John Adams, raging socialist!

[Brittain33]

The Tea Party claims that the insurance mandate is a theft of our freedom that is contrary to what the founders believed. They're all about claiming the essence of the American Revolution and tri-corner hats and all that. It seems to me that most of them probably have no idea what the Founders really believed or that they disagreed with each other, it's all about claiming moral authority for what they want to do or think they want to do in the here and now.

[Brittain33]

Note that despite his calls for violence, Thomas Jefferson didn't respond to this law by shooting members of Congress.

[Brittain33]

Note that despite his calls for violence, Thomas Jefferson didn't respond to this law by shooting members of Congress.

You really want to go down this road again, eh? 

I should have worded it more carefully to avoid making a direct analogy to Tucson, but I mean what I said about Jefferson not seeing this as an occasion to "water the tree of liberty with the blood of patriots" as many people have been saying they feel the current health care reform does.

[Brittain33]

Forbes must be really getting behind the times.

http://volokh.com/2010/04/02/an-act-for-the-relief-of-sick-and-disabled-seamen/

It's a good precedent for universal health care funded by taxes. Interesting. I wonder if the Tea Party types would consider that less of an intrusion on their liberty than the mandate.

[Brittain33]

I've seen what px posted before and if that's the best argument you can make to suggest the founders had their own Obamacare, I think it's a poor one.

There's no way they could have had their own Obamacare back then, life was far too different. It's an argument that the Founders were willing to make this kind of law when supposedly it was unthinkable to them in that era of imaginary universal freedom.

[Brittain33]

Medical care back then did as much harm to patients as good.

That's irrelevant.

It's a nice irrelevance, though.

[Brittain33]

Am I alone in finding the American tendency to justify their arguments by invoking the Founding Fathers bizarre? Noone in France would ever say :'This is a good idea because Napoleon/Danton/whoever you want said this and that on the topic, which I interpret as supporting my general argument.'

There's a much weaker tradition of invoking Joan of Arc in ultra-nationalist circles.

[Brittain33]

Who knew it would be a ticking time bomb?

It's more like a campfire that became a small forest fire that is now 90% controlled and giving off a gentle warmth if you're far enough away. I take the point that it's a lot more costly than Bismarck envisioned, but it's not going to explode. Kind of like how Theodore Roosevelt might not have imagined his Great White Fleet evolving into a $700 billion annual defense outlay. Medicare, on the other hand...