As a sovereign, Arizona has the inherent power to exclude persons from its territory
-Justice Scalia’s dissent in Arizona v. United States
Justice Scalia’s dissent in the Arizona illegal alien law case harkens back to a simpler time in America, when local governments were left alone to decide who could and could not come there.
He brings to mind a time when a town like Siloam Springs, Arkansas was free to ban blacks from its city limits, like many other “sundown towns” across America.
The sovereign may forbid the entrance of his territory either to foreigners in general, or in particular cases, or to certain persons… according as he may think it advantageous to the state.
-Scalia again, quoting a 1758 treatise. Notice that nice use of “he” to denominate the sovereign, a little touch I’m sure Justice Scalia found endearing.
A time when everyone recognized that only the propertied or well-to-do were entitled to the privileges of citizenship.
The Articles of Confederation had provided that “the free inhabitants of each of these States, paupers, vagabonds and fugitives from justice excepted, shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of free citizens in the several States.”
-Scalia again, quoting the Articles of Confederation, and reminding those among us with a somewhat more liberal bent why we are relieved to be rid of them.
When the State of California was free to set up a “bum blockade” to keep out undesirables, a term that meant people from Oklahoma, Arkansas and Texas.
Notwithstanding “[t]he myth of an era of unrestricted immigration” in the first 100 years of the Republic, the States enacted numerous laws restricting the immigra- tion of certain classes of aliens, including convicted criminals, indigents, persons with contagious diseases, and (in Southern States) freed blacks. Neuman, The Lost Century of American Immigration (1776–1875), 93 Colum. L. Rev. 1833, 1835, 1841–1880 (1993).
-More from that Scalia dissent.
When the national government would enact legislation titled “An Act to prohibit the ‘Coolie Trade’ by American Citizens in American Vessels,” designed to ban Chinese immigration (Congress’s first attempt at, to borrow a phrase, immigration reform)
As this Court has said, it is an “ ‘accepted maxim of international law, that every sovereign nation has the power, as inherent in sovereignty, and essential to self-preservation, to forbid the entrance of foreigners within its dominions.’ ” Fong Yue Ting v. United States, 149 U. S. 698, 705(1893) (quoting Ekiu v. United States, 142 U. S. 651, 659 (1892) ).
-Scalia, quoting with apparent approval a case upholding the “Coolie Trade” act as to two Chinese immigrants, and another case involving a Japanese immigrant.
Justice Scalia does note that all good things have not been lost with the passage of time.
([Unlike America,] some countries, for example, have recently discovered the death penalty to be barbaric)
-Yes, seriously, Scalia writes this in the opinion, and makes clear his disgust for “some countries.”
One reading his dissent comes away with the sense that the author looked back with sadness and even anger at the loss of a time when states were free to exclude lowlifes, blacks, and Okies, and when the sovereign was not thought of as some general demos but was denominated as “he.”
It is worth noting that, when this opinion came down, Justice Scalia was not the only one having that kind of a day.
Is it true that our society is inexorably evolving in the direction of greater and greater decency? Who says so, and how did this particular philosophy of history find its way into our fundamental law?
-from Justice Alito’s dissent in Miller v. Alabama.
“Many more people will have the option to choose a cheaper plan that restricts them to providers in the network or a more expensive plan that lets them use providers who have not agreed to the networks terms.”
Isn’t that what we have now? Network providers charge less (or at least accept less from the insurer in full payment of the claim) than non-network providers. That’s how it’s been with the policies I’ve had over the last 12 years. Didn’t save me any money in premiums.
I doubt that costs savings to insurers will translate to lower premiums. I do think it will translate to higher profits and more fuel for company jets.
Now, if we could get Congress to use the Commerce Clause to regulate health insurers and legislatively declare they must operate as non-profit corporations if they want to enjoy the benefits of interstate commerce, then we’d be on the road to lower premiums. I don’t think that’s going to happen, though.
Once upon a time, in an integrated healthcare delivery network, far, far away, I looked in to the eyes of my C-Suite Healthcare Executives, especially the CFO, and told them that universal care was coming and that we would get there in our life times and by the most painful way possible. I must have been tapping into the Force when I spoke that, but they laughed at me and told me to go back to my old religion, Jedi mind tricks. It was then I plotted my escape to a small solo law practice in a yellow star system on the outer rim.
John: Now, if we could get Congress to use the Commerce Clause to regulate health insurers….
Bingo!!
Now you’re cooking with gas. If Congress would impose regulatory control over the insurance industry, we might make progress on controlling medical insurance costs. I don’t wanna make ‘em not-for-profits … they need and deserve the incentives of market based business. But leaving the insurance industry under the “control” of state regulators is pure sham … the industry controls the regulators and wants to keep it that way.
The business of insurance has become sufficiently entertwined in American life, business, and health as to be part of our nation’s DNA … not unlike the banking industry. The federal government once had manageable controls over the banking industry. Unfortunately, we pissed away the controls when investment banks were permitted to engage in commercial banking. It’s time to retake those controls … and to impose similar controls over the insurance industry. States can’t do it. Nothing less than the might and span of the federal government can do it. It’s time.
If your comment is a motion, I second it.
Ben, I can’t claim purely original thought on that. I saw a PBS Frontline show in 2008 about healthcare policies in other countries. My recollection is that Japan’s model is based on not-for-profit insurers. I made the suggestion Congress jerk a knot in our health insurers tongue-in-cheek. That’ll never happen. Too much money in that biz. Ditto with healthcare provider corporations and physicians. They are the uber klasse.
As Americans, we enjoy the best healthcare available. I think we’re okay with paying a premium for routine services to keep Big Healthcare chugging along, and paying relatively high premiums for our coverage, so if we ever experience a catastrophic illness, we can get immediate and top-tier care. But, shit, the ever increasing pricing of medical services (which triggers increases in premiums) just isn’t related to anything other than increasing the profit margin. Profit is good, don’t get me wrong (I’m a card-carrying capitalist), but the pricing thing has spun out of control.
@John, it’s those healthcare product manufacturers who are at the top of the food chain. You know the names, they sponsor a lot of Sunday morning PBS programs: Pfizer, Eli Lilly, Johnson & Johnson, Tyco, Medtronic, and so on, and so on. They demand double digit annual profits on a quarterly basis.
The people who will be hurt by this decision are the low-income working families who live in states with Republican ideologues for Governors. They will now have a mandate to buy insurance but their states will turn down all the federal money to expand Medicaid, will take no action to set up an efficient insurance market within a state-sponsored exchange, and will do nothing to increase capacity for lower-cost access to primary care. There are federal subsidies to help pay the premiums and federal tax credits to help small businesses, but the flaw in the law is that it expects states to make an effort to help their low and modest income citizens.
“States with Republican ideologues for Governors … will do nothing to increase capacity for lower-cost access to primary care.”
Other than using federal money (i.e., money collected from the 50% of citizens who pay taxes), what should governors do to increase capacity for lower-cost access to primary care? Would the legislature be involved?
If Mississippi takes the Medicaid money, about 300,000 Mississippians would be added to Medicaid. The expansion starts out at 100% federal funding and then slides down to 90%. That is still a pretty big windfall to Mississippi doctors, hospitals, nursing homes, pharmacies, home health agencies, etc., so you can expect the Legislature and the Governor to tone down their rhetoric once those groups reach out to them. The new Medicaid population will be lower income with above average health risks but not disabled, not in nursing homes, and not poor pregnant women and children, those groups are already on Medicaid. The new people will need access to primary care and better management and prevention of health risks. If public health professionals designed the system they would want to bring in more nurse practitioners and allow them to provide basic primary care services without direct supervision by an M.D. Public health professionals probably also would want to set up community based programs for helping this population manage diabetes, heart risk, and other very common problems in Mississippi that are much more severe and much more expensive to treat if not treated and managed early. But the doctor groups do not want nurse practitioners to be able to practice independently and prevention and disease management programs also would need more specialty nurses. Mississippi has a lot of obesity and similar problems that we have to figure out how to prevent and/or manage better.
That is still a pretty big windfall to Mississippi doctors, hospitals, nursing homes, pharmacies, home health agencies, etc., so you can expect the Legislature and the Governor to tone down their rhetoric once those groups reach out to them.
Right. They all like to whinge about Medicaid’s not being worth bending over to pick up in the street, but it beats the hell out of pure indigent care: SOMEONE is paying SOMETHING.
I really don’t know enough to speak with any kind of authority. So, I’m truly asking this question seeking information. Why can’t we all just go on Medicaid? Just expand the whole damn program to cover everybody alive in the country? Seriously.
Someoneinnorthms, that’s the longer range objective of the progressives — single payer, universal health care managed and controlled by the federal government. You know, like Canada and Great Britain and other countries have where patients get to wait weeks or months for routine diagnostic procedures you can get scheduled in a day or two in Oxford.
Medicaid is a mess but not for the reasons the state and health providers complain about. The states routinely search for schemes to rip off the federal government and then scream that they are being oppressed when they get caught. Mississippi gets the most generous match, about 75 percent federal, but Barbour used the Katrina and stimulus funds to run that up to 89 percent. The state cut its Medicaid funds significantly and used the temporary federal windfalls to supplant the state money. Then when the extra federal funds stopped, the state cried that Medicaid was breaking the budget.
The state also copied Louisiana and other rogue states in laundering private funds to use as phony matching funds to bring down more federal dollars. The state “taxed” hospitals and other facilities and then raised their Medicaid payments by more than the tax. The effect was to borrow say $100 from a hospital as a “tax”, use that to draw down $300 or $400 in federal funds, and then pay the hospital back the $100 plus some of the federal windfall as a reimbursement increase.
John: Those who know ME will think I’m talking to myself because of your handle and most of your views. But, you aren’t me, huh?
It just seems to me that the interim steps have all of the drawbacks and none of the benefits of universal health care. I realize the politics of it make it almost impossible to create in our country. But, let’s just go whole-hog for a while and see what happens. After all, the worst of it won’t impact you and me but rather our children and grandchildren. And screw them. They haven’t produced a thing (at least my children–they are still struggling with elementary school math). As long as the central government thinks it can do this stuff better than the market, then let’s just take it out of the market completely.
All of the really smart folks will stop being doctors and they will just become lawyers like me and the majority of those who post here. People who want to make $80,000 to $100,000 a year to work their ass off practicing medicine can do that. The smart folks will find some other way to make money that is worthy of the time and effort investment. Let’s do this! All the poor people deserve it!
Well, I’d opt for a skilled trade like plumber or electrician. More reliable stream of income. And, when you earn your fee, there’s no chance nine kunckleheads in Jackson will second guess those who gave you the fee and take it from you.
Earlier in this thread, and before the Supreme Court handed down its ruling and opinions in the ACA case, I said that what truly animates the Right is fear of enslavement by the federal government — literally, enslavement of the kind that was legal in this country until the passage of the 13th Amendment.
Here’s the official statement of the Mississippi Tea Party on the health care ruling:
“With its 5-4 ruling upholding Obamacare the US Supreme Court has joined with the Executive and Legislative branches of the federal government in abandoning the Constitution, the Rule of Law, and with that ruling abandoned the People. All of us are now simply chattel of the government to be used and ordered about as they choose. The history books will mark this date as the day our constitutional republic was killed. It will now rest with We The People to decide if it will be resurrected or left to rot in the shallow grave dug for it.
Where is the weeping and wailing? Where is the anger and outrage? Do the people of the country realize what has just been stolen from them? Do the people of the world recognize that the shadow of darkness is now fallen upon them as well and that there remains no defender of their feeble freedoms? The all out oppression of all people has begun.
Those “occupiers” now controlling the three federal branches of government have joined together in rejecting all Constitutional restraint and in doing so they have severely violated their oaths to support and defend the Constitution of the United States. Together they now stand as blatant usurpers of power and have reduced our constitutional republic, along with all of its freedoms, to nothing more than a dictatorial junta. Becoming a banana republic is next.
When a gang of criminals subvert legitimate government offices and seize all power to themselves without the real consent of the governed their every act and edict is of itself illegal and is outside the bounds of the Rule of Law. In such cases submission is treason. Treason against the Constitution and the valid legitimate government of the nation to which we have pledged our allegiance for years. To resist by all means that are right in the eyes of God is not rebellion or insurrection, it is patriotic resistance to invasion.
May all of us fall on our faces before the Heavenly Judge, repent of our sins, and humbly cry out to Him for mercy on our country. And, may godly courageous leaders rise up in His wisdom and power to lead us in displacing the criminal invaders from their seats and restore our constitutional republic.”
– Roy Nicholson
Chairman
Mississippi Tea Party
Compare that to this, by Richard Hofstader, published in 1964:
“American politics has often been an arena for angry minds. In recent years, we have seen angry minds at work, mainly among extreme right-wingers, who have now demonstrated … how much political leverage can be got out of the animosities and passions of a small minority. But, behind this, I believe, there is a style of mind that is far from new, and that is not necessarily right-wing. I call it the paranoid style, simply because no other word adequately evokes the sense of heated exaggeration, suspiciousness, and conspiratorial fantasy that I have in mind.” — Hofstader, “The Paranoid Style in American Politics”
So, Roy Nicholson says that anyone is justified in putting a bullet into President Obama, Chief Justice Roberts, or Nancy Pelosi?
I would like to hear his explanation of how that is *not* what he’s saying. Better yet, I would like to hear him explaining that to the FBI.
Any MS Tea Party member who reads that statement and doesn’t quit, isn’t worth giving the time of day.
Couldn’t agree more, Anderson. And if I were one of the candidates for election to the Mississippi Supreme Court so boldly favored (though not officially endorsed, yet) on the MS Tea Pary’s website, I’d like to think I’d disavow its approval of my own understanding of “the Rule of Law.” (I’d also like to think I’d not succumb to the ever-increasing, ominously anti-modern practice of capitalizing the words and phrases I believe most important in a statement. See, e.g., Scalia, J., obsessively referencing the “Rights” of “the Sovereign States.” The illiterate use of quotation marks for emphasis has a close cousin, it appears.)
Note, by the way, the complete absence of any fiscal argument in Nicholson’s statement and the explicitly religious call to arms at the end. We’ve been told for a few years now that the Tea Party goes by no party or religious identification, that its mission is, first and foremost, “fiscal sanity.” Nicholson’s statement amply demonstrates his and the MSTP’s alienation from both words of that term.