Interstate commerce in action!

"Democrats say that failing to buy insurance is a form of economic activity, because it shifts costs to others in the marketplace through higher insurance premiums, and onto the public when the uninsured use emergency rooms to obtain primary care."
--Wall Street Journal (regarding constitutionality of proposed health care bill)

[T]hat the interstate commerce clause of the Constitution is routinely interpreted to mean that the government can do anything whatsoever is hardly news. [The Supreme Court has declared that] Growing grain on your own land for your own use was part of "interstate commerce" in Wickard v. Filburn because growing grain instead of buying it from somebody else affects the overall market price of grain.

By the time we reached that point, the idea that America had a limited government restricted by law to particular functions enumerated in a written constitution became a bad joke.

Despite that, I still find this remarkable for how brazen and explicit this is: Merely existing is now interstate commerce.
--John Markley