That's a mighty big if there, Susan...

Susan Estrich, on the health care bill's requirement to carry insurance:

If that's the worst thing the nanny state ever does to all of us, I'd say a gracious thanks.

Wow, where do I even start with that, other than the retort that makes up the title to this post? That's an awfully big supposition upon which to hang one's argument. And, just like so many of the things supported by David Brooks' "educated class," it doesn't stand up to any more than the slightest bit of scrutiny. Anyone who has more than two functioning brain cells should know that the nanny state would never stop there. Once it gets its nose in that particular tent, it's only a matter of time before the entire creature gets in. Two examples off the top of my head include the fact that you can't buy a gun without a background check and that you can't buy pseudoephedrine in many places without your driver's license. I also found this amusingly cavalier:

As for one state getting a better deal than the other 49, that is a political question that is precisely the sort the courts don't have to get into, meaning that it's the breaks of democracy, not a case of the majority unfairly discriminating. When you get done counting to 60, you still have to count to five. I don't see five votes to protect 20-year-olds from insurance. Too many parents and grandparents and aunts and uncles in the crowd. Not to mention decades of precedent and the Constitution itself.

Really? Let us take a look at the Merriam-Webster definition of the verb form of the word "discriminate."

to make a difference in treatment or favor on a basis other than individual merit

Basis other than individual merit. I would love to know just how much merit the deal had that Nebraska got for Ben Nelson's vote. No doubt the ones who made that deal would say something to the effect that "reaching the goal of universal health care merited this deal." Of course, no one with more than two functioning brain cells should buy that either. If it really is the breaks of democracy (dead kid democracy, no less), as Estrich so cavalierly posits here, well then, that's just Exhibit 12,643,207 for the Founders creating a constitutional republic. Because remember, friends, to twist what I always say, democracy is a system of government in which 51 percent of the people can vote to spend the hard-earned funds of the other 49 percent on gold-plated houses and rocket cars for the 51 percent and there's not a blasted thing the 49ers can do about it.

And the destruction of the Founders' Republic proceeds apace...