presidents till he got the ruling he wanted.

This didn't pass, but afterwords the SC became more receptive to the New Deal.

To answer your first question most narrowly: generally not. There is a school of thought, originalism, that states that only the original intent should matter (although as a side note, not even the staunchest originalists are above ignoring this when convenient).

However, the general rule in judicial interpretation is to use the drafters' intent as only one factor, if it's a factor at all. This is true of all laws, not just the Consitution. The rationale here is that while the law was written by one or two people, it was approved by a majority of several hundred, and attempting to divine what each of those legislators was thinking is futile, so the stated intent of a handful of legislators is not dispositive. That said, this rule of interpretation also seems to come and go, as convenient.

In general, the two schools of thought regarding the Constitution are the originalists and the living document theory. The latter has been in primacy for most of the past century at least, although the former had recently been gaining strength. It's worth noting, though, that it's literally been centuries since the commerce clause, and most other clauses in the Constitution, have been utilized far past how the Founders utilized them. The process of some Founders having their individual intent getting overridden began roundabouts the time that the first Congressman took his seat at Congress, and it hasn't really slowed down since.

As for your final question, certainly not 100 or 150 years ago, because medical care was not regulated by the federal government. 50 years ago...probably not; access to health care wasn't as widespread as it is today. But one thing to realize about this line of thinking is that things like Social Security, Medicare, the draft, the FTC, and nearly every other major federal initiative of the past century would all have gotten struck down 150 years ago. The facts of life have changed over the past 200 years, so our reading of the documents written back then have too.

And if it seems like it comes down to who's best with semantics, well... that's probably more true than most would like to admit.

Could be. In the Citizens United case the government found itself arguing that it could not only ban advertisements and the airing of movies, but also books and whatever else it wanted. Partisans and ideologues will probably rule the way they're going to rule regardless because they focus more on intent than actual effect, but such a display of wanton disregard for free expression had to make it hard for a Kennedy to do anything other than strike down McCain-Feingold. I didn't see the Solicitor General resort to anything quite that egregious yesterday, but Kennedy was clearly concerned with the kind of precedent this law sets. If Scalia is really as down on the mandate as he sounded yesterday, then this whole thing probably comes down to whether or not Kennedy buys the argument that the very nature of health care makes this fundamentally different than compelling any other form of economic activity.

It's still funny to me that it would probably have never made it this far had the penalty been included in the tax code (which is used for social engineering all the time) rather than as a fine. Part of me understands the desperation of Democrats to avoid being accused of raising taxes because it's such a longstanding knock against them, but on a superficial level I think I'd personally resent being fined more than I would just paying more in taxes.

Yeah, that was more or less a big part of the Citizens united verdict... the "Corproations are people!" thing that most people get couldn't be further from the truth if you actually read the ruling. 

If you can ban political movies near election times, how do you decide what shows are political and aren't, and what about news staitions that are CLEARLY political like MSNBC and Fox News.  You can't ban what they say, but they aren't really different to politicacl campaign contributions.

This was a main part of the Citizens United Case ruling for one.

These kind of things play a big part.

Though yeah, if it were a tax, chances are the government would have a better chance just on the "This thing is already in full use, it'd be a huge waste of money to just disable it, consitutional or not... so screw it."

That's possibly why I earlier stated such things as, and I quote:

"Does this have uncomfortable legal ramifications? Yes. But the legal analysis is unrestricted by my mere discomfort.

Of course, judging from some of the questions asked yesterday, the discomfort may ultimately be the deciding factor."

"I'm inclined to think that, once Kennedy finds some limiting principle that sounds nice in his head (although busting out tort principles here? REALLY?!), he'll vote for, and maybe bring Roberts along too. If he can't, it'll probably go 5-4 against. I don't see any of the liberal Justices changing course."

"And "I don't feel comfortable with the implications" is not really a legal argument, although I concede that it is commonly used by judges and Justices as the honest impetus behind some rulings. It may even play a deciding role in this case, judging by Kennedy's questions."

And that's just from a thirty second ctrl+f search. But hey, nevermind any of that.

I didn't get a chance to listen to today's arguments. Anything interesting?

The conservatives (minus Thomas, who never really says anything) and Kennedy all seemed of the opinion that there's no severability here. Since striking down the mandate will probably mean striking down the whole law, I wonder if that will make them less inclined to do so.

I'm in favor of a death panel. Too many old people are life supported when they would naturally die.  That is going against God's will.  If you need a breathing tube to survive when you are 90 years old then it is your time to go.  Now, if you are 15 years old and needed one then I'd give you a few years but if you weren't showing any signs of recovery then your organs would be sold to the highest bidder.

I think all 15 year olds should be sold to the highest bidder regardless.

You talking sold as a sex slave or organs?  I'm not sure what one would make more money.  I assume organs.