The Supreme Court\u2019s ruling on \u201cthe Affordable Health Care Act\u201d\u2014i.e. \u201cObamacare\u201d\u2014has everyone a buzz.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Here are some of my own thoughts:<\/p>\n
First, practically <\/em>speaking, the decision was a victory for the President and his fellow partisans in that Obamacare, however exactly it is implemented, <\/em>can now be implemented. Still, although this is widely being regarded by Democrats and Republicans alike as legal <\/em>victory for the former, this piece of conventional wisdom, not unlike virtually all such species, invites further consideration.<\/p>\n This leads me to my second point: Obamacare, as it was originally designed, was indeed declared unconstitutional.\u00a0 <\/em>\u00a0Its opponents were vindicated yesterday as SCOTUS asserted that under the commerce clause, <\/em>where its architects placed it, the infamous \u201cmandate\u201d is illegal. <\/em><\/p>\n Third, politically <\/em>speaking, SCOTUS placed Obama and his ilk at a decided disadvantage <\/em>when it stated that the so-called \u201cmandate\u201d accords with the Constitution as long as it functions as a tax.\u00a0 <\/em><\/p>\n For most of the history of Western philosophy, it was almost unanimously held that the identity of any individual\u2014whether a person or any other entity\u2014derives from its \u201cfinal cause\u201d\u2014i.e. its end, purpose, or function.\u00a0 In varying degrees, this understanding of identity continues to figure today.\u00a0 Thus, in identifying the mandate as a tax, it is not a stretch to conclude that the Supreme Court made of Obamacare a new thing.\u00a0<\/p>\n More exactly, they transformed it into a tax unprecedented in both kind and size.\u00a0 Obamacare is the largest tax increase in American history, and it taxes all <\/em>citizens for what they do not <\/em>purchase.<\/p>\n Obama once said that he \u201cabsolutely\u201d rejected the proposition that his mandate was a tax.<\/p>\n Now, the Supreme Court has left him no option but to swallow his words.\u00a0 This cannot bode well for him in November.<\/p>\n Fourth, that Obamacare is now proclaimed \u201cconstitutional\u201d is not likely to change anyone\u2019s mind about it between now and Election Day.\u00a0 Just because something is constitutional, or is declared constitutional, does not mean that it is a good idea.\u00a0 And that the despised \u201cmandate\u201d is now said by that same Court to be a tax is more likely than not to render it even more detestable in the eyes of the majority of Americans who want it repealed.<\/p>\n In other words, far from boosting Obama\u2019s credibility, the Supreme Court generally, and the enigmatic Justice Roberts specifically, just invigorated Mitt Romney\u2019s campaign in a way that few other things could at the moment.<\/p>\n Finally, even if <\/em>Obama and the Democrats are reelected, and even though this Supreme Court held Obamacare to be constitutional, this should change nothing as far as the Sons and Daughters of the Patriots of \u201976 are concerned.\u00a0<\/p>\n As I have argued time and time again, the sooner we stop thinking of liberty as a \u201cself-evident,\u201d universal abstraction, the better.\u00a0Liberty is the birthright of every American, a culturally particular affection bequeathed to us from those generations of Americans who first settled and later \u201cfounded\u201d the country.\u00a0 It is a prize for the sake of which they were willing to die\u2014and kill.<\/p>\n America is rooted\u2014not <\/em>in some timeless proposition\u2014but in blood soaked secession.\u00a0 Our Fathers sought to secede peacefully from the Mother Country.\u00a0 When the English government\u2014not remotely as intrusive or oppressive, mind you, as anything that we have ever seen in our own government, to say nothing of the Obama administration\u2014refused to let that happen, the colonists took up arms and defeated the most expansive and powerful of empires that the world had ever known up to that juncture in history.\u00a0<\/p>\n Listen to \u201cconservative\u201d talk radio or read mainstream \u201cconservative\u201d pundits in light of last week\u2019s Supreme Court ruling.\u00a0 These are supposed to be our contemporary \u201cPatrick Henrys,\u201d our most vocal advocates of liberty.\u00a0 However, in spite of the lip service that they routinely pay to \u201cthe Founders\u201d and \u201cthe Constitution,\u201d could any of them genuinely be mistaken for the offspring of the first \u201cTea Partiers?\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n As we consider what to do next respecting Obamacare, I suggest we familiarize ourselves with Captain Levi Preston.\u00a0 In his voluminous Liberty and Freedom, <\/em>David Hackett Fischer recapitulates an exchange that transpired in 1843 between Preston, a veteran of the Revolutionary War, and the scholar Mellen Chamberlain.\u00a0 The response of the 91 year-old to the latter\u2019s inquiry as to why he fought years earlier at Concord was revealing.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWere you oppressed by the Stamp Act?\u201d Chamberlain asked.<\/p>\n \u201cI never saw any stamps,\u201dPreston replied, \u201cand I always understood that none were ever sold.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWell, what about the tea tax?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cTea tax?\u201d Preston asked incredulously.\u00a0 \u201cI never drank a drop of the stuff.\u00a0 The boys threw it all overboard.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Oh, Chamberlain concluded, so \u201cI suppose you had been reading [James] Harrington, [Algernon] Sidney, and [John] Locke about the eternal principles of liberty?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI never heard of these men,\u201dPreston retorted.\u00a0 \u201cThe only books we had were the Bible, the Catechism,Watts\u2019 Psalms, and hymns and the almanacs.\u201d<\/p>\n Chamberlain gave up.\u00a0 \u201cWell, then, what was the matter?\u201d<\/p>\n Preston was to the point: \u201cYoung man, what we meant in going for those Redcoats was this: we always had been free, and we meant to be free always.\u00a0 They didn\u2019t mean we should.\u201d \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Supreme Court\u2019s ruling on \u201cthe Affordable Health Care Act\u201d\u2014i.e. \u201cObamacare\u201d\u2014has everyone a buzz.\u00a0 Here are some of my own thoughts: First, practically speaking, the decision was a victory for the President and his fellow partisans in that Obamacare, however exactly it is implemented, can now be implemented. Still, although this is widely being regarded…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":399,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-501","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n