Never listen to TMLC

Posted by Josh Rosenau on June 7, 2010
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For reasons passing understanding, people continue to listen to the Thomas More Legal Center. Listening to their nonsense cost the Dover Area School District a cool million, and now some buffoons in Michigan have taken TMLC’s help in a suit challenging the Affordable Care Act. TMLC litigator Robert Muise defended the suit challenging the individual mandate by arguing:

Never in our history has the government sought to acquire for itself the authority to force someone to engage in a commercial transaction they wouldn’t otherwise engage in. The government has very broad authority, but it’s not without limits.

Uh, no. I own car insurance as required by law. Many states require the use of safety equipment while riding bicycles and engaging in other sports. Building contractors must install various devices in new homes or homes being renovated to keep them up to code, including insulation, low-flow toilets, and other products the owners might not otherwise have purchased.

Most relevant, though, is a law passed in 1798, by a Congress composed largely of people who drafted the Constitution. The law created a government insurance system for mariners, funded by a payroll tax. Private sailors were thus obliged to purchase insurance by an act of the Founding Fathers. Is that not enough relevant precedent? If anything, Constitutional amendments since that time strengthen the hand of Congress to enact taxes like the ones used to ensure compliance with the individual mandate.

Lesson: Never listent to TMLC. They are always – always – wrong.

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Comments

  1. #1 Pierce R. Butler
    June 7, 2010

    Not that I would ever want to defend the Tommy More guys, but didn’t those same Congressmembers of 1798 also pass the blatantly unconstitutional Alien and Sedition Acts?

    And a little earlier, didn’t the Chair of the Constitutional Convention and his fellow revolutionary leader each separately set out to rig the spirit and letter of the Electoral College they had just devised?

    Clearly if you want to know what’s Constitutional, don’t waste time with the Founders: go directly to Antonin Scalia!

  2. #2 memfree
    June 8, 2010

    I am not legally required to own a car, so I do not _have_ to get car insurance. I also do not have to bicycle, engage in sports, build homes, nor buy homes with mandated devices (though I would probably need to pay cash, as a bank is unlikely to give me a loan with out-of-code issues).

    Even with a payroll tax, that presumes I have a job — and maybe I don’t.

    Mandated Health care seems to be unavoidable unless you choose to stop existing … which I believe is illegal in most jurisdictions.

    BTW, I don’t want to defend the Tommy More guys, either. Just see little choice on this particular issue.

  3. #3 abb3w
    June 12, 2010

    Josh Rosenau: They are always – always – wrong.

    Almost always. I believe there are about three court cases where they were primary attorney and their position was ruled correct. It’s rather like the “stopped clock” phenomenon.

    They also filed an amicus brief in Salazar v. Buono on the predictable side, but I can understand not counting that for various reasons.

  4. #4 Marion Delgado
    June 18, 2010

    Attention, true believers in God, Judeo-Christian values, the flag, patriotism, values, the family:

    Josh Rosenau is an EVIL atheist and a bad man. He wants you to lose in court so that secular humanism (aka atheist communism) can become the official State religion.

    Therefore, do NOT listen to him. Whenever you are fighting the good fight for real values, ALWAYS let the Thomas More Law Center handle the court work and give you advice. This plan has never been known to fail for those who maintain a strong posture of faith that God is ALWAYS working behind the scenes for us.

    To repeat: in our efforts to get evolution out of the schools, we should always turn to the TMLC!