No Fluttering Dove
Culture and Politics - Obama Nation Building
Written by Douglas Wilson
Monday, 02 July 2012
Governors Jindal and Scott are to be commended for publicly stating
that they will not implement Obamacare in Louisiana and Florida
respectively. There will doubtless be other statements like this, and
they are all to be encouraged. In 2010, the legislative House of my own
state of Idaho passed a measure that stated their unwillingness for such
a federal law to be imposed in the state of Idaho. There needs to be a
lot more of this, and it is now essential that Obamacare fail for that reason.
We are not playing beanbag anymore
, and I have no doubt that whatever
red hot pincers were applied to the toes of the Chief Justice can now
be applied to the toes of the governors of the several states. I do not
know if the states that show resistance will be able to maintain that
resistance -- but they must maintain it nonetheless. That is their
obligation and duty before God.
The heart of the problem is that the Supreme Court has now declared
that there is no limiting principle in our form of government at the
federal level. This means that if we are to live under limited
government -- which the Bible requires -- that limitation must be
enforced at the state and local levels and, failing that, at the level
of the church. Simply repealing Obamacare as a policy matter is not
enough. Obamacare must be rejected because it is inconsistent with the
moral obligation of limited government, and not because it was
"unpopular" or "will cost too much." The problem we are facing is not because
of a stupid law. Of course Congress will pass stupid laws from time to
time. The problem is the claimed prerogative to stupidity without limit. In a godly form of civil government, we must reject anything that concludes with those fatal words -- "without limit."
So the issue is not a dumb law. The issue is the claim to absolute
government. If the law had been a wise law, fully paid for, judicious
and full of sunshine, and the Supreme Court had upheld it on these same
grounds, I would be just as angry. If Roberts had upheld the health care
law because of the "divine right of kings," our debates would not be
swirling around "individual mandate" or "preexisting conditions." We
would be saying things like, "What? Kings? What? Divine Right? What?" It is the same kind of thing here.
Congress is not Jesus, for which we may offer our hearty
thanksgiving, and the Supreme Court is not the Supreme Being, and there
was no baptism for any of them at the Jordan, and there was no
fluttering dove. Congress did not die for me, and if Congress were to
die, Congress could not rise from the dead. This means that Congress
does not own me, or the members of my congregation. We have all been
purchased by the blood of Jesus Christ, and therefore cannot be
possessed in this manner by another. We have already been bought with a
price. Talk about a single payer.
But a man can now go out in the evening to sit on his front porch,
and the entire time he is there he is a non-stop emitter of carbon, and
also, the entire time, he is not buying health insurance. Neither is
this miscreant doing a host of other unenumerated things which, provided
Congress attaches a tax to it, is now deemed to be fully
constitutional. The Constitution as written is a document of enumerated
powers, and this decision formalizes the final inversion of that --
anything not mentioned in the Constitution as being the province of
Congress can now be added ad libitum by that same Congress,
provided they are willing to be coercive about it in their powers of
taxation. Thomas Jefferson, call your office.
I have heard it being said that Roberts is brilliant, and that while
everybody else is playing checkers, he is playing chess. On the
contrary, I believe we have mistaken which invisible game he is playing
-- I think he is in a slow jam casuistry contest, up against a 16th
century Jesuit. The question before them is how many cherubim can fit
into the now empty Tenth Amendment.
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