Obamacare is %&@*ing Constitutional?

Well, the unimaginable has happened.  The Supreme Court of the United States has declared that the patently unconstitutional Obamacare law does indeed pass constitutional muster.   I am still trying to wrap my mind around the contorted adjudication that rendered THAT decision. 

I fully expected Breyer, Kagan, Sotomayor, and Ginsburg to ignore the Constitution and put their politics above that of our supreme law of the land.  Hell, Kagan was advocating for the law personally and as solicitor general prior to being appointed by Obama to the Supreme Court, so that certainly comes as no surprise, even though she should have recused herself from the decision for that very reason. 

As for Ruth Vader Ginsburg, well her seeming disdain, if not outright loathing, of the Constitution is well known.  After all, she was the one that suggested to the newly elected Egyptian government to NOT use the United States Constitution as a model for their own.  She has long been inclined to look at international law when rendering Supreme Court decisions.  That alone strikes me as a violation of her oath and reason for impeachment from the bench, but I digress.

It is ironic that the “swing voter” Justice Kennedy wrote the dissenting opinion in this thoroughly baffling and asinine 5 to 4 decision and correctly stated that the entire law was absolutely un-constitutional. 

It was George W. Bush appointee Chief Justice John Roberts that appeared to lose all control of his mental faculties and refused to actually apply constitutional law in his decision and thus voted with the “liberal” members of the court in upholding this travesty of a law.  Whereas Ginsburg, Breyer, and Kagan are all about as useful as football bats, one had hoped that Roberts would have actually perused the Constitution and related law in reaching his decision.  Evidently that hope was misplaced like Miley Cyrus’ virtue.

What I find fascinating is the fact that Roberts and the progressive justices ruled that Obamacare was able to proceed in tact because the federal government could indeed levy such taxes (penalties) for those that did not acquire health insurance in accordance with the law.  Why that is interesting is because during the debate prior to its passage, all the players in support of the law including then-Speaker Pelosi and President Obama insisted that this was not to be considered as a tax, as that would constitutionally invalidate the bill.  Of course we were also told that the law would lower our health care costs and that the entire process would be transparent and debated on C-Span too.

Well now that the left has spoken, there is only one more firewall left to prevent this egregious freedom-stealing, life-destroying, cost-raising law from being fully implemented.  America MUST elect Romney to the presidency and ensure that he has solid majorities in the House of Representatives and the Senate so that this monstrosity can be fully repealed.  If we fail to do this as a nation, the law will be fully implemented in 2014.  I fear our nation as we currently know it will not survive if full repeal does not come to pass.

Once people become dependent upon this new program, it will be nearly impossible to repeal.  Never mind the fact that this law has already proven to make the costs for small businesses go up and thus reduced their ability to hire new employees.  Never mind the fact that there are indeed pro-abortion mandates within the law.  Never mind the fact that conscience clauses and religious exemptions are null and void for this law.  Never mind that rationing of critical medical services will indeed occur.  Never mind that medical devices stocks are already plunging today in light of this news.  Never mind that the death panels that Sarah Palin warned us about and was summarily laughed at accordingly will come to pass, albeit under the gentler euphemism of “end of life counseling”.  Never mind that we have created one more entitlement program that is so gargantuan in its scope that it encompasses 1/6 of the nation’s economy.  Never mind that the added costs of this law will add to the already $16 TRILLION debt we currently have as a country and are unable to pay right now.  Yep, never mind.  Instead of being the rugged individuals that fought for and supported liberty in this greatest country on earth, we will have become a nation of progressive victims that look to our nanny government to solve every problem we encounter in our lives.  Those that would proudly take care of themselves and their kin will be looked at as a kind of odd and slightly amusing anachronism to the left.

One wonders, now that the Supreme Court has stated that the federal government can mandate that private citizens must purchase whatever goods or services that the government deems as necessary for the "common good", just where that might take us?  I wonder just how loudly the progressives would scream and whine and gnash their teeth if some future congress and president mandated that every citizen must purchase a firearm, as part of a citizen militia, or face penalties.  There certainly seems to be more constitutional standing for that mandate than there is for Obamacare, not that we are using the Constitution as our standard any more apparently.

Oh, and by the way, I don’t EVER again want to hear the foolish meme from Rachel Maddow and the rest of the useful idiot progressive talking heads on TV and the radio whine about the “right wing Supreme Court”.  That dog simply won’t hunt anymore.  In fact that dog is road kill, along with one more of our essential liberties.

John Lewis and Other Elected Officials and Their Woeful Ignorance of the Constitution

I wrote a post back on January 8th of this month advocating the need to test those people seeking elected office regarding their knowledge of the United States Constitution, since it is this very document and the ideals it represents that they will be swearing an oath to support and defend.

Now Congressman John Lewis (D-GA) was asked the other day by CNS News where in the Constitution is the legal justification for congress and the president having made the "Affordable Health Care Act" into law, particularly the mandate that all citizens MUST purchase health insurance.  As his justification for it, Congressman Lewis stated, “Well, when you start off with the Preamble of the Constitution, you talk about the pursuit of happiness.”

What?!?!  Never mind the fact that his logic in using this argument is incomprehensible, but as any junior high history student would tell you, one cannot find the words "the pursuit of happiness" in the Constitution, but rather they are a part of the God-given inalienable writes that Thomas Jefferson penned in our Declaration of Independence.



Unfortunately Representative Lewis and his lack of Constitutional knowledge is apparently the norm and not an aberration amongst our elected officials.  Indeed a recent quiz was conducted amongst typical American citizens including 165 people who identified themselves as having been "successfully elected to government office at least once in their life." This included members of federal, state, or local offices.

This quiz asked 33 basic civics questions, many of which were taken from sources such as the U.S. Citizenship Exam. Of those 33 questions asked, 10 questions were directly related to the U.S. Constitution.  The sad truth of the matter is that our typical American citizen did pretty poorly.  The truly frightening thing is that our typical elected official participating in the quiz scored an average 5 percentage points lower still than the typical citizen on the Constitutional questions.  Citizens typically scored 54% correct versus 49% for elected officials. (For the record, I got all ten questions correct.)

Of the ten questions asked only 49 percent of elected officials could name all three branches of government, compared with 50 percent of the general public.  Let me re-state this: less than half of our elected officials could even name all three branches of the federal government for which some had held office!

Only 46 percent of our elected officials knew that Congress, and not the president, has the power to declare war compared to 54 percent of the general public getting this one correct.

Just 15 percent knew that the phrase "wall of separation" appears in Thomas Jefferson's letter to the Danbury Baptists and is NOT in the U.S. Constitution.  19 percent of citizens knew this.

And finally only 57 percent of our elected officials knew what the purpose of the Electoral College is.  66 percent of the public knew this one.  Indeed, amongst elected officials 20 percent thought the Electoral College was a school for "training those aspiring for higher political office."

Yes, we absolutely need to pass a law that mandates those seeking at least state and federal offices to have a passing score on basic Constitutional knowledge.  I certainly don't expect this to go anywhere, as this would be akin to teacher's unions actually requiring their members to pass competency tests for the subjects they teach.  I don't think our congress is going to set up another obstacle to their attaining office.  ...Even if that oath of office taken requires their supporting and defending a Constitution of which most of them are more ignorant than their own constituents.

The Progressives' Mockery of the United States Constitution

It seems that there has been a contradictory stance regarding reverence towards the United States Constitution from the progressive and conservative ideologies lately.  Many progressives seem annoyed at the right's newly found respect and reverence for our Constitution.  I have read many of my liberal friends on blogs decrying this phenomenon as silly and nothing more than political theater.  I have seen the Constitution mocked and those that would chose to abide by its dictates as having a "fetish" for it.  I watched Chris Hayes the other night, standing in for Rachel Maddow, sneer and condescend that the GOP's love for the Constitution is nothing more than foolishness and political chicanery.



Frankly, I would not doubt that there is indeed a healthy dose of political opportunism and pandering by some politicians in their newly-found embrace of the Constitution that they have been sworn to uphold and defend with their oaths of office.  Nevertheless, I find it refreshing that the House is starting out the 112th Congress by reading the entire Constitution and ensuring that any legislation presented must source where the authorization for that legislation is found in the Constitution.  I cannot help but think that this should help minimize some of the asinine and extra-Constitutional bills brought forth in congress, particularly by our Democrat friends as evidenced in the preceding congress.

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia has even stated that he would teach congress members about our Constitution in a conference for them.  I suspect, based on the condescension and past disregard for the document, that this will be lightly attended by those members of congress from the Democratic side of the aisle.

All of this brings a question to mind.  Why is it that many progressives have such an arrogant disregard, sometimes bordering on loathing, of our Constitution which has been the glue that has held this republic together for over 200 years?  I would submit that the answer lies in the words of our own President Obama, who has characterized the Constitution as a "charter of negative liberties".  He finds the Constitution to be a hindrance to what he would like the federal government to do for the "common good" of the nation but cannot do if he were to actually adhere to the document. 

You see, the Constitution is meant to purposely and narrowly define ONLY the actions allowed by the federal government, while enumerating the explicit rights of We The People.  If a certain right is not explicitly stated in the Constitution, then that right is reserved to the individual states or the people.  In other words, the Constitution tells the government what it cannot do, which is an anathema in the progressives' collective mind.

One tends to hate what one cannot have control over in politics, it would appear.  The progressives hate the authority of the Constitution as it ultimately proclaims the rights of the people and the fact that that the power of the American republic ultimately resides with those people.  Far better for that authority and power to rest with the federal government so that they can shape and fashion a nation for our own good which we the people are far too ignorant to figure out on our own accord, according to them.

It has gotten to the point where a small publishing company named Wilder Publications has advocated  and indeed has even been placing warning labels on copies of the U.S. Constitution, Declaration of Independence, Common Sense, the Articles of Confederation and the Federalist Papers.  In their warning, they state that "This book is a product of its time and does not reflect the same values as it would if it were written today."  The disclaimer further warns parents that they "might wish to discuss with their children how views on race, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, and interpersonal relations have changed since this book was written before allowing them to read this classic work."

Evidently the progressives have gotten to the point where their loathing for the authority of our Constitution, and other founding documents, has caused them to sneer and react with disgust when our elected officials affirm that they are going to read and follow the Constitution that they have sworn to uphold.  I guess this brings too much of a spotlight on the militant left as they continue to try and avoid or thwart the dictates of the law of the land as textualized in our brilliant Constitution.  And one can understand their vexation.  They haven't really followed the law of the Constitution when it has been contradictory to their designs for generations now, and until recently have suffered little in the way of consequences for such actions.  It would seem that progressives are now going to have to actually follow the laws of the Constitution which they seemingly despise or suffer ever greater defeats at the ballot box.



The fact that conservatives are re-discovering the Constitution and bringing its common sense to light will only make it harder for the charlatans that have our own "best interests" at heart to ignore it in the future.  To this I say, HOORAY for the Constitutionalists!

The XXVIII Amendment to the U.S. Constitution

I have an idea to help reign in our politburo congress and their self-regard to rights that they think that only they should be afforded and to which We The People should not.


Amendment XXVIII

Congress shall make no law that applies to the citizens of the
United States that does not apply equally to the Senators or
Representatives of the United States Congress.

Congress shall also make no law that applies to the Senators or
Representatives of Congress that does not apply equally to the
citizens of the United States.



Now let's throw out every last member of congress that refuses to endorse this Constitutional amendment! Ahhh, if only it were that easy to actually do!

When the people fear their government there is tyranny; when the
government fears the people, there is liberty. -Thomas Jefferson