I’d like Senator Baucus (or anyone else) point to the provision of the Constitution giving Congress authority to fine people who don’t want to purchase something.
Alexis de Tocqueville famously wrote that if America were to lose its freedom, it would not be through violent foreign conquest, but rather through the “soft despotism” of innumerable governmental mandates and prohibitions, gradually whittling away at liberty and lulling the people into a sense of dependence upon the state. Is that not exactly what’s become of us? Is it not despotic to demand that individuals either obediently purchase a governmentally-approved health insurance plan or else be fined thousands of dollars?
The Beloved Leader and his accomplices keep saying that those who oppose his plan are telling lies. How is it lying to say, “The government should not have any of that power”?
I suggest that someone in Congress impishly introduce a bill that would require all American families to buy a copy of Hayek’s The Road to Serfdom, or else face a fine of $3,800 for failure to comply.