The Constitution is Dead, So Now What?
The Supreme Court’s decision to ignore “the most natural reading” of the law, so that it could rewrite it to be what they want it to be, is only the latest in a very long series of cases that gut the law and even the Constitution to achieve the goals desired by the current majority of the Court.
The increasing pattern is that government is ever more distant from the people, ruling in its own interest rather than that of the people. Whatever promises are made by politicians when running for office are quickly ignored once in office.
Government does what it wants. Even the Constitution is no longer a safeguard. If you want to predict how the court will rule, look to what the ruling class wants, or even better, what empowers government. That is a much better indicator, than the will of the people, what the law actually says, or the Constitution in determining how the court will rule. We have a government of the governing class, by the governing class, and for the governing class.
The passage at issue in this case was written as a club to force the states into creating exchanges. However it backfired because the states rebelled. But once again the court comes to the rescues to force upon the people a law that has never had majority support of the people and in fact has been strongly opposed. But every effort of the people to oppose the law has been stymied.
They vote for politicians who promise to oppose it, but once elected have nothing but excuses. They look to the courts, but the courts provide all sorts of inconsistent rulings (ruling a provision a fee and not tax in one place, and then a tax and not a fee in others as the need arises) in order to uphold the law. Now they ignore what the law says. In short they do whatever is needed to support the government over the people.
Nor should this be any surprise. Obama gives waivers to his friends, while punishing his enemies. It no longer matters what the people want, what the law is or even what the Constitution says. The only thing that matters is what the ruling class wants. Nor is this limited to Obamacare. There are a whole range of issues where polls consistently show a vast difference between what the people want and what the government does. Thus the Rule of Law is gone. What is left is the Rule of Power. What matters is who has the power to impose their will.
When a government acts more in its own interest than that of the people, you have a tyranny. To be sure currently we have a soft tyranny, but it is a tyranny none the less, and one that is increasingly seeking to punish any who would oppose it.
So what are the people to do? When the government abandons the Constitution that created it, can it still be considered legitimate? As the Declaration of Independence states,
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
Perhaps those in Washington should dust off the Declaration and remind themselves why and how the country got started.
