How “precedent” works, from Eric Peters at ericpetersautos.com:
The imminently former Secretary of Health and Human Services, Xavier Becerra, recently told The New York Times that the federal government’s attempt to force practically everyone in the country to submit to being injected with the drugs it pushed on behalf of the legalized drug cartels commonly styled the “pharmaceutical industry” was absolutely warranted. Not only that, he pointed out it was nothing really new in that it was – in principle – something that had already been accepted in law as well as in practice by most people.
“Should we require people to wear seatbelts?”
Gotcha!
Becerra is right – in the sense that people are indeed required to wear seat belts and given that, of course they can “absolutely” be required to submit to pretty much anything else the federal government (that is, federal apparatchiks such as Becerra) decree is necessary because “safety” – or “public health,” which amounts to essentially the same thing.
This goes back a long way. At least 60 years, which was how long ago the federal government asserted the authority to be found nowhere in the Constitution to force car makers to force their customers to pay for seat belts in new cars, whether they wanted them (or to pay for them) being an irrelevance. Their “safety” – as defined by the apparatchiks of that long-ago day – became the justification.
Once that principle was established in law – and accepted in practice by an insouciant pubic that sighed and said – No big deal; I don’t have to wear the damned things – the federal government had the power to require that people wear them. This power was asserted not long thereafter.
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A small $35 ticket in Red State that they got me on about 25 years ago, wear it always now.
That is so cute to think that mommygov gives a rat’s ass about my safety, and the mchealthcarez doctor loves me too, he word work for free in order to keep me safe.
Darr, derp, drool.