Supreme Court upholds Obama health care as constituitional

[jack]

Wait, what? I seemed to have missed all the middle steps. I heard people talking about this, but there's always optimists who thinks things the government does he/she doesn't like are unconstitutional (eg. there's a bizarre array of arguments why income tax is unconstitutional).

I missed all the steps between "someone suggested this idea" and "it was actually before the supreme court". And 4/9 people voted against it!

In fact, it seems like there's some truth in the "lots of things the federal government does aren't really in the spirit of the constitution" idea. I think the framers of the constitution might well be surprised at how centralised America is (even if the states have more autonomy than the divisions in most countries). However, I think the centralisation is probably necessary to run a halfway coherent country, and has positives and negatives for people on all sides of the political spectrum, so I think the wise thing to do is quietly accept it, and not accept it when it works in your favour and try to break things when it goes against.

Seriously, of all the rights the federal government may have infringed, "the right to die of preventable diseases if you get laid off from your job" doesn't seem like the #1 right worth going to the breaches for...? I assure them, lots of other countries have been bumbling along without that and we don't feel terribly oppressed, honest. Not even Stephen Hawking.

Comments

[corrvin]

Those income tax resisters aren't "optimists," they're conspiracy theory nutcases, to be blunt about it.

And just to let you know, on this side of the pond, the health care issue thing is incredibly divisive. A good many people who are against the health care thing, for one reason or another, are still for some sort of universal healthcare (whether that's defined as "a thing the government does" or "something we ought to do for each other"), just not this particular incarnation of it. Unfortunately, since the pro-bill side keeps flinging the "you just want innocent people to get sick and die" canard, and the other side gets pretty fussed up about this accusation... well, we're not doing a very good job of talking it out with each other.

I'd like to see better answers to "Uh, just how is everyone going to pay for this" and "Okay, um, how is THAT going to work" and so on... but until we're done with "Rah rah, healthcare!" we probably won't hear much.