According to a handful of my favorite bloggers,* the USSC ruled that the health care mandate is constitutional because it’s a tax and congress is authorized to levy taxes. I would say that I’m surprised with the ruling, but that would mean I cared about the ruling before it was handed down. ObamaCare is obviously unconstitutional and, more importantly, antithetical to liberty, which makes it in noncompliance with the spirit of the law.
Some have argued that the constitution is itself antithetical to human liberty, which is a not altogether unreasonable claim in light of the fact that the constitution a) authorizes a central government in the first place, b) authorizes said government to levy taxes, c) authorizes said government to regulate coinage, d) authorizes the government to have an army and wage war, and e) gives the government authority to regulate commerce. Basically, if the government is authorized to have coercive power (i.e. an army) and to have power over currency and business, then it would appear that the increases in federal power over time were all but inevitable.
Of course, it should now be obvious, if it was not already, that the United States is basically a socialist nation. It may not engage in the massive slaughter of its citizens (unborn babies excepted from this assertion, natch), and it may not engage in ethnic cleansing (yet), but it is undeniably socialist. It is a soft socialism born of the fear of uncertainty, wherein people are afraid to live without the guarantees of basic “necessities.” Nothing is guaranteed in life, save death and taxes, so the idea that people can be guaranteed that their health care will be provided by the government at no direct cost to them should all else fail is nothing more than a mirage.
It is also indicative of a broader pathology, namely that of cowardice. It appears that too few people are willing and able to live a life of risk. The American people are not only soft and doughy of body, but of spirit as well. Having amassed the greatest collection of wealth and prosperity that the world has ever seen, they are now afraid to lose it. Thus, the recent health care crusade—successfully defended by five tyrants in robes—is nothing more than the triumph of fear. Fear that someone somewhere may have to go without antibiotics because they would rather buy shoes than Amoxicillin. It is as if people neglect to remember that most people in most of the world throughout most of history did not have health care. And yet, they managed to procreate before the expiration of their various nasty, brutish, and short lives.
Life, of course, always goes on, regardless of whether one has immediate access to a doctor. Lack of immediate access to comprehensive health care—once a fact of life for all but the most rich and powerful—is now considered a violation of rights. Funnily, it was not considered as such until providing immediate, comprehensive health care on a wide scope was technically (though not necessarily economically) feasible.
Anyhow, getting back to the point at hand, the SCOTUS decision simply demonstrates that security is to take precedence over freedom, however illusory that economic freedom may actually be. It is better to feel that one will be taken care of than to have the freedom and responsibility to take care of oneself.
Incidentally, this decision has completely destroyed what little support I might ever have had for Romney. I had once argued with a neoconservative friend about the merits of Ron Paul vs. the rest of the GOP field (this argument occurred in the halcyon days of Herman Cain’s not-yet-a-joke campaign), and in the course of this argument had ceded the point that any GOP candidate would be better than Obama because that GOP candidate would at least pick a strict constitutionalist as a Supreme Court nominee. The ObamaCare decision, though, has shown that conservative Supreme Court nominees are pretty much worthless. Sure, Alito, Scalia, and Thomas all ruled against ObamaCare, but it was Bush’s own appointment—Roberts—that sided with the leftists. If this is the sort of thing that right-wing appointees will do, I think I’d rather have liberals because at least you know where you stand with them, which means you don’t get stabbed in the back. At any rate, it now seems ludicrous to vote GOP simply to ensure that SCOTUS picks are conservative, because it turns out that not even this is guaranteed anymore.
At any rate, the great experiment of liberty is over. It appears that it cannot be sustained indefinitely, as tyrants constantly seek power, and will contort the law to enslave the people. It’s sad that it had to end this way, but I suspect that it would have ended regardless. And now on to the next experiment.
* Vox, Karl Denninger, Foseti, Ulysses, and Sonic Charmer, among others.
