Another diarist argues that the constitutionality of the ACA is not what really matters, and we should not be concerned about it, but rather the moral reprehensibility of leaving millions of Americans to suffer and die from lack of health insurance should be the proper determinant of its continued existence.
While I agree completely with the importance of the moral aspect, I could not ignore the limits of morality either.
I had to ask myself, how do you conclude that the constitution does not matter when the constitution is the ultimate obstacle before any law, no matter how moral that law might be?
You might as well say that the brick wall a wounded woman with a grizzly bear hot on her heels has run into doesn't matter.
Moral positions are the basis for mounting an attack in an attempt to break down the brick wall. They don't break down brick walls on the strength of moral superiority in and of itself.
The fact is, the constitution is the ultimate law of this land, and the nine justices of the Supreme Court are its ultimate arbiters. Nothing gets past the brick wall without the Supreme Court's permission, no matter how morally meritorious it might be.
I would agree that a valid argument in this case is that the Supreme Court should not take - as their examination of the evidence appears to suggest they are - the ridiculous position that if you ruled that if the government is permitted to do A, then it might also be permitted to do B (for broccoli), a completely unrelated action.
You might as well say that if the Supreme Court ruled anything to be constitutional, then it means that anything that is not that thing might also be ruled constitutional, and for that reason, the first thing must NOT be ruled constitutional to prevent the same from happening with respect to the second.
In the first place, something is either constitutional or it is not, on its own merits. It is not the job of the Supreme Court to decide what laws Congress might potentially pass that might be unconstitutional, in deciding the constitutionality of a law presently before it.
The reason is simple. The congress of the United States, representing the people, is free to pass any law it deems appropriate and that is within the scope of its authority. It can even pass laws that, while constitutional, are patently absurd. That does not mean those laws will pass the test of constitutionality, but their passing is nonetheless within the authority of the Congress.
It is perfectly within the scope of the constitution's scheme for Congress to pass absurd laws. The congress has proved that truth over and over throughout our history. The absurdity of a law does not in itself make it unconstitutional. That's what a free democratic society is about. The people, in their own judgment as represented by the Congress, decide which laws are appropriate, not the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court's job is to allow them to stand or fail as to their unconstitutionality, and nothing more.
The Supreme Court seems to fear that based on its decisions, absurd laws might be permitted to exist, and they might even be found constitutional, based on the decision by the Supreme Court to allow a precedent law - whose absurdity is only the minority opinion of the Congress that passed it, by the way - to stand.
Republicans are the chief antagonists of what they call the "nanny state," however, they are arguing in favor of a Supreme Court creating exactly that, protecting us against the possibility of our creating absurd laws by rejecting a law presently before it whose upholding might conceivably encourage the Congress to pass such absurd laws in the future.
Such an attitude of the court assumes that the people will pass absurd laws solely on the basis of an unrelated Supreme Court decision, and because of their constitutionality, will allow those absurd laws to stand.
And I say, that if the people deem absurd laws to be appropriate, and if those laws in and of themselves are constitutional, without respect to the constitutionality of an unrelated law that might conceivably result in the very absurd laws feared by the Supreme Court, that is none of the Supreme Court's damned business. I repeat, it is none of the Supreme Court's damned business that we might pass absurd laws, provided they are constitutional.
And that seems to be where this argument is going. Without regard to the constitutionality of the so-called mandate that is not really a mandate, the court seems to be saying it must not rule it to be constitutional because of the absurdity that might conceivably follow with respect to a hypothetical law, blossoming full grown from the court's imagination, that we through our representatives might pass as a result of the court's decision.
Codswallop. A decision by the Supreme Court based on this idea is a clear overstep of its authority into the authority of the Congress. It is the job of the Congress to decide whether or not to pass absurd laws which happen to be constitutional, and to repeal those laws, if deemed appropriate. It is not the job of the Supreme Court to prevent the passage of any law, its manifest absurdity notwithstanding.
So, enough about broccoli. Decide the damned ACA on the basis of health care and interstate commerce, not fricking broccoli.