Waiting for the "Pro-Choice" Democrats

Carol Platt Liebau | February 23, 2011 11:51 AM

Philip Klein writes today about the appalling ObamaCare decision that emanated from Judge Gladys Kesler of the Washington, D.C., federal district court. Of particular interest was this passage:

As previous Commerce Clause cases have all involved physical activity, as opposed to mental activity, i.e. decision-making, there is little judicial guidance on whether the latter falls within Congress’s power...However, this Court finds the distinction, which Plaintiffs rely on heavily, to be of little significance. It is pure semantics to argue that an individual who makes a choice to forgo health insurance is not “acting,” especially given the serious economic and health-related consequences to every individual of that choice. Making a choice is an affirmative action, whether one decides to do something or not do something. They are two sides of the same coin. To pretend otherwise is to ignore reality.

In other words, Judge Kesler argues that citizens' every "mental activity" that involves making choices -- especially those with serious "economic and health-related consequences" -- represent "acts" that can be regulated by the federal government.

This is, literally, quite frightening stuff, a big step on the road to government tyranny. By Judge Kesler's reasoning, in theory, presumably the government could force everyone to eat broccoli, or to buy a gun for protection. Taking the reasoning to its logical (far) extreme, government could presumably even require every pregnant woman to have an abortion -- especially if, for example, it could be shown that overpopulation was having serious "economic and health-related consequences."