March 4, 2011 9:32AM 

# I’m Not So Sure I Like Your Mental Activity 

By [Michael F. Cannon](https://www.cato.org/people/michael-f-cannon) 

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The latest federal judge to declare [ObamaCare](www.cato.org/bad-medicine/) constitutional [claimed](http://aca-litigation.wikispaces.com/file/view/District+Court+opinion.pdf) that Congress can regulate “mental activity,” like the mental activity of choosing not to purchase health insurance. Or shoes and ships and sealing wax. Or [my book](https://www.cato.org/store/books/healthy-competition-whats-holding-back-health-care-how-free-it-paperback).

*National Review* editor Rich Lowry has an excellent [column](http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/261297/hands-my-mental-activity-rich-lowry) explaining why this latest, ahem, legal victory for ObamaCare “delivered a more telling blow against the law in the course of ruling it constitutional than critics have in assailing it as a travesty…It’s the most self-undermining defense of the constitutionality of a dubious statute since then–solicitor general Elena Kagan told the Supreme Court that under campaign-finance reform, the government could ban certain pamphlets.”

##### Related Tags 

[General](https://www.cato.org/general), [Government and Politics](https://www.cato.org/government-politics), [Health Care](https://www.cato.org/health-care) 

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