Monday, March 29, 2010

Where is the Line?

If the Feds can mandate that every American must buy health insurance, then I ask what can they not mandate citizens to buy? If every American went to the gym every week, we would surely be healthier. That would cut health care costs. We all know that obesity is a problem. So, what is to stop the Feds from mandating gym membership in the name of reducing health care costs? Many Americans would just pay for the membership and never go to the gym so there would have to be some enforcement measure. The gym might be required to report the number of hours a member has spent in the gym each week. Hey, it's for the best. I could certainly use the exercise. The Feds recently acquired a couple of car companies. Wouldn't it be nice if Americans purchased cars from those companies? It would make those companies solvent again and help pay back the money the taxpayer spent. Let's mandate that every family must have 1 GM or Chrysler. Where is the line? What prevents the government from mandating that we buy an apple a day to keep the doctor away? If requiring everyone to buy an apple a day is over the line, why isn't requiring us to buy a far more expensive product?

When the People control the government, that's democracy. When the government controls the People, that's tyranny.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

More examples of tyranny:

http://www.tnr.com/article/politics/102620/individual-mandate-history-affordable-care-act

Anonymous said...

Interesting but it demonstrates that even the Framers failed to stay within the limits. It is one thing to mandate a small industry - there aren't enough people to protest - and another to mandate everyone. There is a reason taxation falls most heavily on a tiny minority who can't vote the bums out.

Professor Elhauge has basically argued that there are no limits to the government. If it can mandate everyone buy health insurance, it can mandate just about anything. What is the limit? I would like to read the professor's thoughts on that.