Jim Devine writes: "Anyway, if the SCOTUS makes a broad decision with a lot of precedent-setting power, i.e., knocking down the whole idea of a individual mandate, wouldn't that legally rule out the possibility of conscription in the future? What is the draft but an example of the government telling selected individuals that they must "eat broccoli," i.e., must take one specific type of job (meeting interesting people and killing them). Taken a little further (and I'm no legal expert), ending the individual mandate might ban the payment of taxes."
I always treat what you say seriously because I have no sense that you are an ironic person, so I am assuming you are asking serious questions. But instead of answering your question, I would instead ask you -- in reaching answers to your questions, do you care at all what the Constitution actually says? Do you care how the Constitution is structured? That it is possible that the text and structure may logically compel a result that does not coincide with your policy preference, or even a result that may seem formalistic and not make much sense to anyone? "BTW, I heard on the news that the Koch brothers want to have direct control over the money-libertarian Cato Institute. From an M-L perspective, what's wrong with that? after all, they paid for it, why shouldn't they own it?" One of the issues is precisely that the Koch brothers, in fact, give very little money to Cato. I think the Cato story is a great example of the difference between the temperament of the Left and the Right -- most on the libertarian right are truly embarrassed by the whole episode, precisely because it makes them look like sectarian leftists fighting with each other over trivialities. I get no sense that those on the left have any real embarrassment concerning their internal squabbles. David Shemano _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
