> If you believe that it's not for a majority of experts are not to decide, and a majority of laymen are not to decide, and a majority of Americans are not to decide, then who do you think should make the decision?
Democracy. In our system of government we elect leaders, those leaders are responsible to the people who have elected them. This has been sidestepped in recent decades by appointing experts who have the ability to use the force of law without explicit congressional approval. This is unconstitutional and the supreme court in the past year has twice affirmed this view[0][1]. We can't allow our leaders to hide behind people that they themselves have appointed when those appointees make choices that may have disastrous consequences.
> most people understand that the CDC is a normal org like any other, or indeed, like any normal person, which tries its best to do what it can with what it has, and aren't expected to be able to predict the future
Funny they didn't mention that while making proclamations from on high. "I did my best" is of little comfort to someone harmed by their choices.
> Point me to the clause in the Constitution where it says anyone has a right to healthcare or that the federal government is allowed to dispense it.
The latter, and it's the militia clause read together with the elastic clause. Arguably, depending on whether one views health status identification and health maintenance as more essential to training or organization of the universal militia, it may require the states to operate as delivery intermediaries, but it certainly allows federal funding.
> They're against it because it sets a precedent for government to mandate medical procedures.
This is just a part of what is so ridiculous about their objections and reveals ignorance and a misunderstanding of law. The government isn't required to establish precedent here because it is already the law of the land.[1][2][3] That said, precedent has been very well established for a very long time.[4]
>A future Constitution will explicitly support the right to be medicated/vaccinated if one wishes to be, while conversely supporting the right NOT to be medicated/vaccinated, if one does not.
No it won't because the Constitution is not, nor should it ever be, a suicide pact.
> Show me the part of the constitution where it says the government may sell health care.
That's not an argument against the policy, it's an argument that if the policy is desirable it should be pursued by means which include a Constitutional Amendment.
> The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
The Founders covered this in their writings. The defined rights were not to be considered the extent of the rights afforded the people.
They worried about including a specific Bill of Rights as it would lead to belief rights were indeed limited to the things they included.
A right to one’s own bodily agency, to discuss and engage in medical discourse and behaviors, is not explicitly called out in the Bill of Rights but it’s also not explicitly denied. The court uses that logic constantly when it empowers elites.
I think it’s pretty obvious America is done for since the people themselves believe now the powers that be can police their speech and agency in private settings when it’s merely what they don’t agree with.
> We have a court system to decide if these decisions fall into the public health crisis prevention.
Wait, is that the argument that the CDC should be given full authority to decide what needs to be done to protect against the disease, or that the courts should supervise not just on whether the action is authorized, but also effective at the stated goal?
> No precedent for it, and a lot of Supreme Court precedent against it
Could you cite some of that precedent? When I did my research around quarantines, the things I found said that precedent was very thin. What precedent there was typically was extremely deferential to government responses during emergencies and pandemic outbreaks.
I didn't find any SCOTUS cases myself, so I would be very curious to read the SCOTUS precedent against it.
> This Supreme Court decision says nothing about the extent of the penalties; simply that it is within the government's rights to enforce health mandates.
You are misrepresenting the case. The extent of the penalties was implied here, because the case was about upholding or rejecting particular state law, which listed the specific penalties involved.
> This decision is a referenced legal precedent cited for masking mandates, stay at home mandates, etc etc. The case -stemmed- from someone protesting being fined, but both the decision, and the ramifications, intentionally, are far further reaching than that.
> Most cases that reach the US Supreme Court aren’t about whether X is good or bad (let’s say X is abortion or gay marriage) but whether X is so good that the Federal government should compel states to allow it, or so bad that it should compel states to forbid it.
No, most of them aren’t about good or bad, which is a policy judgement generally reserved for the political branches, at all.
Its about whether X or Y is consistent with the law (including, as the paramount law, the Constitution of the United States.)
> No person without body autonomy can be considered 'secure in their person, houses, papers, or effects'.
It wasn’t the southern states that imposed vaccine mandates for dining in restaurants, either. (I know what you’re alluding to; suffice to say that I don’t find this legal theory particularly compelling.)
They are in part about federalism and in part about the absence of a right to have a verdict reviewed if it was arrived at properly, irrespective of new evidence discovered later.
Were such a right to exist under the Constitutiom, federalism would no longer require the federal courts to stay out of state cases involving such claims, since there would br a justiciable question of federal law.
> Please cite me where the power to enact a requirement to wear masks is explicitly granted to the federal government.
Depends on the nature of the mandate. A simple hard mandate (everyone must wear masks in public or be subject individually to federal sanction) may not be authorized, but that's not the only shape of mask mandate possible.
A requirement that a state adopt and show adequate enforcement of control measures deemed necessary by the federal government, including (if deemed necessary) a mask mandate with given parameters or be subject to additional restrictions on interstate trade and travel to restrict the spread of disease to other states is absolutely not only within the scope of the Constitutional power of the federal government under the Commerce Clause, but also within statutory powers already granted to the executive branch under that Constitutional power, in the Public Health Services Act and elsewhere.
That case involves Wickard producing wheat for his own use. The court decided that his wheat growing can be regulated because he used that wheat instead of buying wheat.
A lower court has upheld the Obamacare individual mandate tax on the same basis. (Since Obama says that the healthcare legislation is one of his significant achievements, Obamacare is giving him credit.)
> But we are a republic. And the Supreme Court doesn’t issue law, that’s Congress’s responsibility.
Within the bounds of what is permitted by the Constitution. If you believe that bodily autonomy is a fundamental right guaranteed in the Constitution, then laws are irrelevant, as this is outside the bounds of what law is permitted to be written.
Slavery is not an enumerated right, to control or to tax, for federal powers listed in the Constitution. Therefore it should fall to the states, or their respective citizens. A war was fought over this very issue. States lost. Get over it.
Functionally, Massachusetts Health Care Insurance Reform Law is similar to Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. One is state law, and the other one federal law. Questions were abound if PPACA was constitutional. SCOTUS said YES 5-4.
Quote: "Alternately, I can hope for a future non-Democrat court to actually read the constitution and overturn this recent decision."
Oh, and I believe the swing vote was Chief Justice John Roberts. Wasn't he a conservative justice, nominated by George W. Bush, after William Rehnquist passed? Facts are pesky things, aren't they?
There’s a Supreme Court decision[0] about whether states can mandate a vaccine (they can).
[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobson_v._Massachusetts
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