Even apart from income tax, just think for a moment of all the federal laws that coerce people into doing things they don't want to do. People have to pay licenses and fees to operate businesses. They have to comply with all manner of regulation and administrative oversight. And now the Supreme Court wants to draw a line, over Congressional objection, that says there is some sort of "fundamental" personal right to screw over your friends and neighbors by gambling (backed by the government's guarantee, no less) that you'll have enough cash or credit to pay your medical bills when you get sick without health insurance.

WEDNESDAY MORNING

(Here is the link to Wednesday morning's argument and transcript.)

If Tuesday's health care argument felt like the Battle Hymn of the Republic, Wednesday's argument sounded like a hospital post-mortem. Lots of gritty details about what to do with the body, lots of practical questions eschewing larger policy points. Having largely convinced most of you that the individual mandate is unconstitutional, attorney Paul Clement argued to the justices on behalf of the law's challengers, let me now try to convince you the the entire law cannot stand without the mandate. It's a version of the same argument the orphan makes after killing her parents.

I will spare you most of the details of this morning's "severability" argument. Here's the essence of the government's position, as stated eloquently (again) by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg:

Mr. Clement, there are so many things in this Act that are unquestionably okay. Think you would concede that reauthorizing what is the Indian Healthcare Improvement Act changes to long benefits, why make Congress redo those? I mean it's a question of whether we say everything you do is no good, now start from scratch, or to say, yes, there are many things in here that have nothing to do frankly with the affordable healthcare and there are some that we think it's better to let Congress to decide whether it wants them in or out. So why should we say it's a choice between a wrecking operation, which is what you are requesting, or a salvage job. And the more conservative approach would be salvage rather than throwing out everything.

That's conservative in the "old-school" sense of the word and not in the newfangled sense that has taken hold at the Court. Indeed, what was fascinating about the early session, the first of two on the day, was the discussion between the justices and the lawyers over the meaning of "judicial activism" and "judicial restraint" in the context of the health care law. When Edwin Kneedler, arguing on behalf of the federal government, suggested that it would be an act of judicial restraint to salvage the unoffensive portions of the Care Act, it was Justice Anthony Kennedy, the last best hope for the law, who responded curtly:

When you say judicial restraint, you are echoing the earlier premise that it increases the judicial power if the judiciary strikes down other provisions of the Act. I suggest to you it might be quite the opposite. We would be exercising the judicial power if one Act was -- one provision was stricken and the others remained to impose a risk on insurance companies that Congress had never intended. By reason of this Court, we would have a new regime that Congress did not provide for, did not consider. That, it seems to me can be argued at least to be a more extreme exercise of judicial power than to strike -- than striking the whole.

You follow the logic? It's a form of judicial restraint to strike down the whole law and require Congress to start from scratch. And it's a form of judicial power to strike down only a portion of the law and allow the rest of it to stand. Congressional intent doesn't matter when it comes to determining whether the mandate is unconstitutional under the Commerce Clause. But Congressional intent matters a whole lot when it comes to determining what to do with the rest of it if the mandate falls. "Well, there is such a thing as legislative intertia, isn't there?" asked Justice Scalia, thus confirming that he still follows the news.