Tuesday, July 14, 2015

WOVEN INTO THE FABRIC OF AMERICA

The conservative reaction to the Supreme Court's Obamacare decision varies from absolute despair for the future of the country to rosy predictions of electoral victories for Republicans in 2016. There are some conservatives who are glad that Obamacare has not been sidelined as a political issue. Now that Obamacare has been upheld in the legal arena, Hillary Clinton, or more likely another nominee, will have to defend this unpopular government program to the voters. These conservatives view the election of a Republican as President, as well as gains  in the Republican Congressional majority, as the assured results of the Court's decision. With the GOP in control of both houses of Congress as well as the White House, the prospect of finally repealing Obamacare would be within reach. Other conservatives disagree. With a year and a half to go in President Obama's term, Obamacare will become more entrenched in the body politic. Even if the Republicans control the White House and Congress after 1/17, it will be the devil to repeal Obamacare. History teaches that once a government entitlement is created, it is next to impossible to repeal it. Obama agrees. In his victory speech after the Court's decision, he declared that Obamacare is woven into the fabric of America.

Yet Obama could be wrong. A victorious 2016 for the GOP could spell the end of Obamacare. This is a viable possibility. Even if Obamacare is repealed, still there has been something woven into the fabric of America, something foreign to the founding of the United States, something sinister. Even if Obamacare is repealed, the Supreme Court's rulings upholding its legality are now legal precedent. Someone may point out to me that Supreme Court decisions upholding slavery and racial segregation were once precedent but now have been consigned to the dustbin of history. True. Yet the Obamacare decisions don't concern race. They confer legal sanction upon one of the Left's most cherished strategic goals, government control of health care for every American. It has been on the Left's agenda since the New Deal and will remain a liberal dream that will not die even if Obamacare is repealed. Chief Justice John Robert's opinions will be cited as legal sanction in any future struggle over government run health care. Robert's latest opinion marks the triumph of postmodernism in the legal field. In his opinion, words have no plain meaning; it is now acceptable to for a judge to read any interpretation into a law passed by Congress, even if the wording of that law is opposite of the judge's reading. The law was pushed through Congress by methods prohibited by the Constitution itself (see #4 on this link), even though the majority of Americans have always opposed Obamacare. The President lied when he promised the American people that they could keep their own doctors. Before the advent of Obama, no one would have dared to use such methods to push their own agenda in the political arena. The next time these methods are employed, the shock value will have dissipated. Sarah Palin was derided for her claim that "death panels" would decide the fate of Americans. Yet Obamacare provides for such agencies to decide who will receive treatment and who will not. Only they are called IPAB's, Independent Payment Advisrory Boards. So now we see something very sinister woven into the fabric of America, the power of the government to decide who lives and who dies.