The GOP Presidential candidates who took the stage of FoxBusiness’s September 27 “Debate” confirmed something very important as the questions flowed and the voices rose and the audience flatlined. They confirmed the fact that collectivists are tactically savvy – and immoral – when they count on nationwide normalcy bias to quash opposition to a foul, unconstitutional federal scheme.
In this case, the scheme is the 2010-passed so-called “Affordable Care Act”, also known as “Obamacare.”
“Obamacare” being the federal leviathan of orders, mandates, handouts, and medical data collection about which then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said, “We… have to pass the bill so that you can, uh, find out what is in it.”
How sweet.
Some of us already knew much of what was in it. We knew it contained “best-practices” rules (also known by the moniker “death panels”) that would see the government encourage “end of life” euthanasia pathways for elderly people with terminal illnesses – in order to save government cash that it should not have been claiming the power to take from us in the first place.
Indeed, some Americans knew that “Obamacare” was toweringly unconstitutional, insulting, and filled with aggressive mandates, and we hoped that so-called “conservatives” would either stop it, or, if they could, end it when they got enough votes.
But, Wednesday night, it was evident that those hopes have been crushed beneath the fear of candidates who might know what is both constitutional and right, but fear doing it, perhaps because so many citizens in “the vast unwashed” population out here actually think the Obamacare scheme has to continue.
Indeed, Wednesday night, not one of the strutting, “I-have-something-to-say-about-virtually-everything” Presidential candidates would vow to end the immoral and unconstitutional system.
Questioner Dana Perino did bring up the issue. Just under 47 minutes into the event, Ms. Perino turned to former Vice-President Pence (he's also former Congressman, so he’s had ample opportunities to swear to “protect and defend” the US Constitution and to try to defund Obamacare, on the Executive Branch side when he served with President Trump), and she asked:
“Just last month, Vice President Pence, you said if elected you would repeal all Obamacare mandates. However, you also made that same promise in 2016, and at that time, Trump-Pence had congressional majorities for at least the first two years and you did not deliver on that promise. So, Obamacare right now, it is more popular than ever. Why should Americans trust you if you become President to fix that or is Obamacare here to stay?”
To which Mr. Pence replied in a typically political style, dancing around the question, referring to an earlier issue, and leaving things… more than a bit ambiguous:
“Well, first, let me speak to the mass shootings issue and then I’ll answer that question. It’s important one, Dana. Look, I’m someone that believes that justice delayed is justice denied and as a father of three, as the grandfather of three beautiful little girls, I am sick and tired of these mass shootings happening in the United States of America. And if I’m President of the United States, I’m going to go to the Congress of the United States and we’re going to pass a federal expedited death penalty for anyone involved in a mass shooting so that they will meet their fate in months, not years. It is unconscionable that the Parkland shooter, Ron, is actually going to spend the rest of his life behind bars in Florida. That’s not justice. We have to mete out justice and send a message to these would be killers that you are not going to live out your days behind bars.”
So, not only did Pence not answer the question, he promised to federalize punishment for mass-shooters, which is not a power permitted the feds by that Constitution he has encountered so many times.
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Ms. Perino offered a quick, “I appreciate that,” and Mr. Pence strutted some more with, “You’re going to meet justice in this system,” evidently blind to the fact that engaging in another unconstitutional federal jurisprudential power-grab is the complete opposite of “justice.”
But Ms. Perino would not be deterred. After Pence’s puffery stopped echoing around the room, she pressed:
“But does that mean Obamacare is here to stay?”
And the former Vice-Puffmeister delayed some more with a glib and fatuous:
“Well, thank you for reiterating the question because I’d love to answer it.”
Dana Perino must have felt like many of us did at that moment, because we were aware that Pence had been given ample opportunity to do so, and had not availed himself of said opportunity. She seemed to add a justified amount of sarcastic edge when telling him, “You’ve got thirty seconds.”
And so, as the others watched, as those supposed “conservatives” observed another self-purported “conservative” take advantage of those thirty glorious seconds, Mr. Pence said:
“Look, I think it’s one of the choices here.”
Let’s study that sentence.
For any person who swears an oath to “protect and defend” the US Constitution, and then wants to run the government accordingly, ending Obamacare is not “one of the choices,” at all. It’s the only choice.
Otherwise, one breaches his or her oath and must not be part of that Constitutional system. He or she must be, by logical analysis, a domestic enemy of the Constitution. There is no second way to view this. There is no rainbow of options. Period.
But Mr. Pence continued to make his rainbow connection, first by directing fire at Donald Trump and using amorphous terms like “consolidate power” as if he, Pence, stands against that (his earlier reference to federalizing the punishment for mass shooters clearly belies his claim). And then he made his word salad "answer" on Obamacare about as unappetizing as possible:
“My former running mate, Donald Trump, actually has a plan to start to consolidate more power in Washington, D.C., consolidate more power in the executive branch. If I’m President of the United States, it’s my intention to make the federal government smaller by returning to the states those resources and programs that are rightfully theirs under the 10th amendment of the Constitution. That means all Obamacare funding, all housing funding, all HHS funding. All of it goes back to the states. We’ll shut down the Federal Department of Education, we’ll allow states to innovate. We’re going to revive federalism in America and states are going to help bring America back.”
The problem is that Obamacare actually IS a system by which the feds ALREADY hand states money. Each state has created its own little Obamacare-tied systems, so Pence isn’t actually saying he will end Obamacare or even change the way in which it runs. He’s gluing on a “beard” of federalism while actually not promoting an agenda that promotes federalism.
Incredible.
Constitutionally, there is not supposed to be any such thing as “Obamacare funding” or “HHS funding,” and if Mr. Pence actually wants to END those, he can say, “I will end those, and veto any federal legislation that attempts to fund them.”
Pretty simple, Mike.
And, Mr. Pence, if you also plan on shutting down the Carter-created “Department of Education,” and to “allow states to innovate,” one hopes that you honestly mean that you will end the unconstitutional department, end federal “requirements” for education on state and local levels (including the “special needs” mandates that are part of that giant pedagogic jail), AND not allow ANY federal funds to be showered on states for this neato-sounding “innovation” you mentioned.
Appearing satisfied with his profundity, Pence said no more on the subject, and not one candidate on the stage brought up Obamacare, at all.
So much for courage and constitutional convictions.
Of course, it’s not as if we haven’t seen this sort of feckless (some might say it’s evil) approach to the Constitution and human ethics before. After all, during John Roberts' early days as Supreme Court Chief Justice, the pop media labeled him a “conservative.” Yet it was he who engaged in the unscrupulous “the Obamacare fine is a penalty, not a tax” flip to admit Obamacare on the docket in 2012 only to rule that “it’s a tax, not a penalty” and allow it to remain under the unwarranted label of “constitutional.”
As I’ve written for MRCTV, this supposed “conservative” judge completely misused the English language and misread the Constitution in order to lock-in Obamacare:
"Before the ‘Affordable Care Act’ was passed in 2010, Obama, Pelosi, and many Democrats appeared reluctant to define the penalty for not buying insurance as a ‘fine,’ and preferred the term ‘tax penalty.’ But when the NFIB (National Federation of Independent Business) challenged the statute, Roberts and the lefties seemed to realize that if they considered the penalty a ‘tax’, then a 19th Century statute called The Tax Anti-Injunction Act would prevent the court from hearing it.”
It doesn’t take a lot of mental power to figure out the rest, but perhaps Mr. Pence and his associates at the “debate” need reminding:
“The Anti-Injunction Act prevents any citizen from bringing a legal challenge to a tax until after the citizen has paid it.
Since Obamacare was not implemented until 2014, no one had actually paid the tax in 2012 when Roberts and his pals wanted to hear the NFIB case. So, in order to hear it, he and the leftists framed the individual mandate as a ‘penalty.’ This allowed the case into the court where, you guessed it, the just-formed idea of it as a ‘penalty’ was promptly flipped, and, in the end, Roberts and the left labeled it a ‘tax’ – which made it easy for them to vote that was a-okay to impose via the IRS.”
Mr. Pence and his ilk must be aware of the dark case history, the immoral imposition of Obamacare on us and business owners, and the fact that anyone who swears an oath to the Constitution must, by extension, move to end Obamacare.
By his answer, and their silence, Wednesday, we can learn a great deal, hold onto reminders of the actual wording of the US Constitution, and remember how steadfastly defenders of it must work to increase the number of people who understand those “rules” for the United States.
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