It's a Good Thing Ezra Klein Is So Pretty

Ezra Klein misses a great opportunity to take head-on a very common and very lazy right wing talking point concerning the Constitution.  Klein links to Ben Smith and a Republican lawyer's reasoning as to why the SCOTUS will throw out the individual health care mandate.  Here's the text:

You have built an imaginary mansion, with thousands of rooms, on the foundation of Wickard v. Filburn — the 1942 ruling that broadened the understanding of how the Commerce Clause could be used to regulate economic activity.

We aren’t being asked to radically revise the Commerce Clause and throw out seven decades of law, and we won’t. But we know the founders never intended the Commerce Clause to allow the Federal Government to regulate everything on the planet. So we are going to accept Randy Barnett’s basically spurious exception to that basically spurious idea, and throw out the Affordable Care Act on the grounds that the Commerce Clause regulates “activity” (which we don’t really believe), but not “inactivity,” (because, why not draw the line somewhere?).

Ezra, predictably, goes straight into a breakdown of Wickard and why according to almost a century of precedent the mandate is perfectly legal.  He even calls the above quote the "most honest way" to argue throwing out the mandate.  But why grant Republicans any room in this talking point?  Essentially what Ezra is admitting to is that the New Deal ushered in an era where the Supreme Court allowed Congress to ignore the Constitution.  According to Republicans, it was 1942 with Wickard that began our slippery slope of an expanded view of the commerce clause-- a view the founders never intended.  And since then, for 70-plus years now, we've been on that path, a path the founders don't want us on.  There's no point in granting Republicans any such gravitas with such a blatantly misrepresented "imaginary mansion."

Ezra, instead, should have focused on another favorite line by Republicans contained in the argument as well.  "But we know the founders never intended the Commerce Clause to allow the Federal Government to regulate everything on the planet."  There ya go.  Founders intent.

Of course the Founders never intended the Commerce Clause to allow Congress to regulate everything.  No one is suggesting such.  The Affordable Care Act does not in anyway lead credence to such a notion.  The Founders did intend for Congress to provide for the general welfare of the public, nonetheless.  Moreover, the Founder's intent argument is a bogus ploy used routinely by Republicans only when it suits their ideology.  In this case they want to use intent as if it's some sort of benevolence guided by the Creator. 

The Founders intended on a lot things that were just outright wrong.  They intended blacks to be slaves.  Women to never hold office or vote.  They intended only land-owning white men to have any say in the government at all.  They were wrong.  As wrong as wrong as ever been.  But Republicans never want to bring any of that up. 

If you want to put to bed-- quickly-- the GOP's argument the Founders never intended this or that just mention the 2nd Amendment.  Writing in a day where there was no such thing as standing armies or the military industrial complex, the Founders never intended ordinary citizens to carry bazookas.  Why?  Well, the Founders had no comprehension of modern weaponry.  Their very specific intent was for citizens, not blacks or women mind you, to own and bare muzzle loading powder guns.  That was their intent.  But this time Republicans want this law applied as broadly as possible.  They want it to include assault rifles, and all other kinds of nifty killing machines.  Founders intent goes right out the window, conveniently of course.  It's a shame Ezra fell into the trap of New Deal revisionism where Republicans want to repeal the 20th century and send us back to the days where government's only roll was to delivery the mail-- to white male citizens that is.