It has happened before.
The Supreme Court, back in 1857, issued a ruling so controversial, and so divisive, that four years later it led to Civil War.
The decision involved slavery. It ruled that black individuals (even freed slaves) were not legal individuals under the Constitution, and consequently had no individual rights. Chief Justice Taney claimed that black people were ‘inferior’ human beings and therefore had no rights.
Then, as now with John Roberts’ ruling, the country was divided. There were those who said the ruling was valid, and because the Supreme Court said so, this settled the issue. There were those who said that even the Supreme Court could be wrong, that slavery was unconstitutional despite what they ruled in the Dred Scott decision.
Ultimately, it took a Civil War and the 13th and 14th Amendments to the U.S. Constitution to settle the issue of slavery in America.
Today’s great issue is not only Obama’s health care law. This law is the climactic event in the long build-up of a gigantic welfare/entitlement state, beginning in earnest in the 1930s.
In a bizarre kind of way, Obamacare is an acknowledgment that the welfare state has gone broke. In essence the law requires that since the government has run out of money, Americans must be forced to purchase medical services in a ‘market’ manipulated entirely by the government.
Ironically, we don’t need another Constitutional amendment to end Obamacare. We already have one. It’s the 13th Amendment, which outlaws involuntary servitude. Most of government as we know it is actually a violation of that amendment. Medicare, Social Security, Medicaid, public schools, public utilities, foreign aid, government subsidies to business? They’re all based on compulsion. And compulsion isn’t constitutional.
Under a national health and payment board, Obamacare now requires doctors to provide medical services only with the consent of the government. Your doctor thinks you need surgery? OK—only if the Department of Health and Human Services says so.
This isn’t freedom.
Obamacare carries this involuntary servitude one step further. It says, in essence, ‘Not only must you keep paying for existing social welfare programs, assuming you work and pay taxes. But you must purchase additional services as well, assuming you work and pay taxes. If you don’t, you’ll be penalized and taxed even more.’
This is involuntary servitude, plain and simple. If most or all Americans were willing to do what Obama wants them to do, then no law would be seen by some as necessary. The fact that more than half of Americans want no part of Obama’s scheme is what makes the involuntary servitude ‘necessary.’
Advocates of the welfare state, with all its involuntary servitude, have won—for now. But the fact remains that our government cannot sustain itself. It can’t keep going. No amount of taxation or compulsion can force these programs to fiscally sustain themselves.
Economists of all persuasions are in agreement that the Federal Reserve can only artificially pump up the currency and borrow for so long. The Keynesian theories upon which Obama and his government relies did not intend economic ‘stimulus’ to be indefinite.
This is because government ‘stimulus’ was supposed to work. It was supposed to lead to normal or great economic growth. Four years later, we’re still stagnating, and we’re also going broke. Bernanke, Geithner and the gang keep doing the same thing over and over, expecting different results..and we’re not getting them.
The failures of Obama’s economic program are still with him—and with us—even if he wins reelection. So what will be next?
History may repeat itself. The last time the Supreme Court abandoned the Constitution it led to a Civil War. It’s difficult to imagine what a Civil War today would look like. I don’t believe it would be anything like the last one. That was a sectional conflict, pitting the South (who economically depended on slavery) against the North, who did not depend on, or approve of, slavery.
Today’s conflict is social and cultural. It basically pits those who produce and fend for themselves against those who are permanent wards of government programs, paid for with unconstitutional compulsion. Government must resort to force and involuntary servitude to keep one group financing the other. This has the makings of a social catastrophe which has been brewing for a long time.
In my view, the final crack-up of the United States (if it occurs) is less likely to be triggered by military or sectional conflict than by pure economics. What holds the United States together, at present, is our central government, with the military at its core. But the entitlement state is just as much a part of that central government as the Pentagon. To about half the population, the federal government is something that gives them money. That’s all. What happens when Social Security, Medicare and all the rest go away? What will tie the states to the federal government then? That’s when you’ll start to see real trouble.
If Mitt Romney loses, it will not be an endorsement of Obama’s policies. It will simply reflect a belief that Mitt Romney did not offer any kind of credible, decisive alternative to what we already have. Independent voters tend to ‘stick with the trouble they know’ when they’re not offered a clear alternative. That all works to Obama’s favor, unless Romney finds a way to articulate a message he has not yet articulated.
Obama has only won the battle. The battle was to preserve and expand the Big Government welfare state.
That battle is over.
Just like the battle for slavery was over, with the Dred Scott decision. Right?
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