WHY OBAMACARE IS UNCONSTITUTIONAL (DUH) AND DOES IT MATTER?

ObamaCare, the name often given to describe health care reform, is so clearly unconstitutional that it's embarrassing, disgusting, shameful, and dangerous that 215 Congressmen would even consider proposing it. It's almost even more atrocious that the American people can so nonchalantly allow their Constitutional rights to be stolen from them.

You don't have to be a constitutional scholar, an attorney (thank God), or a politician to know that ObamaCare is unconstitutional. Even without reading or knowing the Constitution, most of us intuitively know that it doesn't seem acceptable for the government to force you buy (also known as an "individual mandate") a certain "acceptable" product (health care insurance in this case, but believe me that if this is passed, a whole new can of worms will follow), with the penalties for noncompliance being jail time and onerous financial penalties. Something about that doesn't sit right with most people even if they've never cracked the cover of the Constitution. So without getting technical, most should know they're getting screwed by the government.

Never before in the nation's history has the government forced individual citizens to purchase a product, any product or service, ever. Never before has the government been given the power to say, "Buy this, and, if you don't you go to jail." Why haven't they? Because they can't (at least not legally), but we've never had simultaneously an extreme far-left White House, an equally extreme far-left House and Senate, and a prostrate media. If that triumvirate, along with an uninformed, gullible public, ignores the Constitution, then in essence there are no limitations to what the government can do to us.

The Constitution was instituted primarily with one major goal: TO LIMIT GOVERNMENT, to limit its power, its control, its authority, its activities, and its size. It is not, as the Left loves to say, "A living and breathing document," which means they can make it mean whatever they want it to mean, changing it to meet whatever ridiculous idea, invented right, or new unauthorized Utopian government program that they happen to have the votes for. The Founders specifically laid out the steps to amend the Constitution, but the Left sees this as too time consuming and inconvenient.

The specific, allowed functions and powers of the federal government are laid out in Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution:

• The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence (now spelled: "defense") and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;

• To borrow money on the credit of the United States;

• To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes;

• To establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization, and uniform Laws on the subject of Bankruptcies throughout the United States;

• To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures;

• To provide for the Punishment of counterfeiting the Securities and current Coin of the United States;

• To establish Post Offices and Post Roads;

• To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;

• To constitute Tribunals inferior to the supreme Court;

• To define and punish Piracies and Felonies committed on the high Seas, and Offenses against the Law of Nations;

• To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water;

• To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years;

• To provide and maintain a Navy;

• To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces;

• To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;

• To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;

• To exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten Miles square) as may, by Cession of particular States, and the acceptance of Congress, become the Seat of the Government of the United States, and to exercise like Authority over all Places purchased by the Consent of the Legislature of the State in which the Same shall be, for the Erection of Forts, Magazines, Arsenals, dock-Yards, and other needful Buildings; And

• To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof.

This part of the Constitution doesn't list what the government can't do to us. Obviously that would be too long of a list and perhaps the Founders couldn't imagine every item that future government leaders could create. Therefore, they gave a comprehensive list of what is allowed by the government, a rather short list, to limit what they could do to us. Remember, the Founding Fathers were fleeing from an overreaching and oppressive "Big Government," which is why they were so adamant is limiting the role of government.

President Obama, on the other hand, views the Constitution as a fundamentally flawed document that is constraining. In a 2001 interview, Obama said:

But, the Supreme Court never ventured into the issues of redistribution of wealth, and of more basic issues such as political and economic justice in society. To that extent, as radical as I think people try to characterize the Warren Court, it wasn't that radical. It didn't break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the Founding Fathers in the Constitution, at least as it's been interpreted, and the Warren Court interpreted in the same way, that generally the Constitution is a charter of negative liberties. Says what the states can't do to you. Says what the federal government can't do to you, but doesn't say what the federal government or state government must do on your behalf.

Sleazy, power-hungry politicians, in their goal of buying votes, in essence bribing us with our own money, distort the original meaning and intention of the "General Welfare" and "Commerce" clauses as meaning the government has the authority to do anything! James Madison, who is considered the main author of the Constitution, should know what the words meant. He defined the "General Welfare" as:

With respect to the words, “general welfare,” I have always regarded them as qualified by the details of power connected with them. To take them in a literal and unlimited sense would be a metamorphosis of the Constitution…[that] was not contemplated by the creators.”

If that's not clear enough, to anybody but a politician, Thomas Jefferson succinctly and directly said:

“Congress has not unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare, but only those specifically enumerated.”

Some even stretch it further, making the case that it's impossible to reach life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness without a government provided health insurance policy (writing it is even more absurd than saying it). However, Benjamin Franklin wisely wrote:

“The Constitution only gives people the right to pursue happiness. You have to catch it yourself.”

The commerce clause was written specifically to tear down trade barriers amongst the states, and not as a tool to increase government's power over our lives. It wasn't meant to authorize vague and additional powers not specifically enumerated.

The abuses of these clauses by unethical politicians is not a recent transgression. However, the degree to which they're being abused is at an all-time high. They conveniently forget, or worse ignore, the government limiting ninth and tenth amendments.

The Ninth Amendment states that "the enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people." The Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution stipulates that the States and the people retain all powers not expressly granted to the Federal Government.

It's obvious that the Democrat Party's view of the Constitution is that of it being non-existent, unless they need to pull out the First Amendment (free speech) to justify their periodic desire to put a crucifix in a jar of urine.

The bottom line in plain English is this: It is not the job of defenders of the Constitution to prove that ObamaCare is unconstitutional (although I've clearly accomplished that). The ONLY powers of the federal government are enumerated (named). It is the duty of those proposing ObamaCare, or any other law, to prove it's constitutionality by showing where in the document that power is authorized.

No one has been able to do it. They can't. (In fact, when Nancy Pelosi was asked directly about the constitutionality of forcing American citizens to buy health care and putting them in jail for non-compliance, her response was "Are you serious?") But, it doesn't matter if the president, the Congress, the media, and the citizens choose to ignore the law of the land.

READ ALSO:

IS THERE A CONSTITUTIONAL BASIS FOR MANDATORY HEALTH INSURANCE?

HEALTH CARE REFORM AND THE CONSTITUTION

IS GOVERNMENT HEALTH CARE CONSTITUTIONAL?

IS OBAMA'S HEALTH CARE CONSTITUTIONAL?

WHY THE PERSONAL MANDATE IS UNPRECEDENTED AND UNCONSTITUTIONAL

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