The Path We Must Take Regarding the Mandates of the Health Care Law

"We are firmly convinced, and we act on that conviction, that with nations as with individuals our interests soundly calculated will ever be found inseparable from our moral duties, and history bears witness to the fact that a just nation is trusted on its word when recourse is had to armaments and wars to bridle others." --Thomas Jefferson, Second Inaugural Address, 1805


"Democratical States must always feel before they can see: it is this that makes their Governments slow, but the people will be right at last." --George Washington, letter to Marquis de Lafayette, 1785


"There is but one straight course, and that is to seek truth and pursue it steadily." --George Washington


"We must be unanimous; there must be no pulling different ways; we must hang together." --John Hancock (July 4, 1776)

By Douglas V. Gibbs

The United States Constitution is nothing more than ink and paper if we don't defend it.  The document was written based on the historical fact that for a society to succeed it must find its foundations in virtue and standards.  The Constitution is the Law of the Land, and to follow its principles is to follow the Rule of Law, rather than the Rule of Man.  Those that support an ever-expansive centralized government system will tell you that the Rule of Law is the law as interpreted by judges, but is that not men dictating the definitions of the law to the people?  And would that not actually be the Rule of Man?

The platform upon which the principles of the Constitution resides is self-rule, with the most governmental powers existing at the local level.  The Constitution was written in order to create a central federal government for the purpose of protecting, preserving and promoting the union of the States.  The authorities of the federal government were not supposed to extend beyond that simple concept.

In order for a society such as ours to maintain the original intent, and uphold the limiting principles, of the U.S. Constitution, we must be a moral society that finds it a virtue to protect our freedoms from any centralized system.  Only the immoral would be willing to disregard the standards put forth by the Constitution, and use deception to achieve their means.

The Constitution is a simple document written in a manner that is easy to understand.  A person can read the entire document in under thirty minutes.  Yet, the books written by legal scholars that attempt to explain the Constitution are massive volumes of empty rhetoric that base their opinion more on the tilted interpretations of the Constitution by court rulings and opinions, than from what the actual text of the document presents.

To use the Health Care Law, and more specifically the Contraceptive Mandate, as an example, the political arena is wrought with ideological mud-slinging over the government trying to dictate to religion to offer free contraceptives, and a college woman who needs insurance to cover her birth control costs so that she may continue to maintain her promiscuous social lifestyle.  Rush Limbaugh dared to use language that inferred the woman was some kind of prostitute, or slut, and then he apologized because he felt the name calling brought him down to their level.  However, leftists far and wide are calling for the legal prosecution of Rush Limbaugh for daring to say such things - even though these exact same people have launched worse campaigns of personal destruction against the likes of Sarah Palin, Michele Bachmann, and Christine O'Donnell.  Churches are reeling against the mandate over their claims of religious freedom.  President Obama, and his loony gang of liberals, have even tried to turn the argument around to claim the Republicans want to ban contraceptives through legislative means, even though no member of the GOP has ever uttered anything of the sort.  And the funny part of it all, is the arguments are all for naught because they miss the whole point.

There is no place in the Constitution that gives the federal government the authority to demand insurance companies must fund birth control.  There is no place in the Constitution that allows the federal government, in fact, to issue any mandate, or provide any funding, regarding anything that has anything to do with health care.  The whole concept of governmental involvement in the health care industry is unconstitutional.

This position I take does not mean I love the insurance companies, either.  There is obviously a number of factors that have made the health insurance industry its own leviathan that must be brought under control. The whole basic problem is the fact that there is a middle-man between the patient and the health care provider.  But barter between a physician and a patient can't be taxed, so the federal government has a problem with such a system.

Ultimately, the whole health care issue is not about medicine.  The government wants more control over your lives, and health care provides the ultimate control mechanism.  However, health care is not a federal issue, so the federal government has no legal authority to pass laws regarding health care.  Regardless of what the Supreme Court will decide, and regardless of what the federal government claims, every single line in the Health Care Law (a.k.a. Obamacare) is unconstitutional.

Congress can work to repeal it if they want, and an opinion that the law is unconstitutional by the courts would be a wonderful thing, but in the end none of that matters.  The final arbiters of the Constitution is "We The People," and we exercise that duty through our State governments.  The way to stop the unconstitutional actions of the federal government is nullification.  The States have the legal authority to ignore the federal law, and the States can refuse to implement it, based on the fact that it is a breach of the contract between the federal government and the States called the U.S. Constitution.

For those of you out there beginning to mumble, "But Doug, all federal law trumps all State law," understand that you are not correct in that assessment.  All federal law does not trump all State law.  In order for a federal law to be a part of that "Supreme Law of the Land" model you are shooting for based on the Supremacy Clause in Article VI, it must be a constitutional law in the first place.  An unconstitutional law can't be supreme over the States because the law is illegal, as per the Constitution, in the first place.

Therefore, the path we must take as a virtuous people that is willing to follow the principles laid out by the Constitution is nullification.  We must work locally to educate our elected cockroaches on the rights of the States, and the principles of the Constitution.

If we do any less, we will be doomed to become yet another historical footnote of a failed nation that fell into the death grip of tyranny.

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary

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