Justice Breyer and Zombies
This, from Joe Carlson, really did happen during arguments over Obamacare at the Supreme Court this week:
Twice during the proceedings, Breyer fixated on a mysterious illness “sweeping the nation,” intoning his hypothetical in the terms of some legal thriller-cum-apocalypse flick: “A disease is sweeping the United States, and 40 million people are susceptible, of whom 10 million will die,” Breyer said. “Can’t the federal government say all 40 million get inoculation?”
As National Federation of Independent Business attorney Michael Carvin tried to answer that, no, Congress would not have such a power, Mother Jones magazine reporter Adam Serwer behind me muttered, “Just say it Breyer: Zombies.”
The zombie thing was kind of on my mind with all the morbid talk of “tearing the heart” out of Obamacare and leaving it “a hollow shell,” but the fact that Breyer seemed to be invoking the classic Zombie Apocalypse scenario was also just hilarious.
Zombies are really just a more fun way of describing a collective action problem that is probably best adressed through government intervention I guess.
