Tilting at windmills . . .

After my post Tuesday about Wickard v Filburn, when I began reading my tardy copy of this week's The Week magazine, I realized conservatives are almost assuredly mistaken who took comfort in Judge Henry Hudson's ruling last week about the so-called health-care reform measure.

The Week reported,

A federal judge in Virginia gave new momentum to Republican opposition to President Obama’s health-care reform by ruling this week that it’s unconstitutional to force individuals to buy health insurance. Judge Henry Hudson said the Constitution’s Commerce Clause does not authorize the federal government “to compel an individual to involuntarily enter the stream of commerce by purchasing a commodity in the private market.” . . .

This ruling properly frames “Obamacare” as having “historic consequences for American liberty,” said The Wall Street Journal. Obama’s scheme depends on the government punishing citizens who don’t buy health insurance—in effect, a tax on “doing nothing.” Can Big Government get any more intrusive than that? The only flaw in Hudson’s ruling is that it “didn’t go far enough” and kill this monstrosity in its crib, said Investor’s Business Daily. But at least the judge has given “a strong momentum boost” to a repeal movement that once seemed like “wishful thinking.”

Based on what I wrote about Wickard v Filburn, I'm afraid it is still wishful thinking. If the Supreme Court were to overturn this legislation, it would mark an astonishing "new day" in the dismantling of Big Government.

In the same article, The Week said,

The Obama administration compared this ruling to earlier conservative objections to Social Security, Medicare, and civil-rights legislation. “Those challenges ultimately failed,” said Attorney General Eric Holder and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, “and so will this one.”

It will be interesting--but, in my opinion, hardly likely to be surprising--whose hopes and/or predictions will come true.