'mere rationality'? you simply keep moving the goalpost to other meaningless concepts. The healthcare bill does not promote the general welfare, it will degrade quality and drive up the debt and/or taxes. It promotes individual welfare for a minority, which is not in the constitution.
You made the mistake of thinking I myself thought the healthcare bill was constitutional. I was in fact commenting on the current political system. In todays current political system the healthcare bill is consitutional because the majority of the system adheres to the concept of mere rationality. Regarding healthcare, liberals are the ones who identify with mere rationality. They pursue a legitimate governmental objective (more healthcare for all) and only need a minimally rational relation between the means chosen by the government and the state objective. A liberal/moderate court will consider any bill constitutional if it satisfies the easily qualifiable concept of mere rationality. You identify with the concept of strict scrutiny regarding healthcare. You think the healthcare bill is unconstitutional and you think it will not promote the general welfare because you do not consider the means of the bill to be necessary in achieving healthcare for all nor do you consider healthcare for all to be a compelling state interest.
Healthcare is not a 'legitimate gov't objective', in fact healthcare itself is ill defined. Again it comes down to arbitrary creation of a principle and definition where none exists, in that case you can justify almost anything.
So you're saying that the principle and value of healthcare for all never existed when this country was founded? When you said it never existed I assume you mean it never existed in the original Republic. Your argument could be turned around on you and state that the founding of this country was an arbitrary creation of values and principles.
Politics is about choices, not absolutes, of course there is arbitrariness in the Constitution and bill of rights. What is not included in the foundation is a right to any economic resources or commodities, there is a delineation between positive and negative rights. Rights to economic commodities are full of flaws and contradictions. Government funded healthcare was never intended because as Franklin said, as soon as people can vote themselves money, that will signal the end of the republic. What is the definition and purpose of healthcare? What exactly is good health if that is the goal? Canadians hoot about an insignificant stat on longevity (even though they count infant mortality differently), but let's say longevity is the national goal of the healthcare system. Then the natural and logical consequence of that would be loss of personal freedom so that the goal of longevity can be achieved. For starters: 1) you must outlaw smoking 2) there must be punative measures for obesity and diets must be controlled by government 3) drinking alcohol must be enforced to moderate amounts we could go on with a very large list, but obviously national healthcare and freedom are not compatible and not just for the reason that the government takes your money and forces you to share risk with fat lazy smokers. Gov't healthcare will be at odds with individual rights, you can trash the foundation of the USA or you can trash socialism, but you can't have both.
All it would take is a slow, insidious subversion of the constitution. By the time freedom of speech and due process are denied, it will be too late to worry.
I disagree. The country may collapse under debt and the constitution may be torn to pieces but with freedom of speech I don't think it would be possible for a politician to conduct illegal activities with a military force on his own people for an extended period of time. Throughout history every gestapo like force that has gained legitimate power has done so because freedom of speech was denied. Look at what happened to Nixon in the watergate scandal. Now imagine a politician attempting to create a gestapo (military to conduct illegal activities).
I guess you never heard of the NSA. It was formed exclusively due to laws curbing behavior of the CIA.