Your post is tremendous, informative and insightful. Thank you.
It seems as far as the Harvard professor’s comments on the commerce clause, everything hinges on your your description of the distinction between regulating healthcare and purchasing health insurance.
What is frightening in the Harvard’s professor’s comments is that he is from Harvard and possibly does not see the distinction. I would rather think he knows the distinction but is partisan and chooses to obscure it.
I am glad it helped.
The professor does know the difference, he is just firmly convinced that the constitution is a living breathing document and that we shouldn’t be controlled by the dead head of others. He is likely convinced of his superiority and that he and the rest of the elite should rule over us, on the other hand he might be a true believer and honestly think that a strictly construed constitution cannot serve society. If I had to guess, I would say that he is the former.
Some of these articles will cite a Georgetown professor named Randy Barnett. He argued for limitations on the federal government in Raich v. Gonzales and lost. As different commerce clause questions have come up over the past couple of years, he usually gives a brutally accurate description of where the law is and how the court will answer.
Another interesting article is by Richard Epstein: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704304504574610040924143158.html