Here’s my point in posting this: if health insurance can be mandated, why not life insurance also? There are compelling social obligations.
And so is bathing daily. "Citizens, stop at the next booth for a 'sniff test'".
And your point is well taken. This Obamacare mandate may be the first of many such mandates placed upon us. Mandatory life insurance may well be in our future.
And since Roberts’ legal logic is that Obamacare’s mandate is constitutional because government has the right to levy taxes, then anything can be done by the federal government, as long as it’s in the form of a tax.
Great, madatory life insurance will go hand in hand with the Obama-Care death panels. Kinda like a win-win.
This gets to the heart of what our civilization is currently wrestling with -- What is the Social Contract?
For the past few centuries, there has been some level of agreement on this. Rousseau started the ball rolling, and there was a sense that individuals owed at least something to society, and that society owed something to the individual. At different times and different places, the expectations were seen in different ways.
I think that in the US and in Europe, civilization is struggling with a new conception of the Social Contract. And I think it leans very heavily toward -- individuals owe a great deal to society, and society owes next to nothing to the individual.
I think we've reached Hillaire Belloc's "Servile State".