Do you think Congress' first "Must Purchase Mandate" --The "Militia Act of 1792 -- was unconstitutional?

Oh come on. It’s politics. You know that. Conservatives don’t have a moral leg to stand on. They refuse to see how inter-dependent we all are. They believe in the myth of personal independence. They see the world in a highly unrealistic way.

My understanding without having the time to study it, is that it was not the order to buy insurance that passed muster, but the levying of a fine if you do not. Congress has plenty of work to do to make that happen, or the issue will come back to the court.

But why be cynical. Roberts, not a timid conservative, voted with the “liberal” justices and wrote the opinion.

I bet Scalia would have not approved of the referenced 1792 law either. Having said that, it was Scalia I believe who said something to the effect that the Constitution was not a suicide pact. Maybe he might have thought that the second Congress was responding appropriately to a crisis of arms. Who knows. Here’s your GQ though.

The Whiskey Rebellion was in 1994? Man, was I off by about 200 years. ;)

@fly – the whiskey rebellion was in 1994. I stopped buying Jim Bean and started buying Scotch.

I haven’t read the 1792 law, but from what you’re describing it might be defensible based on the Second Amendment – the alternative, undesirable to the founding fathers, was a standing army. Having those things listed is regulation of a militia (and not necessarily regulation in the modern sense). BTW, I think Cobb County, Georgia, requires every household to own a firearm, also defensible in keeping with the state’s right to a well-regulated militia.

@josie: not really. The fine was considered in line with the Congress’s power of taxation, and that’s the only reason it passed muster – even with the justices that weren’t Scalia, Alito, Thomas, and Kennedy.

Mandates are fine when made by Conservatives.

Seriously though, we do prefer violence. The same people who yell about spending a trillion on healthcare think that spending many trillions on an unwinnable way isn’t enough money.

Societies change with time; right now, the Constitution is only used to try to strike down laws, but is conveniently ignored otherwise. Whether something is constitutional or not no longer matters.

Article I, Section 8 of the U.S. constitution in part:

To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years;

To provide and maintain a Navy;

To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces;

To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;

To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;

You can see how especially that last delegation of power would afford Congress the right to mandate the purchase of arms. I’m not making a case that the healthcare mandate is wrong, but this is definitely something that was in the original Constitution – probably something the very people who wrote the constitution anticipated wanting to pass.

In 1794, the United States did not have a standing army, therefore Washington’s move made sense.

First, my sincere apologies to all for the inept editing. I didn’t catch “Whiskey Rebellion in 1994” when it should have been “1774” till way to late to edit it. And the saddest part is I posted this question early in the day, so I can’t even blame whiskey for the lapse.

@wundayatta I can’t disagree with a word of that.

@josie I always look forward to your nuanced “honestly conservative” viewpoint on things. Here’s your Great Answer. :-)

@Fly See above. I am SOOOO busted. And I can’t even blame too much whiskey!

@elbanditoroso Oh yes, THAT whiskey rebellion. That’s what I meant all along… <lying blush>.

@bolwerk Thanks for the historical perspective to the Constitutional review of the law.

@jerv Let’s remember that despite the modern Con Men co-opting them, the Founding Fathers were not conservatives. Trey were liberal revolutionaries. Conservatives of those days were calls things like Tories and Traitors.

@bolwerk Point made.

@filmfann True.

I reject the applicability of the analogy. A militia’s needs and Obama’s healthcare are only comparable to you. They don’t stand and fall together.

It was Pelosi who said “We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it.”—and your mandate is anything but that. It was very specific, it was to a need, and it didn’t attempt to go beyond its initial parameters as say the forcing of nuns to fund abortions clearly did

But I know this washes over you