Should We Obey All Laws?

Townhall.com ^ | May 16, 2012 | Walter E. Williams

[Kaslin]

Let's think about whether all acts of Congress deserve our respect and obedience. Suppose Congress enacted a law -- and the Supreme Court ruled it constitutional -- requiring American families to attend church services at least three times a month. Should we obey such a law? Suppose Congress, acting under the Constitution's commerce clause, enacted a law requiring motorists to get eight hours of sleep before driving on interstate highways. Its justification might be that drowsy motorists risk highway accidents and accidents affect interstate commerce. Suppose you were a jury member during the 1850s and a free person were on trial for assisting a runaway slave, in clear violation of the Fugitive Slave Act. Would you vote to convict and punish?

A moral person would find each one of those laws either morally repugnant or to be a clear violation of our Constitution. You say, "Williams, you're wrong this time. In 1859, in Ableman v. Booth, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 constitutional." That court decision, as well as some others in our past, makes my case. Moral people can't rely solely on the courts to establish what's right or wrong. Slavery is immoral; therefore, any laws that support slavery are also immoral. In the words of Thomas Jefferson, "to consider the judges as the ultimate arbiters of all constitutional questions (is) a very dangerous doctrine indeed, and one which would place us under the despotism of an oligarchy."

Soon, the Supreme Court will rule on the constitutionality of Obamacare, euphemistically titled the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. There is absolutely no constitutional authority for Congress to force any American to enter into a contract to buy any good or service. But if the court rules that Obamacare is constitutional, what should we do?

State governors and legislators ought to summon up the courage of our Founding Fathers in response to the 5th Congress' Alien and Sedition Acts in 1798. Led by Jefferson and James Madison, the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions of 1798 and 1799 were drafted where legislatures took the position that the Alien and Sedition Acts were unconstitutional. They said, "Resolved, That the several States composing, the United States of America, are not united on the principle of unlimited submission to their general government ... (and) whensoever the general government assumes undelegated powers, its acts are unauthoritative, void, and of no force." The 10th Amendment to our Constitution supports that vision: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."

In a word, if the Supreme Court rules that Obamacare is constitutional, citizens should press their state governors and legislatures to nullify the law. You say, "Williams, the last time states got into this nullification business, it led to a war that cost 600,000 lives." Two things are different this time. First, most Americans are against Obamacare, and secondly, I don't believe that you could find a U.S. soldier who would follow a presidential order to descend on a state to round up or shoot down fellow Americans because they refuse to follow a congressional order to buy health insurance.

Congress has already gone far beyond the powers delegated to it by the Constitution. In Federalist No. 45, Madison explained: "The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite." That vision has been turned on its head; it's the federal government whose powers are numerous and indefinite, and those of the state are now few and defined.

Former slave Frederick Douglass advised: "Find out just what people will submit to and you have found out the exact amount of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them. ... The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress."

[Biggirl]

But if those laws conflict with the laws of God, God’s laws much come first.

[tomkat]

Bravo !

+1

[Lady Lucky]

I don't believe that you could find a U.S. soldier who would follow a presidential order to descend on a state to round up or shoot down fellow Americans because they refuse to follow a congressional order to buy health insurance.

Well I believe it.

[Lady Lucky]

I don't believe that you could find a U.S. soldier who would follow a presidential order to descend on a state to round up or shoot down fellow Americans because they refuse to follow a congressional order to buy health insurance.

And then there's the paramilitary police. How many more incidents need to happen before you start believing that people will do just about anything that authority commands?

Search "Milgram" for a refresher course.

[USCG SimTech]

I don't believe that you could find a U.S. soldier who would follow a presidential order to descend on a state to round up or shoot down fellow Americans because they refuse to follow a congressional order to buy health insurance.

Well I believe it.

If a member of the armed forces is issued an illegal order it is that service members duty to report the illegal order and TAKE ACTION to resolve the situation. This includes arresting that next upper chain of command for mutiny.

[Uncle Ike]

I really wonder if, in our Nation as it exists today, there is a sufficient number of non-sheep to form the critical mass necessary to beat back tyranny...

[TheCause]

A Royal Proclamation
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hLIJv6z21XM

Liberty will reign.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2FAAVPX-jg

[Lady Lucky]

Yes, I'm aware of that. Nevertheless, many will not choose to view a given order as illegal, but instead decide to agree with the authority that commands (and that controls their careers, their fortunes, their very lives).

In any case the soldiers won't be troubled with the job of suppressing resistance to obamacare. The paramilitary police will SWAT down all opponents.

Imagine if they'd been around during Prohibition.

[EBH]

Moral people can't rely solely on the courts to establish what's right or wrong

This is what is profoundly different in our country today. When they removed God from the public square they made the government the final say in what is moral.

Agree or disagree all you want, but one only needs to look to 0bama's current stance on gay rights and the twisting he did to get it to fit his 'christian faith' and one has the truth. 0bama standing up there acting and proclaiming the immoral acts of government, as the voice of God's intent.

[muir_redwoods]

When the government (all three branches, federal state and local) abandoned the Constitution and ceased to be bound by it the precedent was set that all laws are voluntary and observance of thd law I’d unnecessary so long as one can avoid the jack-booted street gang of the police.

I’m not advocating anarchy, I am merely observing it practiced by professionals.

[Kaslin]

bump

[Little Ray]

And what about seizing privately owned firearms and ammunition from the public? We already KNOW that cops will do it (wake up call courtesy of the NOPD - Katrina).

[Kaslin]

correct

[EBH]

If a member of the armed forces is issued an illegal order it is that service members duty to report the illegal order and TAKE ACTION to resolve the situation

Here is the twist on that...

If the law stands, the order is not illegal. The only way the order is illegal is if the courts rule 0bamacare is unConstitutional and 0bama/IRS/government implement it anyway. Then and only then is it illegal. Members of the armed services are not protected from immoral laws, just illegal ones.

[Lazamataz]

Walter Williams is amazing.

[stockpirate]

SCOTUS is NOT the final word on the US Constitution, it is “We the People”, and no we should not obey laws that are against the US Constition, as Jefferson I think said, “Rebellion to tryanny is obedience to God”

[Pollster1]

But if those laws conflict with the laws of God, God’s laws much come first.

"Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's and unto God that which is God's." I think we all know how little is owed to government when there is a conflict, since everything is God's.

[Lady Lucky]

Of course!
Although in recent years the Second Amendment seems to have cut a few extra teeth, you know if enough people got stirred up to resist government oppression, the gun grabbing would commence in no time at all. Manufacturers would get “temporarily” shut down (and shutting down a business temporarily can be like stopping someone from breathing temporarily).
The Occupy vermin could turn back the pro-2A advances all by themselves with a few lively riots in major cities.
Our push will inevitably come to govt shove, and govt holds most of the cards.

[Biggirl]

Thank-you for the scrpture confirmation.