Replies

“Pain is pleasure to the sadist”

That’s irrelevant. Pain actually can be pleasurable to non-sadists, too. Or at least lead to pleasure since the brain sends endophines out to couteract it. Non-action cannot be commerce under any circumstances. To say so would be like saying pain can be apples as well as pleasure. It makes no sense.

“The solicitor for The Obammunist cites the farmer who grew wheat only for his family and his animals. He still grew more than FDR dictated for his acreage”

That case, Wickard v. Filburn, is not only wrong, but also one of the worst that has ever decided by SCOTUS. Nevertheless, it doesn’t apply.

“The guy sold nothing.”

Yes, but he didn’t do nothing. He grew food for his own consumption. That’s not commerce, though SCOTUS effectively ruled it as such. It was overt action, and that’s been the standard ever since. Notice how often Scalia refers to action in his medical marijuana decision.

“The court said by growing more than his allocation he was not participating in commerce (needing to buy), thus impeding it, thus subject to the commerce clause.”

He wasn’t merely not engaging in commerce; he was doing something that supposedly affected interstate commerce. That something he was doing was not choosing not to buy wheat grown out of state. It was growing wheat himself. It was an overt action, and, again that has been the standard.

The current SCOTUS can change that standard, but not only would they be wrong, it’d be unprecedented.

“The court is the final arbiter of intent.”

Ah, but they didn’t rule on intent, did they? (If the famrer had only thought about growing his own food, there never would have been a case. He did grow wheat, and therefore there was something to regualate, even if it wasn’t commerce. Obamacare seeks to regulate something which doesn’t exist, which according to their arguments is predicted future healthcare expenditures. They cannot do so, because it’s impossible to regulate nothingness, as it were.

“Don’t forget, Kagen, Sotomeyor, Ginsberg and Breyer can read minds.”

They can do whatever they want, apparently without fear of impeachment on Kagan’s part. But they cannot use Wickard to rule the mandate legal. Not that they wouldn’t cite it. They’d just be citing it incorrectly.