The Supreme Court has ruled, and has shared its decision with the people of the United States of America. How do we fight this between now and November? I invite you to read on, as guest blogger David Nance sheds some light on the silver lining, and outlines what the next steps should be for America.
You can follow David Nance on Twitter at @DavidBlenNance
The health care ruling may be the worst thing that ever happened to Obama.
With
the Supreme Court’s decision yesterday that Obama’s health care law is, in
fact, constitutional, many liberals may feel inclined to celebrate the victory;
many conservatives are lamenting defeat, licking their wounds, and wondering
what to do next. Chief Justice John
Roberts, who sided with the liberal Justices in the final decision, will
probably be characterized as a traitor.
But,
on closer inspection, all of this is not so cut and dry. President Obama has demonstrated public
contempt for due process of law, both in circumventing the Legislature to push
his agendas, and in publicly humiliating and bullying the Supreme Court
Justices. He has even gone so far as to warn
them not to strike down Obamacare. The
Court knew that merely striking the law down would be offering a band-aid to a
problem in need of major surgery.
In
a move taken in the spirit of Marbury v. Madison, which gave the President his
way while limiting the President’s power (1), the Court has rendered
its verdict in a very particular way that actually outlines the most plausible
agenda for fighting the health care law—and it has done it in an elegant way
that that neither Obama or Congress can touch. The
Supreme Court has taken the issue of health care reform away from
political heavyweights and put it right back where it belongs: in the hands of
the people.
The Justices' decision provides Americans with the plan and the tools to resist Obamacare through both vote and civil disobedience.
First,
the Court told us in no uncertain terms what we will have to do to fix the
problem. To quote from Roberts’ official
decision:
“We possess neither the expertise nor the prerogative to make policy judgments. Those decisions are entrusted to our Nation’s elected leaders, who can be thrown out of office if the people disagree with them. It is not our job to protect the people from the consequences of their political choices” (emphasis added).
In
other words, the Court can’t fix this; Congress and the President are going to
do what they want to do, and the only way to stop them is to choose different
political leaders.
Second,
the Court’s decision has legally redefined Obamacare, opt-out fees and all, as
a tax. This is inestimably powerful
material for conservative rhetoric toward ousting incumbent politicians in November:
- It literally makes a lie of a major premise on which Obamacare was passed, which was that it would not be a tax on the American people—now, it is a tax, nothing more and nothing less.
- More than just a tax, Obamacare is an unjust, discriminatory tax: it takes money from those who work and gives to those who do not.
- Obamacare is a tax on conscience: it proposes to forcibly and explicitly take money from those who feel that abortion and day-after contraception are murder and gives that money to the very people committing such acts—and opting out merely shifts this taxation to the form of a fine.
- The question of taxation takes America back to its roots: An unhearing King and an unresponsive Parliament imposing taxes on the people, and willing to violate their basic rights of citizenship in order to do it.
- Recall Daniel Webster’s immortal warning—“The power to tax is the power to destroy.”
Thus,
failing or refusing to vote in this election is to submit to unfair, discriminatory taxation
without representation. In light of the
Court’s verdict, America can again rally to the 1776 cry of “Down with King George!”
Third,
the Court’s decision enables a simple and straightforward method for engaging in crippling
civil disobedience. The Justices are
aware that a number of influential individuals and organizations (including the
Catholic Church and leading political thought leaders at some of the Nation’s
top universities) have pledged to fight Obamacare to the inclusion of civil
disobedience. By defining Obamacare as a
tax, the course of action is clear: simply refuse to pay the tax. When the government comes to collect the
unpaid taxes, class-action lawsuits can be filed on every possible mistake made
by the IRS, making the collection of taxes a financial and political nightmare:
If
5% of the US population were join clergy and other leaders in this kind of
non-compliance, the Federal Government will quickly find itself at an impasse
with three possible outcomes, each of them politically fatal.
- Choose not to enforce the tax—thereby gutting the power of Obamacare and, worse, setting the precedent that Americans can ignore taxes (and possibly other laws) they disapprove of.
- Enforce the law through imprisoning Catholic priests and bishops, leaders of other churches, internationally influential law professors, and other high-profile offenders; and through shutting down businesses, church organizations and their subsidiaries, and other employers who refuse to pay the tax—resulting in increased unemployment, the need for government aid to support the families of those imprisoned, and, ultimately, the kind of heart-wrenching publicity that helped Martin Luther King, Jr. with the battle for civil rights.
- Enforce the law through other forms of sanctions on ideologically-motivated non-payers—flouting First Amendment conscience rights in ways that will be increasingly impossible to pass off as anything but ideological repression.
In
other words, the Court has created a lose, lose, lose situation for our current
Congress and the Obama administration.
Assuming there is any spark of freedom left amongst conservatives and
religious people in America, if this contest of wills reaches that phase, the
plan outlined and enabled by Chief Justice Roberts will leave this generation
of political leadership broken and disgraced in the eyes of history and the
American people.
So,
what do we do with this knowledge?
First
of all, we need to remember that, on all sides of this debate, there are people. Obamacare made it as far as it did because it
promised—deceptively, perhaps—something that people felt they needed. The fact that individuals with pre-existing
conditions have been denied insurance coverage, for example is problematic; as
is the fact that there are many innocent children whose parents cannot afford
health care, with insurance or without. These
are the real issues that many currently favoring the law want to address. For conservatives to win the hearts of
fence-sitters, Obamacare must be attacked always with the explicit promise that
the American people will work to address those issues in a more appropriate
way, and with actions to match that promise.
Second
of all, conservatives must weaponize the rhetoric that the Supreme Court has so
judiciously gifted to them:
- They must use the language of taxation against conscience and against freedom to rally every possible vote against our current President and Legislature in the November elections—EVERYONE must engage persuasively in this discussion as if his or her liberty is at stake, because it is.
- Where primary elections are still underway, conservatives and also liberals who oppose Obamacare must try to select candidates who will fight to improve the current situation—a Democrat willing to repeal the individual mandate or discriminatory provisions is every bit the ally a Republican or Libertarian would be.
Thirdly,
conservatives must recognize that, for those committed to civil disobedience
over this cause, there will be severe economic, social, and political
reprisals. Professors, church leaders,
and others will likely lose their livelihood and possibly their freedom, and
their families will be exposed to subtle or overt acts of terrorism by their opponents. While this issue is not the sword all
conservatives will choose to die on, those not directly engaged in civil
disobedience should be conscious of the sacrifice of those for whom it is. Sympathetic bystanders can aid and abet those in the thick of it through any legal means imaginable. Doing
so will make it much harder for the Government to break the will of the
movement and will demonstrate a solidarity among conservatives that will speak with
a convincing force more powerful than words.
If conservatives rally around the plan that Chief Justice Roberts and the Supreme Court have recommended to us, nothing short of an actual coup d'état will have power to force Obamacare upon the people.
No,
fellow Americans, the Supreme Court has not betrayed America to its politicians—they’ve saved it from them. In what I believe is an act of God, the
people of the United States once again have the power to decide the outcome of
their own fate.
The ball is in our
hands. The question is: are we game?
Regardless
of your political affiliation, if you love America, please forward this message
on to anyone who will read it.
Notes:
1 The Court has
gone back to its own history. The Court
knew that merely striking down the law would likely make little
difference. They remember President
Andrew Jackson’s reported reaction when the Supreme Court ruled that the US
could not force the Cherokee Indians off of their lands: "[Chief Justice] John Marshall has made his
decision, now let him enforce it!"
Just
as Jackson flouted due process, the Court has seen the same disposition in
President Obama, who has derided and belittled the Court’s decisions in public,
and even directly warned them not to strike down the health care law—all aside
from his consistent efforts to circumvent the cumbersome legislative process to
pass many of his initiatives.
So,
instead of taking the President on directly, the Court has taken a different
page out of the history book: Marbury v. Madison. (Lest we miss this connection, Chief Justice
Roberts even goes so far as to as to quote directly from that case early on in
his official opinion. See p. 6.)
In
Marbury v. Madison, the Court brilliantly declared the President’s use of his
executive authority against Mr. Marbury to be illegal, but also found that Mr.
Marbury’s suit was illegal under constitutional separation of powers—and in the
process, the Court gave itself the power of judicial review, or the power to
determine the constitutional boundaries of each branch of government. In chess terms, the Court gave up a pawn to
gain a queen, which it could then use to check the President.
