even long-standing "principles" get thrown away quite easily when the tribe feels like it.
they care about "states' rights" only for things they can't win at the federal level.
if they can shove something like religion on people at the national level, they'll be more than happy to do it.
"freedom" for them is one sided. they want "freedom" to live in a world where they don't even have to see or hear about gay people or muslims, but of course they don't give a damn about the freedom of those people.
the healthcare mandate was conceived as a free market alternative to more government-oriented healthcare solutions. just use the government to get people to buy private health insurance rather than have the government run a big program. it originally was proposed by and had the backing of conservative think tanks. rmoney tried it as governor of massachusetts and once touted it as a success.
had mccain won in 2008 and proposed something nearly identical to obamacare, the right-wing would have loved it. you wouldn't have heard any complaints from the right at all about the mandate. in fact, the mandate penalty would have been *larger* to help pay for the fact that the right-wing plan wouldn't have had that surtax on people earning over $250,000. the right-wing would have touted it as a triumph of the free market.
for the right-wing now, the first amendment demands:
(a) that we all shut up and listen to laura ingraham and
(b ) that we all shut up and let the national enquirer silence karen mcdougal
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