Mortgaging the Future

Fred Thompson on the Roberts Decision:

The desire to find a Reagan-like pony in all of this has caused some of my conservative friends to see one where none exists. In fact, many pessimistic liberals and optimistic conservatives have one thing in common: the view that somehow the opinion places new limitations on the use of the Commerce Clause, because it was deemed not applicable in Sebelius. They also think that the decision substantially restricts the conditions that the federal government can place on states regarding programs partially funded by the federal government. Unfortunately, in my view, both of these beliefs are wrong.

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So we are left with no silver linings and one major concern for the future that goes beyond Obamacare. It seems that, after this Court decision, while the government cannot make you buy broccoli under the Commerce Clause, it can tax you if you don’t.

Again, some optimists say that, since the Court relied upon the government’s taxing power, we are protected as a practical matter, since Congress would always be reluctant to pass a huge new tax. However, in the future Congress can insist it’s not a tax, just as it did this time. One would think that it would be politically more difficult to pull this off again, but there is no legal constraint to keep the congressional leaders from trying — deny it’s a tax during debate and have the government argue in court later that it is a tax.

As I've already stated, that last sentence sums up what is most worrying about this disastrous decision. It means that a party with control over both houses and the executive can do whatever they damned well please. Combine that frightening reality with the ever-increasing leftist activism in our federal court system, and Roberts' intellectual vacillation has given the self-appointed elites tacit permission to do what they want, when they want, with no accountability other than a future election. If (when?) that goes too far, the next election won't be relevant, because they won't allow it to happen. At the very least they'll simply rig the results, just like every banana republic in this hemisphere.

If your head voice just said to you "that can't happen here," you didn't pay close enough attention in history class. The only reliable constant in human history is the lust for power. We all have it, but most of us learn to control it. Politicians and kings would be despots and tyrants; they are those of us who have not learned to control that darker side of human nature. Don't believe for an instant such people will let a minor issue like constitutionality stand in the way of their obsessive and all-consuming quest for absolute power.

History also shows us that few people recognize despots at the time of their rise to power. Quite the opposite: they are nearly always viewed as "progressive thinkers" and "men of the people." It is only hindsight that allows us to view them for what they really are, after the price has already been paid -- usually in blood.

Roberts has enabled that eventuality in America, and in so doing has brought us one very large step closer to the day we will no longer be a free people.