This is a silly argument. Government interference is government interference. In the case of education, minimum standards for federal funds makes sense. States can always refuse said funds. I wouldn't want to live in one of those 3rd world states.
Done by anyone other than government that is blackmail. The civil libertarian in you must be snoozing.
Government regulation of the health care industry has indeed reached the point of one too many pins in the cushion. Most of it could be reduced to informed consent. It would be both more effective and more efficient.
There's nothing in the Constitution that authorizes them to build highways either. Unless it conflicts with one of the other rights guaranteed in the Constitution, government action is not de facto prohibited by it's lack of expressed authorization by the Constitution.
Pragmatically speaking, what you're proposing would result in a massive burden upon society. Social Security. We have it to prevent herds of old people wandering our streets. Yes, that's government redistribution. But it's necessary to maintain the first world quality of life Americans are accustomed to. Abolish it and you'd have a homeless problem of epic proportions. Sometimes you have to accept the lesser of two unfavorable options.
Huh. As a "fellow" civil libertarian" I believe in allowing people the power to keep and invest their own money at more than the paltry growth rate at which SS grows. I also believe in trusting people to be able to take care of themselves. What I don't believe in is trusting the ability or honesty of government to do anything better than the average person.
Same goes with single payer. It's the most pragmatic solution to the problem. Does having to buy insurance suck? Sure it does. But the alternative is equally ******, if not worse. The emergency room crisis we had before Obamacare, and now the clusterfuck that IS Obamacare. And truth be told, I don't know if it has even solved the first problem.
Sometimes you can't do what's ideal because you have to do what actually works. If you had 100 million dollars you could sail around the world on a yacht full of honeys. But you don't, so you gotta get up and go to work tomorrow. That's the pragmatic reality. Such is the nature of single payer.
The government forcing anyone to buy anything is un Constitutional. We seem to forget that that document was carefully crafted much more to limit the governments power and duties than it was ours. But lawyers and those who see opportunities to gain power and wealth by bastardizing language and intent have contorted and extorted it.