Florida Judge rules Obamacare unconstitutional. Mentions Boston Tea Party and Romneycare

- Jennifer of Cubachi

U.S. District Judge Roger Vinson, ruled today that Obamacare is unconstitutional. Congress overstepped it's authority.

He said, "If Congress can penalize a passive individual for failing to engage in commerce…we would have a Constitution in name only."

The judge cited the Boston Tea Party and even how Romneycare left Massachusetts "worse off."

Comments

[gary gulrud]

Now will you say good night Mitt?

[Totally Domestic]

Great! Another judge that follows the Constitution! Thanks Judge Vinson.

[SacTownMan]

Time for SCOTUS to rule once and for all!!

[gary gulrud]

Doubt the commerce clause gets a thorough work-over, the Feds will be in court for years.

[Ragspierre]

EXCELLENT. Hope to read the decision.

[Garry]

Way to go! Looks like we are heading in the right direction....

[Ragspierre]

If it has the power to compel an otherwise passive individual into a commercial transaction with a third party merely by asserting --- as was done in the Act --- that compelling the actual transaction is itself “commercial and economic in nature, and substantially affects interstate commerce” [see Act § 1501(a)(1)], it is not hyperbolizing to suggest that Congress could do almost anything it wanted. It is difficult to imagine that a nation which began, at least in part, as the result of opposition to a British mandate giving the East India Company a monopoly and imposing a nominal tax on all tea sold in America would have set out to create a government with the power to force people to buy tea in the first place. If Congress can penalize a passive individual for failing to engage in commerce, the enumeration of powers in the Constitution would have been in vain for it would be “difficult to perceive any limitation on federal power” [Lopez, supra, 514 U.S. at 564], and we would have a Constitution in name only.

True, and anyone who can rub two brain cells together knows it is true.

Which is why I conclude that some Collectivists know and don't give a fig about the Constitution. Others are just not that bright.

[gary gulrud]

"True, and anyone who can rub two brain cells together knows it is true."

And yes, Kennedy has many continguous brain cells.

Barry, the once and only, No term Presentent(Wm. Harrison died, no fair).

[Ragspierre]

"And yes, Kennedy has many continguous brain cells."

Well, the argument can be made that is true of JFK and RFK.

Teddy...not so much. They may have been contiguous, but only in the sense that whiskey barrels in a warehouse are contiguous.

[Neo]

I don’t have a cite, but apparently the judge used a 2008 position paper by then candidate for President, Barack Obama, when citing one of the reasons why the individual mandate was unconstitutional.

[Ragspierre]

http://hotair.com/archives/2011/02/01/video-guess-who-predicted-the-obamacare-ruling/

There you go, Neo.

[gary gulrud]

"Teddy...not so much."

Sorry, I meant Anthony. Rags, come on.

[Drago]

Neo: "I don’t have a cite, but apparently the judge used a 2008 position paper by then candidate for President, Barack Obama, when citing one of the reasons why the individual mandate was unconstitutional."

Not exactly. The Judge used an example used by obambi to ILLUSTRATE the constitutional problems inherent in giving the government control over "non-economic" activity.

obambi, in 2008, said that if the individual mandate was legal, then the government could mandate all kinds of spending behavior to "solve" whatever problem the government deemed important.

The example used by obambi and others since is that the government could "solve" the homeless "crisis" by mandating everyone purchase a home via a government-backed or directed loan.

All sane and rational people (which excludes barfo/salvage et al) realize that if the government can dictate the purchase of health insurance from private companies, then the government can mandate the purchase of ANY product or service from whatever preferred vendor the government so designates.

At that point, NO assets you possess are beyond the reach of the government. At that point, you are, quite literally, at the complete mercy of the dictates of the federal government.

Or, as the lefties would say, you would be in "paradise"....you know...like that wonderful health care they have in Cuba, or how everyone in the Soviet Union had a job.

[Chris Taus]

The fact that trial judges are political appointees gives the decision even less meaning, especially when the judge rules exactly how you would expect. Barring a death or retirement of one of the conservative justices on the Supreme Court, the healthcare mandate will come down to Anthony Kennedy, and its fate is no more decided today than it was yesterday.

[Ragspierre]

Chris:

Think about a situation where one unelected...and unanswerable...puke decides how you will live. Is that a condition you find acceptable?

Actually, you are quite wrong. The momentum is STRONGLY in favor of killing ObamaCare. I predict that will only increase.

You also forget the power of civil disobedience.

Think of Prohibition.