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To hell with the Constitution?
http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/11/to_hell_with_the_constitution.html
[FONT=times new roman,times]Judge Napolitano deems ObamaCare "unconstitutional at its core".[/FONT]
[FONT=times new roman,times]Besides the systemic ban, a key component of ObamaCare may also run afoul of the Constitution. The "individual mandate" for citizens to buy health insurance seems to violate the 14th Amendment's Equal Protection Clause. In The Washington Post, attorneys [/FONT][FONT=times new roman,times]David Rivkin[/FONT][FONT=times new roman,times] and Lee Casey [/FONT][FONT=times new roman,times]assert[/FONT][FONT=times new roman,times]: [/FONT]
[FONT=times new roman,times]If Congress were to do the right thing and initiate an amendment to enshrine the "individual mandate" in the Constitution...it would fail miserably. If America is still America, Americans will not tolerate being told they have to buy something, especially if it's for no other reason than that they exist. If ObamaCare becomes law, folks will drop their insurance out of principle. They'll file suits against the feds. The states will resist, perhaps rebel. And great will be the tumult thereof.[/FONT]
[FONT=times new roman,times]I'm afraid Congress has not only misread the Constitution, but they've also misjudged the American people. Or maybe they just don't know what country they live in.[/FONT]
http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/11/to_hell_with_the_constitution.html
http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/11/to_hell_with_the_constitution.html
[FONT=times new roman,times]Judge Napolitano deems ObamaCare "unconstitutional at its core".[/FONT]
[FONT=times new roman,times]Besides the systemic ban, a key component of ObamaCare may also run afoul of the Constitution. The "individual mandate" for citizens to buy health insurance seems to violate the 14th Amendment's Equal Protection Clause. In The Washington Post, attorneys [/FONT][FONT=times new roman,times]David Rivkin[/FONT][FONT=times new roman,times] and Lee Casey [/FONT][FONT=times new roman,times]assert[/FONT][FONT=times new roman,times]: [/FONT]
[FONT=times new roman,times]The otherwise uninsured would be required to buy coverage...for no other reason than that people without health insurance exist. The federal government does not have the power to regulate Americans simply because they are there.[/FONT]
[FONT=times new roman,times]During last year's campaign, I made this [/FONT][FONT=times new roman,times]"existential" argument[/FONT][FONT=times new roman,times] myself, comparing the "individual mandate" to poll taxes. In [/FONT][FONT=times new roman,times]Harper v. Virginia Bd. of Elections[/FONT][FONT=times new roman,times] (1966), which struck down poll taxes in Virginia, Justice Douglas delivered the Court's opinion:[/FONT]
[FONT=times new roman,times]Long ago in Yick Wo v. Hopkins ... the Court referred to "the political franchise of voting" as a "fundamental political right, because preservative of all rights." ... fee paying has, in our view, no relation to voting qualifications; the right to vote is too precious, too fundamental to be so burdened or conditioned.[/FONT]
[FONT=times new roman,times]Is not the right to exist even more "fundamental" than the right to vote? Isn't existence a precondition of "all rights"? Yet this is what the "individual mandate" taxes: existence. In the Wall Street Journal, Rivkin and Casey [/FONT][FONT=times new roman,times]write[/FONT][FONT=times new roman,times]: [/FONT]
[FONT=times new roman,times]But if over time, as many critics fear, a "public option" health insurance plan turns into what amounts to a single-payer system, the constitutional issues regarding treatment and reimbursement decisions will be manifold...The only thing that is certain today is that the courts, and not Congress, will have the last word.[/FONT]
[FONT=times new roman,times]In her coverage of the [/FONT][FONT=times new roman,times]November 5 rally on Capitol Hill[/FONT][FONT=times new roman,times] and attorney Mark Levin's impassioned speech to the assembled throng (great video of it in the link), Penny Starr reports:[/FONT]
[FONT=times new roman,times]Both the House and Senate versions of the health-care reform bill would force all individuals who are citizens or legal residents of the United States to buy health insurance or else pay a fine, even though the Congressional Budget Office has reported that the federal government has never before required Americans to buy any good or service. Sen. Orrin Hatch (R.-Utah), a longtime member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, told CNSNews.com recently that this mandate is not constitutionally justifiable and that if Congress can force Americans to buy health insurance "then there's literally nothing the federal government can't force us to do" .[/FONT]
[FONT=times new roman,times]But now Congress is ramming through their abortion of a bill by the thinnest of majorities. [/FONT][FONT=times new roman,times]The House just passed its version 220 to 215[/FONT][FONT=times new roman,times] -- a 3-vote margin to pass the "mother of all entitlements." The [/FONT][FONT=times new roman,times]Senate is considering its options[/FONT][FONT=times new roman,times], among them the "nuclear option" (called "reconciliation"), which would allow them to get around a filibuster.[/FONT]
[FONT=times new roman,times]If Congress were to do the right thing and initiate an amendment to enshrine the "individual mandate" in the Constitution...it would fail miserably. If America is still America, Americans will not tolerate being told they have to buy something, especially if it's for no other reason than that they exist. If ObamaCare becomes law, folks will drop their insurance out of principle. They'll file suits against the feds. The states will resist, perhaps rebel. And great will be the tumult thereof.[/FONT]
[FONT=times new roman,times]I'm afraid Congress has not only misread the Constitution, but they've also misjudged the American people. Or maybe they just don't know what country they live in.[/FONT]
http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/11/to_hell_with_the_constitution.html