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To: GROUND ZERO™ who wrote (29072)	2/20/2012 10:55:19 PM
From: Sam	1 Recommendation Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 223298

GZ, Madison was a pretty sophisticated guy, but he lived in a society that was almost entirely agricultural and rural. It was also a place where medicine was, for the most part, pretty helpless. The smallpox vaccine had just come to the West from Turkey, for example, and there was still a lot of antagonism toward it, both from some religious circles that claimed that using the vaccine (if it worked at all!) would interfere with God's plan--those who got smallpox were ordained to do so and we must accept what comes our way--and from doctors who just plain didn't believe it would work since it seemed so counter-intuitive--What?! infect someone with cowpox so that they wouldn't get smallpox? That's crazy! Both the germ theory of disease and the discovery of the immune system were a century in the future, so it made no sense to them, even though they knew at the same time that people who had been infected with smallpox previously didn't seem to get the disease again. To say that isn't to say that all doctors or all theologians opposed it, clearly that isn't so, but a significant minority did in the 18th century. I tell you this because it illustrates an important fact about humans that has been the case for the entire historical period that we know about--humans are strongly resistant to change, they/we believe that what we are familiar with is best, and even if it isn't, it is what we are habituated toward, and it is good enough for us, change will make things worse. And it also illustrates that humans have a countervailing impulse as well--we try to make things better, we are also in part open to change in order to do that, and there will always be conflict between those very human dispositions. And I also mention it because it was for the most part unthinkable to people in the late 18th century that medicine could reliably cure people of the diseases that they were afflicted with. They went to doctors not because they offered real cures, but because--well, what else could they do? They offered a modicum of hope for those that could afford it, but knowledge was sketchy at best, and for the most part experimental of necessity. Medical insurance made no sense in that world, and wasn't really offered until the 20th century, when medical knowledge and practice had grown enough so that a trip to the doctor was clearly better than a gamble. This is a long way of saying that it is difficult to know what Madison would think about that specific mandate. He certainly believed in a strong central government and a strong executive--for example, he proposed giving the Executive of the central government a "negative" (that is, a veto) over state laws. This was shot down by most of the other participants at the convention. He mistrusted majorities because they were prone to passions and parochial interests that could harm both minorities and society at large, but he recognized that minorities were just as prone to the same passions and interests, and there were dangers to society at large from both sources. If you read the Federalist Papers, you will see that he carefully tries to thread a very fine line that tries to address the dangers that come from the vested interests and passions of minority or majority factions (Fed 10 and Fed 51 are the most famous examples of this, but it is scattered throughout his contributions to the Fed Papers). The vast majority of humans are incapable of seeing beyond those interests and passions to the greater good, and even when they can do so in theory, it is extremely difficult for them make sacrifices for a greater good that is in its very nature abstract to the individual and counter to his immediate interests. He could see that even in himself--he saw that slavery was wrong, but he didn't fight very hard against it and even, when he was in Congress in 1790s, took steps that prevented that body from even talking about developing a long range plan that would eliminate it over time (the Philadelphia Abolition Society petitioned Congress in 1790 to develop such a plan, the petition was introduced by some sympathetic Congressmen from Pennsylvania, and he was part of a faction that had it tabled and ignored). Nor did he free his slaves after his death or leave instructions for his wife to free them after hers. As for the mandate itself--I am not sure you want to get into a real discussion of this, since we will probably just go round and round on it. My personal opinion is that it does not violate the constitution; that we impose mandates on individuals all the time; that it is crucial that we address the problem of spiraling medical costs; that the employer based private insurance system that was instituted mostly after WWII is part of our problem and has proven over time that it is incapable of restraining medical costs due the incentives that are built into the system; and that any proposed solution to this issue will be painful to a variety of constituencies and will inevitably meet resistance. Insurance only works when there is a large pool of people who are contributing, most of whom are not actually using it at any given time and are helping to cover those who need it. The "General Welfare" and "Necessary and Proper" clauses in the Constitution--both of which Madison supported--seem to me to cover the mandate problem. If you are looking for specific words to cover it, of course you will not find them. The writers of the Constitution made it an abstract document on purpose. People like Madison and Hamilton praised it for that in the Federalist Papers, as they thought it was important for it to be flexible enough to change with time and be open to interpretation to meet different needs and conditions. Hamilton in particular wanted the US to become a manufacturing power, and knew that this would dramatically change the rural character of the country as it existed in the late 18th century. The people who harp on "Original Intent" simply ignore that basic fact. Hope I wasn't too wordy here.