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Forums - Politics - Opposition to the health care law is conservative judicial activism

sperrico87 on 22 April 2012
makingmusic476 said:
sperrico87 said:
Mr Khan said:

Because where in the Constitution is the free market or economic liberty an enumerated power? The commerce clause is clearly there, but in this case there is nothing else in there to oppose the commerce clause. To state that we have a "right" to not be forced to buy anything is therefore false, as far as American jurisprudence should be concerned. The conservative justices will inject ideas of economic libertarianism into American jurisprudence that have no constitutional basis


 I suppose one could argue that the law may in fact be "Constitutional" under our current interpretation of what that actually means.  However, that is more a symptom of a systemic problem in the way we've interpreted the Constitution over the last 100 years or so.  In essence, as far as I can tell, there is almost nothing left that the Federal government can't do. 

It was my understanding, at least initially, that the Constitution was to be a document that clearly lays out exactly what the Federal government can do, (which is very little) and leaves all the rest up to the discretion of the individual states.  It seems to me we've lost our way almost entirely. 

The Constitution isn't something that we're supposed to check as an afterthought after a law's already been drafted and voted on.  It's original purpose was to keep politcians from doing the things that they ought not be doing.  If all the Constitution is nowadays is merely something we look to as an afterthought rather than a clear list of directives, then we've got a serious problem.

Even when the country was first created, we had politicians advocating for a very loose interpretation of the constitution.  Alexander Hamilton and the Federalists were the driving force behind that:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federalist_Era

I have no idea where the idea that the founding fathers all supported a strict interpretation of the constitution came from.  Lines were drawn before the constitution was even ratified, with George Washington and Alexander Hamilton supporting a strong federal government and Thomas Jefferson and James Madison opposing such a strong central authority.  It's where the strict vs loose battle began.

You're very correct.  Hamilton was a bad seed.  He wanted war with France, and he loved the idea of a central bank.  Two very bad ideas.  But nevertheless, when the Constitution was first drafted, there was a great deal of respect given to it's words.  Even in the '50s when Eisenhower was in office, in order to get the federal highway system off the ground, he claimed that it was for "national defense purposes".  Not that that's necessarily true at all, but you see my point... There was until recently a lot of respect for what was in the Constitution.  Now I see this casual disreagrd from so many people who don't seem to care at all if something is authorized by it.  Some simply want the government to do anything and everything, and milk all of society's productive effort dry.  I think that's a very dangerous position to have. 



 

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Kasz216 on 22 April 2012
sperrico87 said:
makingmusic476 said:
sperrico87 said:
Mr Khan said:

Because where in the Constitution is the free market or economic liberty an enumerated power? The commerce clause is clearly there, but in this case there is nothing else in there to oppose the commerce clause. To state that we have a "right" to not be forced to buy anything is therefore false, as far as American jurisprudence should be concerned. The conservative justices will inject ideas of economic libertarianism into American jurisprudence that have no constitutional basis


 I suppose one could argue that the law may in fact be "Constitutional" under our current interpretation of what that actually means.  However, that is more a symptom of a systemic problem in the way we've interpreted the Constitution over the last 100 years or so.  In essence, as far as I can tell, there is almost nothing left that the Federal government can't do. 

It was my understanding, at least initially, that the Constitution was to be a document that clearly lays out exactly what the Federal government can do, (which is very little) and leaves all the rest up to the discretion of the individual states.  It seems to me we've lost our way almost entirely. 

The Constitution isn't something that we're supposed to check as an afterthought after a law's already been drafted and voted on.  It's original purpose was to keep politcians from doing the things that they ought not be doing.  If all the Constitution is nowadays is merely something we look to as an afterthought rather than a clear list of directives, then we've got a serious problem.

Even when the country was first created, we had politicians advocating for a very loose interpretation of the constitution.  Alexander Hamilton and the Federalists were the driving force behind that:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federalist_Era

I have no idea where the idea that the founding fathers all supported a strict interpretation of the constitution came from.  Lines were drawn before the constitution was even ratified, with George Washington and Alexander Hamilton supporting a strong federal government and Thomas Jefferson and James Madison opposing such a strong central authority.  It's where the strict vs loose battle began.

You're very correct.  Hamilton was a bad seed.  He wanted war with France, and he loved the idea of a central bank.  Two very bad ideas.  But nevertheless, when the Constitution was first drafted, there was a great deal of respect given to it's words.  Even in the '50s when Eisenhower was in office, in order to get the federal highway system off the ground, he claimed that it was for "national defense purposes".  Not that that's necessarily true at all, but you see my point... There was until recently a lot of respect for what was in the Constitution.  Now I see this casual disreagrd from so many people who don't seem to care at all if something is authorized by it.  Some simply want the government to do anything and everything, and milk all of society's productive effort dry.  I think that's a very dangerous position to have. 


Amusingly worth noting is that the federarlists were really nothing more then a big buisness puppetry group, the likes of which has yet to be seen again.  The federalists were essentially put in power to limit states abilties to effect companies.

The rise of the average voter eventually pushed them from the pages of history recognizing that big government usually favors the rich.

However... John Marhsall the biggest federalist judge said...

"The enumeration presupposes something not enumerated; and that something, if we regard the language or the subject of the sentence, must be the exclusively internal commerce of a state.....Inspection laws, quarantine laws, health laws of every description, as well as laws for regulating the internal commerce of a State, and those which respect turnpike roads, ferries, &c., are....subject to State legislation. If the legislative power of the Union can reach them, it must be for national purposes; it must be where the power is expressly given for a special purpose, or is clearly incidental to some power which is expressly given."
John Marshall would likely rule this law unconstituional.


Plezbo on 23 April 2012
sega4life said:

 

I'm tired of Patented drugs that cost way to much money, when the patent runs out, they change the formula slightly to form a new patent.


I don't think that you appreciate how expensive it is to develop new medicines.  1 out of every 100 projects started at Pharmeceutical Companies actually transitions into a successful product.  The research money for these drugs is largely private, these aren't government contracts.  These corporations spend billions of dollars to develope these drugs, and without patent protection have no way to profit off of them as others would just take the formula and undersell since they don't have all of the money invested in the drug (Brazil does this on a large scale, it is one of the major factors keeping it from gaining membership to the Permanent Security Council of the UN).  

While it would be nice to have cheaper drugs (I have asthma, my medicine costs are ludicrous), getting rid of patent protection would destroy the industry.  Realize that without modern medicine we would still have sweeping epidemics and childhood death rates that would be completely unacceptable.  It is easy to look at these Multi-national corporations and see greed and evil, but it is only companies of this size that are able to afford the equipment and talent to develop ground breaking new drugs.  While some natural medicine should be investigated, I am tired of hearing people think it is the magical end all.  What was the mortality rate before modern medicine?  What is it now?  Because prior to the system that we have in place now, your "dangerous drugs" weren't around and natural medicine was all that we had.  And Spoiler Alert, it wasn't very good.