Another Mass Shooting In The Us...

[camberiu]

<p><p>

I wouldn't equate the two rulings at all. Arbitrary police searches can result in imprisonment, whereas if someone refuses to pay their share of insurance they wouldn't.

And your Social Security number will never be used as a form of identification. Let's see for how long that will hold now that the number of young people signing up for the ACA is falling way short of expectations and the health providers are having to jack up rates.

The crux of the matter here is that the Supreme Court ruled that the state has the power to force you to buy something that, given a choice, you might opt not to buy. The issue of the sanctions for failure to comply currently having no teeth, was never debated by the Supreme Court. The fact of the matter is that according to the Supreme Court, the state can punish you for not having health insurance. That principle has already been settled. All it takes now is a small amendment to the existing law, and failure to comply could become a crime in which the ultimate punishment is death.

Never pass laws that you are not willing to kill to enforce.
"Law professors and lawyers instinctively shy away from considering the problem of law’s violence. Every law is violent. We try not to think about this, but we should. On the first day of law school, I tell my Contracts students never to argue for invoking the power of law except in a cause for which they are willing to kill. They are suitably astonished, and often annoyed. But I point out that even a breach of contract requires a judicial remedy; and if the breacher will not pay damages, the sheriff will sequester his house and goods; and if he resists the forced sale of his property, the sheriff might have to shoot him."

 

[steveinbsas]

It sure isn't perfect, this decision looks like a real stinker. But with Scalia and the other conservatives running the show you'd expect this. Makes the ACA decision even more legitimate if even Scalia and his buddies couldn't fault it. Citizens United is another. Apparently Hilary is going to propose a constitutional amendment to get rid of it, another reason to vote for her instead of the bigot.

If Scalia is still running the show he apparently hasn't been informed about this: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/14/us/antonin-scalia-death.html

 

[ElQueso]

If Scalia is still running the show he apparently hasn't been informed about this: http://www.nytimes.c...alia-death.html

Makes me also wonder what StevePalermo understands, at least as regarding the politics, of the Supreme Court of the US when he says "Scalia and his buddies couldn't fault it" in relation to making ACA even more legitimate (although maybe I wasn't understanding the point...).

Scalia himself was quite against it as a law, and he actually wrote the dissenting opinion. Some things the dissenters had to say:

http://edition.cnn.c...macare-roberts/

 

[ElQueso]

<p><p>

And your Social Security number will never be used as a form of identification. Let's see for how long that will hold now that the number of young people signing up for the ACA is falling way short of expectations and the health providers are having to jack up rates.

The crux of the matter here is that the Supreme Court ruled that the state has the power to force you to buy something that, given a choice, you might opt not to buy. The issue of the sanctions for failure to comply currently having no teeth, was never debated by the Supreme Court. The fact of the matter is that according to the Supreme Court, the state can punish you for not having health insurance. That principle has already been settled. All it takes now is a small amendment to the existing law, and failure to comply could become a crime in which the ultimate punishment is death.

Never pass laws that you are not willing to kill to enforce.
"Law professors and lawyers instinctively shy away from considering the problem of law’s violence. Every law is violent. We try not to think about this, but we should. On the first day of law school, I tell my Contracts students never to argue for invoking the power of law except in a cause for which they are willing to kill. They are suitably astonished, and often annoyed. But I point out that even a breach of contract requires a judicial remedy; and if the breacher will not pay damages, the sheriff will sequester his house and goods; and if he resists the forced sale of his property, the sheriff might have to shoot him."

Many people who wish to invoke the power of the State do not understand that doing so is invoking violence. Most people think of themselves as good, law-abiding people and don't think of the worst case scenarios of their "good intentions" toward others, many of whom consider themselves law-abiding citizens as well. Or they dehumanize them (as I see so many neo-liberals calling conservatives some pretty bad names, for example) as if they were in a war and anyone who crosses the law, obviously deserves to be "punished".

A ticket or a fine is a smack on the wrist; they don't see it as actual violence - no more than the man or woman who screams obscenities at his or her spouse when upset sees that as a form of violence. They don't think about the guy who gets caught up in the State's BS when it shouldn't have happened, or if they do it's always "yeah, but a few problems are worth the overall benefits", as I've heard so many times. I wonder how many times such people have been the ones caught up in something that "wasn't intended" by the State, to the very real detriment of that poor person.

The State doesn't know how to moderate itself and the humans who are involved in "running" it often don't care. They will perform their "duties" as they are "ordered" - and indeed many times if they don't, if they find such actions distasteful or even immoral, they may find themselves on the wrong end of State violence themselves. Ever wonder how many of you would resist following orders if you felt it was immoral and you faced serious consequences yourselves?

It wouldn't surprise me to see someone like HC push ACA into something even worse and more oppressive than it is now. Violence unto death might be a little over-the-top, but the truth is violence comes in many forms and the State is really good at it.

 

[steveinbsas]

It wouldn't surprise me to see someone like HC push ACA into something even worse and more oppressive than it is now.

You can count on it.

 

[camberiu]

It wouldn't surprise me to see someone like HC......

Or Trump.

 

[GS_Dirtboy]

The government is a necessary evil but the less we have of it the better we are.

 

[StevePalermo]

If Scalia is still running the show he apparently hasn't been informed about this: http://www.nytimes.c...alia-death.html

Haha.. But he was sure there with the ACA decision.

 

[StevePalermo]

Makes me also wonder what StevePalermo understands, at least as regarding the politics, of the Supreme Court of the US when he says "Scalia and his buddies couldn't fault it" in relation to making ACA even more legitimate (although maybe I wasn't understanding the point...).

Scalia himself was quite against it as a law, and he actually wrote the dissenting opinion. Some things the dissenters had to say:

http://edition.cnn.c...macare-roberts/

I worded it badly when I said 'couldn't fault it". Of course they could, and did! But don't they have collective responsibility for the decision, or can dissenters claim it is a illegitimate decision because they voted against it? The court made the decision with him in it. Or is collective responsibility a foreign concept in the USA? And I think I have a pretty good understanding of the politics of the Supreme Court thanks.

 

[StevePalermo]

It wouldn't surprise me to see someone like HC push ACA into something even worse and more oppressive than it is now. Violence unto death might be a little over-the-top, but the truth is violence comes in many forms and the State is really good at it.

Or to non-libertarians/ideologues she could push it into something even better! Of course the state is good at violence, but gun owners kill more people in the USA than the state surely, or did I miss something? And to gain access to health care when it had been denied to me before is the kind of oppression that I can cope with thanks. My life and health is more important to me than adhering to some libertarian principle.