In the Right - The Most Significant Vote of the Decade: "Did you feel that disturbance in The Force? The one that took place about 3:35 this afternoon?
At 3:20 p.m., Independent Bernard Sanders of Vermont -- acting as the presiding officer of the Senate -- called a vote on a point of order against the health care overhaul bill.
Fifteen minutes later, Sanders closed the vote, and the matter was done. The Republicans finally got the vote they've been needing all year long.
Every Senate Democrat (plus the two Independents, Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut and Sanders) went on record declaring that the so-called individual mandate that is the heart of the health care bill -- that is, an unprecedented federal mandate that requires individuals to purchase a product in the private market, on pain of taxation should they choose to disobey -- does not violate the Constitution.
In other words, every single Democrat in the Senate is now on record in support of the belief that the federal government literally has the power to order its citizens to use their own after-tax dollars to buy something it wishes them to buy, details to be filled in later.
In a word, wow.
What a shame they waited until December to take the vote that reveals their collective belief in the supremacy of coercive collectivism. If they had taken the vote back in the spring, we never would have needed to appropriate those billions for the 'Cash for Clunkers' program -- instead of offering people money as a positive inducement to purchase automobiles (the favored industry at that moment), we could have just ordered the citizenry to do so.
If they had taken the vote even earlier, we could have avoided having to saddle our children and grandchildren with hundreds of billions of dollars of new debt -- the Obama administration would never have had to ask Congress to appropriate the $787 billion for the stimulus package. Instead, they could have just asked Congress to pass a law requiring that every U.S. taxpayer immediately run to his neighborhood Lowes or Home Depot and buy $8,000 worth of home improvement materials.
Why, the possibilities are endless!
For example, we won't any longer have to use the tax code to provide incentives for behavior we'd like to encourage -- no more mortgage-interest deduction! -- instead, we can just use the threat of taxation to bend the citizenry's will to Washington's dictate. ('I'm from the federal government, and I'm here to tell you to buy this house now.')
Liberals will love it, because they can threaten to raise taxes to their hearts' content; conservatives should like it, because it means they'll finally be able to get the two-line tax return they've wanted for decades.
(The two lines? '1) How much did you make last year? 2) Send us 10 percent of it.')
Of course, before we spend even one more minute fantasizing about a world in which Congress no longer offers incentives to reward behavior it deems desirable, but instead uses disincentives to threaten punishment for behavior deemed undesirable ... let's put down the crack pipe, and step away from the matches.
The simple fact is, these 60 Democratic senators have created for themselves a fantasy world no less elaborate than the world of Pandora, where James Cameron's new film 'Avatar' takes place.
I have looked through my copy of the Constitution several times, and I can find no provision that authorizes the federal government to mandate that I, as a private citizen of these United States, purchase anything, let alone something as complicated as a health insurance policy.
What I find, instead, is the 10th Amendment, which reads in whole, 'The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.'
As those who have studied constitutional law and/or political theory will recognize, this is the Constitution's use of 'negative liberty' -- in essence, freedom from something (usually, interference by government, as opposed to 'positive liberty,' defined as freedom to do something).
The 'negative liberty' vs. 'positive liberty' argument has been going on for centuries.
Our Constitution, drafted by adherents of the concept of negative liberty, is one of 'enumerated powers,' in which -- as declared very clearly by the 10th Amendment -- the federal government is given those powers, and only those powers, specifically granted it by the people, through the Constitution.
In other words, if the explicit grant of power is not to be found anywhere in the document, the federal government does not have the power to do it.
No less an authority than our current president, a former lecturer in constitutional law, can be heard in this 2001 radio interview explaining negative liberty and the Constitution: 'Generally, the Constitution is a charter of negative liberties, [it] says what the states can't do to you, says what the federal government can't do to you, but it doesn't say what the federal government or the state government must do on your behalf.'
Hmmm.... '[It] says what the states can't do to you, says what the federal government can't do to you ...'
Something tells me whichever conservative legal group files the first lawsuit against this behemoth is going to find a way to enter the young(er) Barack Obama's words into the record of the testimony in that suit, because every now and then, like the stopped clock that is right twice a day, Obama gets it right.
But I digress. Back to the vote.
Political operatives are always looking for significant votes. One of the purposes of forcing votes on amendments is, in fact, to create a voting record your opponents would rather not have to defend in a campaign.
When selecting these votes from among many, said operatives usually look for a few keys -- for instance, is this a vote that clearly delineates an ideological contrast, or are there other, parochial or personal, interests at play? Finding a clean vote, where there's a crystal clear ideological distinction and no explanation for a given vote other than that ideological distinction, is the political equivalent of finding a huge diamond in a coal mine.
I know of what I speak: In an earlier life, I spent six years sifting votes for the American Conservative Union, helping to choose the votes that made up the ACU's Ratings of the Congress.
This is one of those votes. It clearly delineates the differences between the two parties in a way no other vote in this Congress has -- it makes clear that, when all is said and done, Democrats believe in using the coercive power of government to force you to do something you may otherwise have chosen not to do, while Republicans believe the federal government simply does not have the power to coerce you to do anything like that.
Because it's the holiday season, everyone's putting together their 'best of' lists -- Best Movies of the Year, Best Records of the Year, etc. In fact, because it's 2009, and we're getting ready to enter 2010, many are putting together their 'Best Of' lists for the entire decade.
In that spirit, I humbly nominate Senate Roll Call Vote Number 392 as the Most Significant Vote of the Decade."
(Via In the Right.)
