Questioning SCOTUS and the Affordable Care Act…

I’m back… momentarily, anyways. I have an opinion and it is one that I have to get off my chest. So here goes…

“To compel a man to subsidize with his taxes the propagation of ideas which he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical” ~ Thomas Jefferson

From the beginning of Chief Justice Roberts opinion: “We do not consider whether the Act embodies sound policies. That judgment is entrusted to the Nation’s elected leaders. We ask only whether Congress has the power under the Constitution to enact the challenged provisions.”

Paraphrased… “You don’t like our ruling? Pick different leaders!”

Although he is 100% right by my paraphrasing, the Supreme Court is a Check and Balance to our government’s other 2 branches. Effectively, they took an opinion on the “intent” of the law and went with that, disregarding everything that was stated in order to get the law passed through Congress. In other words, Congress can surreptitiously enact any law without integrity and hide it under some tangential principle(i.e. tax codes) and get away with it. That my friends is how a Constitutional Republic becomes a tyrannical autocracy with a false parliament.

In my opinion, the Supreme Court has all but nullified itself in that they have punted by putting the ultimate power back on the people to elect better officials while using this ruling as a scolding finger wag to say “You should know better!” at us Americans. It is our responsibility to pay careful attention to who we elect… apathy begets a tyrannical government. However, the SCOTUS is there to preserve the Constitution, the very structure of our government’s powers. If they see overreach, they must take a stand. I don’t believe that allowing the ACA to fall into a taxation issue is correct. That is a default measure to point out to us how carelessly passed measures can bite us in the rear. Gee, thanks for the spanking… but you just set precedence for future abuses of power.

Chief Justice continued on, “The Affordable Care Act is constitutional in part and unconstitutional in part.” Later he offers us, “In this case, however, it is reasonable to con­strue what Congress has done as increasing taxes on those who have a certain amount of income, but choose to go without health insurance. Such legislation is within Con­gress’s power to tax.”

This is a sad day indeed. Bunkerville used the wayback machine to remind us that President Obama insists that this is not a tax. Somehow, the law failed the first two arguments provided by the President’s lawyers. First up their argument was that under the Commerce Clause they could impose Obamacare. Strike One! Then their back up was with the Necessary and Proper Clause. Strike Two! But somehow, a changeup was hit out of the park? The argument under this law as a tax passes the scrutiny of the Supreme Court.

The ruling passes as a 5-4 vote. Hmmm… remember the whole battle over whether Kagan should recuse herself? Seems pretty important now, doesn’t it?!?

Why does this passage feel like socialism? Because “at $2.7 trillion represents 17.9% of the nation’s gross domestic product” There is a pretty good detailed account of what the industry has done and will do over at The Wall Street Journal HERE. The real 800lb gorilla in the room, what this in-move of the government into the private sector of the economy means, has yet to be addressed. I am curious to see the coming opinions of Judge Napolitano and especially Mark Levin and what they have to say. I defer to their wisdom on this.

Regardless, I can’t help but feel a sense of loss. I see our country taking a huge loss. I see our Constitution going up in flames. I see our liberty dissolving into a cloud of smoke and ashes. I don’t like this at all.

But there is hope… We are Americans and we are resilient. We love and cherish our freedom like no other nation. We can stand together when there is a need to. Even if it is only those opposed to the ACA, that still accounts for about 2/3 of the polling populous. I venture a guess that this decision will provide more resolve than ever amongst the right side of the political aisle in this election cycle. I foresee Conservatives and Constitutionalists locking together with the Libertarians and Ron Paul supporters to make a stand against the tyranny of our government.

As I was writing this, Mitt Romney delivered what at first seemed like an opinion on the ruling but in the end, sounded more like a campaign stump speech. In the beginning there was a disagreement with the opinion and a promise to repeal it immediately after taking office: “What the court did not do on its last day in session, I will do on my first day as president and that is, I will act to repeal Obamacare.” Later he went down the path of “repeal and replace”. Well, I ask… what does a President replace Obamacare with, when the only piece of healthcare legislation you were ever involved in was the precursor to Obamacare: Romneycare? See, the problem is, government does not need to be involved in healthcare replacements. He further went on to ensure us that he would make it possible for anyone with a pre-existing condition to get insurance and that everyone had affordable healthcare.

Hmmm… that’s just parroting Obama’s talking points. I cringe at that. Reading between the lines, we see words of regulation and government overreach again. Even though I see that, I am still encouraged to see that he was able to raise $300,000 in the first hour after the opinion was passed down. That shows me that there is a pulse still alive on the patient and no matter what the “Complete Lives System” would do to us, we are going to put up a fight.

On the other side of the political coin, you have Nancy Pelosi giving us a look at her cosmetically-enhanced socialist face during a presser. She was asked about Justice Robert’s comment calling Medicaid expansion ‘a gun to the head of states.’ with the question being “Why was it designed that way?” Her reply? “We wrote this law very carefully…. We are not bothered at all with the decision with regard to “Medicaid”

Of course, Speaker Boehner had a release and a presser, too. His released statement was: “The president’s health care law is hurting our economy by driving up health costs and making it harder for small businesses to hire. Today’s ruling underscores the urgency of repealing this harmful law in its entirety. What Americans want is a common-sense, step-by-step approach to health care reform that will protect Americans’ access to the care they need, from the doctor they choose, at a lower cost. Republicans stand ready to work with a president who will listen to the people and will not repeat the mistakes that gave our country ObamaCare.”

I have not even bothered to hash over President Obama’s spiking of the ball. Eh, I saw his mug, smirky, smarmy face on the tv and listened to about 30 seconds worth of drivel. I got pretty nauseous, pretty quickly. Somehow, I see the very future of our country if we don’t get our head’s out of our rears! We will have leaders, elected or self-appointed, appearing on tv’s telling us what we have now with smug smiles on their faces. I will not stand for that. I love my country because of the freedom it provides. I believe in the Constitution because of the security it gives us to know what liberty feels like.

I cannot help but see what the SCOTUS did today as a threat to those passions. By demonstrating to America what happens through a benevolent voting majority, we also see them provide a highlighted path to the enemies of freedom for how to enact the laws that will chain us forever. Just as we awaken to what we have to do to stop the proverbial enemies at the gate, we also are now fighting an enemy who has a clear path to the castle. This leviathan of healthcare through taxation, represents a framework of how to defile the Constitution before permanently disposing of it. SCOTUS has shown by law how to do a complete runaround on Congress, thereby defeating the true Checks and Balances of our government.

There is a quote attributed to Martin Luther King, Jr… “Never forget that everything Hitler did was legal.” I can’t help but think that SCOTUS just allowed Obama to do anything he wants legally by following the path that they just ruled on. If not through taxation, Obama can do things through subtle nuances in the laws that exist. Being that we know Obama to be a master manipulator, this should be an easy task for him. He already owns the entire book on Executive Orders, this will just be another chapter in his new book to “fundamentally transform” America.

I encourage everyone who reads this, to consider MLK’s words carefully and then to do your research on the path to power for Hitler. The parallels are there. Certainly many of you are versed in the Weimar Republic but how many have followed the historical path to the Enabling Act of 1933. Through deceptive and manipulative means, Hitler wrote a run-around the Reichstag. The Enabling Act allowed for Hitler’s cabinet to enact laws outside of the Reichstag(which was Germany’s parliament) that would depart from or alter the Constitution altogether. We know that President Obama is on record saying that he cannot do the things he would like to because of the Constitution.

How far off are we from having that happen now? If not Obama, then who is next?

Advertisement