Dear Friends,
It seems to me that the question of the constitutionality of the new health care overhaul will be a litmus test of where our constitutional republic stands.
The part about government forcing the people to buy a product stands out. Regardless of the merit of the product this power is not given to government by the Constitution. If the Supreme Court gives government the ability, to order the people to purchase whatever the government sees fit… liberty is lost. There is no end to the mischief that government can do with this draconian power.
To take an extreme example, what if the president started a company, Obama’s cookies. Then the Democratically controlled congress and Senate passed a law ordering every citizen to purchase an Obama cookie every day else be fined. Lets further say that Obama cookies are the most healthy food made on Earth. And they cancel out the negative effects of cigarette smoking. Would this pass constitutional muster in your mind?
We allowed the cookies to have great merit. We allowed the cookies to have great positive externalities. But most reasonable people would still argue that the Obama cookie scheme is unconstitutional. But if the Obama cookie scheme is unconstitutional how can forcing every US citizen, (Except the people who passed the law and their cronies), to buy insurance else be fined, be constitutional? In fact if the health care overhaul is constitutional so will be the Obama cookie fiction.
The Supreme Court has made the precedent that it can bring in extra national laws to apply to the interpretation of the US constitution. So given this precedent, why not use a segment that works from the Venezuelan Constitution? Or the North Korean for that matter. I am absolutely sure some constitutionally allowed power can be gleaned from the Saudi Arabian Constitution that would work in this situation.
If a Constitution does not give a power to government explicitly then government does not have that power. That was how constitutions were supposed to stop the propensity of government to become tyrannical over time. We are seeing that even this protection is being undermined by calling it “living breathing.”
Until some government institutes a NUMA we will continue to have this problem. (Government becoming tyrannical over time). This has been the underlying theme of political reform over the millennia. From Socrates, Mo Ti and Confucius to Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher and Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev, government has been evolving towards liberating the people. Shackling government with a constitution was genius and a giant leap forward.
In the case of the USA we now see the age limit of constitutional government to be around two hundred years. Not bad. But wait…there’s more… Most constitutional republics don’t last two hundred years. To date only the USA has been a constitutional republic for two hundred years (other than Rome). Most last less than one hundred years. Some only last a few days. The life span of a constitutional republic is related to the conditions under which it came into being, the caliber of men who wrote the constitution, the quality of the men who interpret it and the fidelity of the people to it.
With the introduction of a NUMA perhaps the life expectancy of constitutional republics can be stretched out. The Elite being incapable of controlling themselves. Ask them, any time they are caught in some scandal, that you or I would go to jail for, they were tempted by that evil lobbyist, that evil special interest or that evil constituent… They are never to blame for their actions it is the tempters. You and I however do not have that luxury. We are held to the highest standard of conduct. And it is enforced.
Every McDonalds I have been in lately has video monitoring of every employee. They make little over minimum wage and they are constantly monitored for quality, productivity and security. Yet we must expect far far less from our elected employees? Who we pay far far more? They have been caught in every possible scandal yet they still have no oversight… except themselves. Well I say if it is good enough for the government it should be good enough for McDonalds!
Lets see… What if we eliminated all the managers from McDonalds and all the video equipment. Stop counting the cash registers at night and keeping track of how much supplies are ordered. How long do you think McDonalds would stay in business? Even though there has never been a scandal at McDonalds like selling votes for refrigerated cash. What if we pay the McDonalds employees $250,000.00 a year to be honest. Still with absolutely no oversight. Would that keep them honest… or make them more dishonest?
There is essentially no limit to the power of government today. The old shackles of the Constitution are being re forged to shackle the people instead of the government. We are being told that it is for our collective best interests… even as the newly forged shackles are being placed on our hands and feet. All that remains is for the Supreme Court of the United States to place the lock.
