This is bad.
(sigh)
Yeah.
Can I gather that the legislation has been upheld?
The quicker they get what they want, the quicker the system will collapse. I’m of the opinion that you should fight every encroachment on our liberty, but once it’s passed and you pretty much lose all hope of fighting it, encourage it. In the end there’s one thing that will always lead to the downfall of such policies: they don’t work. So, hasten their natural course toward the inevitable crash and viola, no more problem. Eventually people will learn too after enough crashes. There are still plenty of people who feel government is a net positive. So make more victims of government. The more people who feel like they get nothing of value from the government, the more people who may be willing to forego it eventually.
a “bizzaro” decision…
Maybe this is what was needed to re-ignite the “Tea Party” flame. Wouldn’t it be interesting if this causes another surge in the elections, and a law actually gets repealed?
The current word is that the mandate has been upheld as a tax and that the provisions regarding Medicaid expansion have been struck down.
I will not be complying with this mandate anyway.
I don’t even know what to say.
That sums it up.
It’s kind of hard to get worked up over this. I mean, obviously its bad but despite the historic sort of significance its really not surprising or more egregious than you’d expect.
sigh
Of course, another misinterpretation of the meaning of the “general welfare” clause, which really isn’t an actual clause so much as it is an introduction to a clause, that leads to further usurpation of sovereignty from the individual.
However, I, too, agree that it can only lead to the fall. We know this won’t work. The problem people see is relatively high costs in health care, which this legislation is supposed to make more affordable. We know just the opposite will happen. And it can ultimately only lead to… more cries for government intervention.
sigh
Maybe it’s not so much how many interventions it will take for a collapse as it is the rate or acceleration of instances of interventions added (manifestation of the power of the state’s monopoly on force) that will bring about its demise.
I’m not as angry that it got upheld as I am that it got upheld as a TAX. ARE YOU KIDDING ME? In that case the government can do WHATEVER it wants under the punishment of additional taxation.
There might have been some barriers to government power. They have been completely broken down.
Don’t be angry. You were led to believe that there are or were “barriers” to government power. But there aren’t any such barriers and there never were. Nothing broke down. The fact that you have a few selected group of people dressed in silly robes always deciding arbitrarily what government can or cannot do proves that there are and never were any barriers.
sigh
Of course, another bullshit interpretation of a court ruling from some ignoramus who hasn’t even looked at the decision. 
This is the same manner in which Social Security was dealt with: polticians assure the people that it isn’t a tax, when the lawyers get to court, the lawyers adamantly insist that it is a tax.
It’s not about the lying. It’s that if you label everything that government does as a tax and then you give it general power to tax, you not only unofficially, but OFFICIALLY have no more limits to government power.
This is not bad. The last thing liberterians should want is a meaningless and arbitrary distinction between taxes and mandates. They are different only in the technical sense of the matter on how the State carries out its coericve action. In fact, equating the mandate to a tax is a very honest and correct thing to do.
Yeah. Establishing a firm with a territorial monopoly on aggression with the power to determine what powers it has is pretty uncool and one-sided.
For those interested,
Here’s a post talking about the Supreme Court ruling on tax vs. penalty from 1995.
And here’s a fun one:
So, if it is not the commerce clause that can force people to contract, then what is it? “Congress has the right to lay and collect taxes…” hahahahahahahahahahahahahah. That idiotic CNN article touches on NOTHING relevant, but instead chooses to show three of four public opinion polls. I fucking hate democracy.
This is most unwelcome news.
We should just go burn the original copy of the Constitution…what the fuck is it good for? Polemics, it seems…
…an interpretation assuming that the idea of mandating the purchase of health care would be in the interest of the “general welfare,” which is premise under which nearly all new taxes (that are not based on a form on income), which is then used as a justification of a new “tax.” Of course, my assumption is silly seeing as how I haven’t read the decision (since it hasn’t been released yet). My statement should have been interpreted to be dissent to the speculated idea, as opposed to a declaration of truth without proof (assumption).
Looks like Obama wins 2012 and the USA has universal healthcare by the end of his second term.
Oh well, not surprised anyway. Saw this coming from a mile.