Posted by Kromey at 1:34pm Apr 6 '12The Militia Acts of 1792 were drafts, acts compelling people into military service, not unlike the later (and perhaps more infamous) Vietnam-era draft.
Saying that a draft (which, yes, as part of it did require the draftees to provide their own gear) from the nation's earliest years (when we were under constant threat of attack from both foreign and domestic aggressors) is comparable to health care is an absurd conflation!
There's also the little fact that even if it's been done before in no way speaks to the constitutionality of it. Remember the Sedition Acts? If Congress were to pass similar abridgments of your First Amendment rights today, would you not argue that they were unconstitutional? And would you not dismiss as folly people pointing to those acts as supposed precedents that justify them?
Saying that a draft (which, yes, as part of it did require the draftees to provide their own gear) from the nation's earliest years (when we were under constant threat of attack from both foreign and domestic aggressors) is comparable to health care is an absurd conflation!
There's also the little fact that even if it's been done before in no way speaks to the constitutionality of it. Remember the Sedition Acts? If Congress were to pass similar abridgments of your First Amendment rights today, would you not argue that they were unconstitutional? And would you not dismiss as folly people pointing to those acts as supposed precedents that justify them?
So, war is the moral equivalent to health care? - Kromey