Posted on 01/02/2010 3:59:27 AM PST by Jacquerie
There is no question that Congress cannot legitimately force anyone to buy health insurance under Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution.
There is another reason Congress should beware. Today it is little known or understood. In 1776 it shocked kings and emperors across Europe.
That reason is revealed in our Declaration of Independence. Appealing to all mankind, the Declaration’s seminal passage opens with perhaps the most important line in the document: “We hold these Truths to be self-evident”. Grounded in reason, “self-evident” truths invoke the long tradition of Natural Law, which holds that there is a “higher law” of right and wrong from which to derive human law and against which to criticize that law at any time. It is not political will, but moral reasoning, accessible to all that is the foundation of our political system.
God created us equal, and He gave us Unalienable Rights. Among them are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Our Founders next revealed the purpose of government.
Governments are instituted among men to secure our Unalienable, Natural Rights. That is all.
The Framers put the philosophy of the Founders (derived from Cicero, St. Thomas Aguinas, John Locke and others) into practice in our Constitution. Among these Natural Law oriented Rights in our Constitution:
Exclusive right to the profit of one’s writings and inventions, habeas corpus, freedom of the press, speech, free exercise of religion, the right to peacefully assemble, keep and bear arms, to petition our government, to be secure in our persons, paper and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures, to a speedy public trial, to be confronted by the witnesses against us, equal protection under the laws, non discrimination on the basis of race or sex in voting rights. Protection against ex-post facto laws, double jeopardy, self incrimination, deprivation of life, liberty or property without due process, taking of private property for public use without just compensation, excessive bail, cruel and unusual punishment, slavery, poll taxes.
And finally the Ninth Amendment, to cover the Natural Rights not otherwise enumerated.
The Radical Left tells us that National Socialized Healthcare is a “right.” (Modern paganism proscribes all reference to God when speaking of rights.) In my amateur reading of a couple of books and too many online hours on the subject, there is clearly no Natural Right of one to the property or money of another.
We also have an Unalienable Right to the “Pursuit of Happiness,” meaning the right to pursue productive work to acquire property and support ourselves and our families. No law from Congress can morally enhance or diminish this Right. It is ours, and unaffected by the latest Leftist fads. Under National Socialized Healthcare, selected enemies of the people will find that right severely restricted or eliminated. It will finish what began in the 1960s and turn our once free market healthcare system into a command and control beast, in which medical service professionals will not be able to pursue their work as they wish, as training and experience taught them. They will eventually be prevented by law from privately contracting with you and me for a millennia old service. Instead, their every workday act will be directed by the combined misjudgment of 535 predominately lawyers in Washington DC and thousands of unelected, untouchable bureaucrats.
Rather than declare the entire health insurance industry to be illegal, an obvious and crass abuse of power, our Democrat Congress will take a subtle approach to slowly strangle the health insurance companies. They will be forced to ignore actuarial data developed over decades and replace them with loony premium rates detached from reality as determined by Leftist politicians. Monetary loss is guaranteed and hundreds of thousands of formerly productive people will join the Obama unemployed. The Natural Right to voluntarily contract for a legal, legitimate service will vanish.
Why should the Democrat Congress care as it increasingly abuses our Natural Rights?
Governments get into trouble when they trample the Natural, Unalienable Rights of their citizens. The rotten Soviet Union, initially populated with beaten down serfs from the Czars, went out of its way to violate Natural Rights. As abuse of Natural Rights increased so did internal security forces to keep the masses yearning for freedom in check. The entire structure eventually came crashing down as the unlawful burden of government on every aspect of every single life ground down on the very souls of all, killing productive industry and many millions of lives.
We have been moving in that direction with increasing speed since the 1930s. A quick and very incomplete rundown of government violations of Natural Law include an array of transfer payments from one individual to another, restrictions on religious expression, denial of parental and local control of schools, heavy restrictions on the right to local self government, outright government control of banking, autos and finance, confiscation of private property for private use . . . the list grows. Not long ago, local law enforcement was the only visible reminder of the state’s police powers. Now, a growing array of federal and state agencies unrelated to traditional forms of public safety pack heat and levy heavy fines to enforce often fuzzy zoning, health, education and environmental diktats. It gets worse, for the state has help. Democrat labor unions and ACORN serve as taxpayer supported Leftist militia to intimidate banks, local governments and voters to do what the radicals cannot impose through courts or executive agencies.
Remember that Ninth Amendment privacy right between a woman and her doctor? Poof, gone. National Socialist Healthcare technocrats will need comprehensive medical data for their Death Panels. Without adequate information, even on the most delicate details of diagnoses, treatments, and especially costs, how can the government be expected to rationally determine when it is time to pull your plug?
The right to Life, Liberty and Property do not exist because Man makes laws. These rights, among many others predate government and protection of them is the reason Man creates governments. National Socialized Healthcare will color the long train of previous abuses of Natural Law as comparatively petty and immaterial. It will complete the transformation of the Constitution into an instrument of tyranny. Once we let Congress decide which industries are allowed to exist, with whom we can contract for our healthcare and for how much, or decide when we are no longer economically useful to the state, it is truly over; The Idea, The Miracle, America herself will be no more and will join history’s long list of failed states.
Obamacare ping!
BTTT
The road to hell truly is paved with good intentions. It becomes more obvious with each passing year.
oathkeepers.org
As strange as it may sound I am now hoping they pass this thing and Obambi signs it.
Perhaps then the good people of the US will figure out that ALL Democrats are evil amd the only way to save freedom is clean house.
The problem is that there is already so much (almost all of it!) that the Federal government does that is already unconstitutional and nothing can ever be done to change it. All welfare programs, including Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Food Stamps, AFDC, SCHIP, farm subsidies, etc. are all unconstitutional but they never get rolled back or repealed. The idea that the lack of constitutionality is going to save us in the health care takeover debate is specious at best.
The most frightening aspect of the agrandizment of power by government is that it routinely leads to war. Germany's National Socialists stand out but FDR also needed a war to change the subject from his New Deal failures. The aggregation of second rate gangsters that run our government are fully aware that the electoral process will send them packing (and possibly open to prosecution) within the year.
The Won would like nothing better than a crisis which would enable him to declare martial law, suspend habeas corpus (see: Dishonest Abe) and rule openly by decree and goon squads. We shall hope that he is not afforded the opportunity...
In any event, if you do not currently have the "Politiically Incorrect Guide to the Constitution", you might consider acquiring it...
Jacquerie: this sentence strikes me as a bit off, because even a first grader knows the Natural Law: you don't take other people's stuff. It's obvious, it's simple , it's easy to understand, that's why it's Natural Law. It doesn't require the reading of books or many online hours.
What requires all the education (and the power of government) is writing laws that are SO convoluted and confusing that you can snooker other people into thinking it's OK to take someone elses stuff.
What is “natural law”? It seems it’s not very natural to most people...especially politicians!
The 17th and 18th century drafters of state charters and constitutions believed that man, through his God given ability to reason, could come up with truths in complete harmony with God. These truths could not be modified to suit man's avarice nor could the truths be enhanced with human law.
IIRC they saw no difference between the revealed truth by Newton/Leibniz of calculus, and the truths of Natural Law as applied to government.
They were wrong. This view is what has brought us to the moral relativism we have today.
I think you are right, but I have a question. What makes mandatory health insurance different from mandatory CAR insurance? I mean, constitutionally, I really want to know.
If you have to have liability in order to protect the other driver, does having to buy health insurance protect the other patients from rising costs due to indigence? Has anyone ever legally challenged the auto law as unconstitutional?
How did it turn out? Bueller?
What I would like to know is, how would it be possible for physicians to keep faith with their Hippocratic Oath under Obamacare?
The Hippocratic Oath is an oath taken by doctors who, in taking the Oath, bind themselves to the practice of medicine according to the traditional standard of moral conduct based on respect for all human life, even unborn life. It is attributed to Hippocrates, the father of western medicine, in the 4th century BC. The Oath means “Above all, do no harm.” It reflects a moral code far different than the one that seems to underlie Obamacare.
What the original Oath says:
“I will prescribe regimens for the good of my patients according to my ability and my judgment and never do harm to anyone.“I will not give a lethal drug to anyone if I am asked, nor will I advise such a plan; and similarly I will not give a woman [an abortive remedy]….
“In every house where I come I will enter only for the good of my patients, keeping myself far from all intentional ill-doing….
“All that may come to my knowledge in the exercise of my profession … which ought … to be [kept private], I will keep secret and will never reveal.
“If I keep this oath faithfully, may I enjoy my life and practice my art, respected by all men and in all times; but if I swerve from it or violate it, may the reverse be my lot.”
I think choice has everything to do with it. No one forces you to drive, and in choosing to be a driver, you have to follow certain rules. Having insurance, a valid driver's license, a street legal vehicle and obeying the motor vehicle code are among them. You do not have to do any of those things if you choose not to drive.
If you have to have liability in order to protect the other driver, does having to buy health insurance protect the other patients from rising costs due to indigence?
Only traditional health insurance, that is, the kind with a high deductible, provides this type of protection. Health insurance these days has morphed into something which encourages more spending because the customer is not directly billed for the most of the costs. If health insurance covered only covered catastrophic expenses, you'd see most people exercise more financial prudence regarding health care.
Of course, this doesn't help people who have chronic health problems. I am not sure how to deal with that problem.
“...What makes mandatory health insurance
different from mandatory CAR insurance?...”
- - -
There is no comparison between the two.
Can the federal government require you to buy a car?
-
Your State government may require a person who drives a vehicle
on a public highway to provide proof that they are financially capable
of compensating other drivers on the highway for any damage that
may be caused to their property.
This protects you from them; and them from you.
-
A bank or other lending institution may require that the person who
is financing a vehicle should provide proof that they are financially
capable of compensating the lender for any damage that may be
caused to the vehicle.
-
It is totally unprecedented (and unconstitutional) for the federal
government to require all residents to purchase health insurance,
or any other good or service.
Good grief, yes. How would doctors keep their oaths? I don’t know.
The writing is on the wall. Why would any young person consider entering medicine if they will end up government employees and prevented from applying their full range of skills?
The problem is that Liberals keep adding innumerable “natural” rights and with the explosion of rights comes necessary conflicts between rights.
So now it has become a task of prioritizing rights and those who assume power get to set their rights against other rights.
If I am not mistaken, a couple of Scotus judges in the majority used a Natural Law Ninth Amendment right for married couples to access birth control drugs in Griswold v. Connecticut, a forerunner to the infamous Roe v. Wade.
I don't think the courts have resorted much to an unalienable rights defense since. I am not a legal eagle and would appreciate info on court rulings on the use of Natural Rights.
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