Broccoli is Unconstitutional
87%. Via Reason Hit & Run blog:
And even if broccoli isn’t unconstitutional, the Russians couldn’t make us eat it. Mebbe President Obama can make us eat the rest. We’ll see.
Tom Van Dyke
Tom Van Dyke, businessman, musician, bon vivant and game-show champ (The Joker's Wild, and Win Ben Stein's Money), knows lots of stuff, although not quite everything yet. A past inactive to The American Spectator Online, the late great Reform Club blog, and currently on religion and the American Founding at American Creation, TVD continues to write on matters of both great and small importance from his ranch type style tract house high on a hill above Los Angeles.
That’s pretty hilarious.Report
I say it’s socialism, and I say the hell with it.Report
Maybe if they would have said, ‘Asparagus’ they would have had more respondents believing it wasn’t unconstitutional.Report
To be honest, I don’t find much value in these polls. I’d love to see questions like the following:
1. Which of the following decisions have you read? Check all that apply ( ) Lochner v. New York ( ) Wickard v. Filburn ( ) U.S. v. Lopez ( ) Gonzales v. Raich
2. Name the nine Justices of the current U.S. Supreme Court.
3. Please supply an adequate legal definition of the word “cabined.”
There is a reason why we leave these things to experts and don’t just subject them to majority vote.Report
It’s true that expertocracy is a deeply seductive notion. But just how elite is the test for franchise to be? Take me. I’m a pretty smart guy. A lawyer, even. I’ve read all four of the cases you mention. I can name all nine Justices of the Supreme Court. But I’d need an external reference to answer your third question.Report
I wouldn’t propose any test at all for simple franchise. But to judge a case? Definitely. They’re different things.
As for me, I don’t think I’d make a qualified judge either. I’d previously read all four cases, could name the justices with no trouble, but only learned the word “cabined” by reading about this case in particular. I would find it hard to believe that anyone could read very deeply about the case and not encounter it. After that, the responsible thing to do is to look it up.
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While I wouldn’t take it as far as simple trust-the-experts (experts are capable of having their own agenda, after all), it does surprise me at times how much people will talk about things only to prove how little they know about them. I’ve been in, for example, casual chitchat about the economy which got side-tracked because I had to explain to one of the participants what Inflation was after using the term.
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Is it constitutional or unconstitutional to require any person entering a grocery store to be given broccoli even if they have no means to pay for it? Just asking…Report
The broccoli mandate is a perfect analogy.
I am sure you are all aware that according to state and federal law as well as “the grocer’s ethic” grocers are compelled to provide broccoli free of charge to anyone who want it but can’t afford to pay.
In addition, as we all know, all of us, at some point in our lives will be faced with a choice of eating broccoli or suffering severe medical consequences including death. Meaning that each of us will, at some point need to eat Broccoli.
Also, a quick look at the price of broccoli reveals that it can currently costs thousands of dollars per serving and that that cost continues to rise much faster than inflation.
As a result of these costs, many of us currently purchase broccoli insurance, so that we can afford to purchase broccoli as necessary.
Those of us that don’t purchase broccoli insurance still have to eat broccoli on occasion and thus request broccoli form grocers free of charge.
Grocers provide this broccoli but must raise prices even further in order to afford providing free broccoli pursuant to their ethical and legal obligations.
This raises the cost of broccoli insurance for everyone else. It also requires govenrment subsidies to grocers which are paid out of general tax revenues.
As a result, millions of people receive free broccoli, paid for by everyone else.
Clearly, the govenrment mandate that these people purchase broccoli insurance to pay for the broccoli they will consume is utterly unconstitutional.Report
His stance against all this is the reason why George Bush Sr was one of last century’s greatest Presidents.Report
The 8% there, someone should’ve followed up with “what does the term Constitutional mean?”.Report