Reflections From a Murky Pond

Professor Jonathan Turley is an attorney, a legal scholar mostly specializing in Liberal interpretations of constitutional law, and a frequent commentator in many of the Leftist MSM’s papers and shows.  He also maintains an interesting blog, Res ipsa loquitur. Prof. Turley and I rarely agree on anything. That is why it is odd that he and I are in agreement on one of the more disturbing aspects of ObamaCare.

With this legislation, Congress has effectively defined an uninsured 18-year-old man in Richmond as an interstate problem like a polluting factory. It is an assertion of federal power that is inherently at odds with the original vision of the Framers. If a citizen who fails to get health insurance is an interstate problem, it is difficult to see the limiting principle as Congress seeks to impose other requirements on citizens. The ultimate question may not be how Congress can prevail, but how much of states’ rights would be left if it prevailed.

– Prof. Jonathon Turley
Is the Individual Mandate Constitutional?

Think about Prof. Turley’s statement, “If a citizen who fails to get health insurance is an interstate problem, it is difficult to see the limiting principle as Congress seeks to impose other requirements on citizens.” To any true American, one who would guard his liberty and that of his progeny, that is a chilling statement made all the more so because the reasoning mind can find little in the way of factual argument to refute it.

At this time (April 2, 2010) at least 14 States have filed federal lawsuits challenging the constitutionality of the individual mandate portion of Obama, Pelosi, and Reid’s health insurance reconstruction legislation colloquially known as ObamaCare. So it is obvious that others besides myself agree with Turley’s estimation of the situation.

If the Gods are at all mercifully inclined towards America, these lawsuits will result in a key provision of ObamaCare, the individual health insurance mandate, being struck down on Constitutional grounds and the whole legislation having to go back to Congress in order to create a new – hopefully wiser and more American – rendition of the legislation.

So – oddly, Professor Turley and I are, for once, in agreement. It should be, but isn’t any longer, even odder that the one circumstance where two staunch proponents of differing views on so many issues can reach agreement is in opposition to President Obama and his agenda.

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President Obama has to feel like a tired boxer hung up on the ropes with his opponent pummeling away at him. First he and his agenda took a hard blow from Republican Scott Brown’s surprising and substantial defeat of Democrat Martha Coakley for the late Ted Kennedy’s Massachusetts Senate seat.

Now the state legislatures across the nation are now pounding away at one of ObamaCare’s key provision, mandatory health insurance coverage for all Americans.

From Associated Press (AP) via Yahoo News:

Lawmakers in 34 states have filed or proposed amendments to their state constitutions or statutes rejecting health insurance mandates, according to the American Legislative Exchange Council, a nonprofit group that promotes limited government that is helping coordinate the efforts. Many of those proposals are targeted for the November ballot, assuring that health care remains a hot topic as hundreds of federal and state lawmakers face re-election.

If Scott Brown’s election could be described as a punishing body blow, then 34 out of 50 – 68% and enough, with 4 states to spare, to call a Constitutional Convention – state legislatures moving to block ObamaCare’s insurance mandate must be described as a States Rights hook and one that went straight across Obama’s chin.

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As America truly enters into the 2010 midterm Congressional Election cycle the one word that Americans, especially Conservatives of all varieties, should keep in the font of their minds is subsidiarity.

The Merriam-Webster Dictionary definition:

Subsidiarity
Pronunciation: \,s?b-si-d?-’er-?-t?, s?b-,si-\
Function: noun
Date: 1936

Definition(s):

1. a the quality or state of being subsidiary
2. a principle in social organization: functions which subordinate or local organizations perform effectively belong more properly to them than to a dominant central organization

Simply put, subsidiarity is the idea that a central authority should have a subsidiary, or secondary and lesser, function and perform only those tasks which cannot be performed effectively at a more immediate or local level. Among other things it is the foundational concept underlying the 10th Amendment to US Constitution.

This concept should be a touchstone for Americans in the 2010 Congressional elections and in any state and local elections that may arise in the upcoming months. While not the only issue that Americans should consider when choosing a political candidate, subsidiarity should be one of the key issues analyzed when making those choices.

At the local, district, and state levels Americans need to look for candidates that will “step up to the plate” and take action and responsibility, one’s willing to fight to take power back from higher, more centralized authority and hold it in trust for the People that they serve. At the federal level Americans need to look for candidates that will relinquish those improper powers currently co-opted and/or seized by the federal government back to the states.

Frankly, most of the current ills inflicted upon America are because we, the People, have allowed the federal government to take too much power unto itself, power that rightly belongs to the the people of states and the local municipalities. That can be corrected, but it will take work – and the upcoming elections are a good place to start.

Subsidiarity In 2010 – learn it, love it, vote for it.

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