Mountain Views News          Saturday, June 30, 2012

17

LEFT TURN/RIGHT TURN

 Mountain Views News Saturday June 30, 2012

SUPREME FOOLISHNESS 
OR WISDOM?

 The United States Supreme Court’s decision 
on Obamacare will no doubt be seen as a 
landmark decision and certainly as one of its 
most important decisions in the modern era. 
That the decision was split was not unexpected. 
The fact that the deciding vote was not from 
Justice Kennedy, who often plays the swing 
vote, but from Chief Justice Roberts, who is 
conservative in his judicial leanings, is the first of 
two surprises in this ruling. The other surprise 
is the justification found by Chief Justice Roberts 
to uphold the mandate that all Americans buy 
health insurance. How he ultimately decided this 
issue will reverberate well beyond our lifetimes, 
may determine the future of our great experiment 
in limited government, and ultimately will prove 
Roberts to be one of the wisest or most foolish of 
jurists in our country’s history.

 Roberts clearly and unequivocally found that the 
Commerce clause did not justify the imposition 
of an individual mandate. We shouldn’t ignore 
the significance of that finding. The Constitution 
was found to prevent the federal government 
from forcing Americans to buy something 
simply because they are alive. That is a bulwark 
of our freedom - freedom from an intrusive 
and overbearing central government. The next 
finding, however, was that the constitution does 
allow the federal government broad powers to 
impose a tax on its citizens, even if that tax is for 
not doing something.

 As I understand this ruling (and I am not a 
constitutional scholar by any imagination), the 
federal government cannot command me to buy 
something and then put me in jail if I fail to do 
it. That is a victory for individual freedom. But 
the government does have the right to impose a 
tax on me if I do something it doesn’t like – in 
this case not buying insurance. So, my freedom 
is preserved in a technical sense, but I could be 
bankrupted if the tax was significant enough, so 
I may choose to do what I would not otherwise 
do.

 My problem with this is that it feels very much 
like a distinction without a difference. At the end 
of the day, it would seem that the government 
can effectively make me do something so long 
as it concocts the penalty as a tax. As I have 
written previously, if the government can make 
Americans buy health insurance, what is to stop 
them from making us buy foods it deems healthy, 
or contribute an amount it deems appropriate in 
a 401K, or to have an abortion when we don’t 
want one? 

 That latter example may seem outlandish, 
but it really isn’t. China still forces women to 
have abortions if the government feels a family 
has too many children already. Population 
control is seen as a worthy public benefit. There 
is really nothing to stop the U.S. government 
from affectively doing the same thing. The 
government does not have the right under today’s 
ruling to physically force a women to have an 
abortion, or to throw her in jail for not doing 
so, but apparently the government could impose 
a significant enough tax on the third, or fourth 
birth that most 
families would 
have no option 
short of bankruptcy to 
having the abortion. We 
should all get used to 
the term “mandatorily 
voluntary”. 

 One of the great 
dishonesties here 
is that the Obama 
administration was 
forced to directly 
contradict its promise 
to the American people 
in order to preserve this law. A quick Google 
search generates at least a dozen or so instances 
where Obama, Reid or Pelosi promised without 
reservation that Obamacare did not impose a 
tax. In their arguments to the Supreme Court, 
however, the administration’s attorney argued 
that the individual mandate was constitutional 
specifically because it was a tax, and thus fell 
under the well established right of the federal 
government to tax. While it may not be the 
Supreme Court’s job to rule on the honesty of 
politicians, it is the job of the voters to essentially 
rule on that honesty as we cast our ballots 
each election. Honesty is one of the requisites 
for integrity and honor. It brings me no joy to 
conclude that our current president seems to 
be pathological in his willingness to lie, and for 
no other reason than this he does not deserve 
a second term. There is no integrity or honor 
in this man. If he is re-elected, we will have no 
right to expect any future leader to be ethical or 
honest, and we will most certainly reap what we 
have sown. 

 Lastly, this Supreme Court ruling exposes 
what has always been the Achilles heel of our 
system. Five jurists (a majority on the Supreme 
Court) out of a nation of 300 million people have 
the right to decide the meaning of a word. It has 
always been assumed that they would defer to the 
commonly accepted definitions of words used in 
their day, but that assumption is no longer valid. 
Accordingly, the presumed check and balance to 
their power is also no longer valid. If 5 jurists 
can decide that an unconstitutional “penalty” is 
really a constitutional “tax”, even when the law’s 
author has claimed it is not a tax, then those same 
jurists can define almost any word to mean what 
they want it to mean. There will be no anchor to 
what they can force us to do.

 Thursday, June 28th, 2012, was not a good day 
for America. The individual mandate changes 
the relationship of the federal government to 
the individual in a very fundamental way. The 
mandate was upheld by one man who decided 
the issue on very narrow grounds by reading 
into the law what its authors said did not exist. 
Only history will tell us whether foolishness or 
wisdom won the day. 

About the author: Gregory J. Welborn is a 
freelance writer and has spoken to several civic 
and religious organizations on cultural and 
moral issues. He lives in the Los Angeles area 
with his wife and 3 children and is active in the 
community. He can be reached at gregwelborn@
earthlink.net.

HOWARD Hays As I See It

 
“God offers to every mind 
its choice between truth and 
repose.”

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

 In my column last week, I 
cited examples to show that 
many on the right, in particular 
those identifying themselves as 
“Republican”, prefer the repose 
of their own accepted dogma 
to an unsettling truth. I mentioned assumptions 
held such as climate change being merely a 
rationale for imposing global control, religious 
texts on creation being fact while science is 
supposition, and there still being uncertainty as 
to where President Obama was born.

 I’ve since come across more examples. 
According to a Gallup Poll released last week, 
while 52% of Democrats identify President 
Obama as being Protestant or Christian, only 
24% of Republicans do – with nearly one in five 
believing he’s a Muslim. 

 A couple months ago, a poll out of Dartmouth 
University showed that 71% of Republicans 
believe terrorists attack America because “they 
hate American values”, compared to 40% of 
Democrats, while only 21% believe it’s because 
“they hate America’s foreign policies” - which 
is the correct answer, according to Osama bin 
Laden.

 According to the Dartmouth survey, 63% of 
Republicans continue believing Saddam Hussein 
had “weapons of mass destruction” at the time 
we invaded Iraq in 2003, compared to 15% of 
Democrats and 27% of Independents.

 In that same survey, 56% of Republicans 
agree with the statement, “I have always believed 
President Obama was born in another country”, 
a position held by 5% of Democrats and 25% of 
Independents.

 Those shown to be the least informed 
purport to be the most engaged, with 84% of 
Republicans claiming to “Follow what’s going on 
in government and public affairs” most or all of 
the time – vs. 75% of the population as a whole. 
This might be related to the survey result from 
Farleigh Dickinson University cited last week 
showing that those who rely on Fox News are less 
informed than those who watch no news at all.

 It brought to mind an observation made by 
Franklin D. Roosevelt, that “Repetition does not 
transform a lie into a truth.” It also gives new 
meaning to the title of Greg Welborn’s column 
last week, “Two Different Visions for America” – 
one of which appears to be unconcerned with the 
historical record.

 In comparing Presidents Reagan and Obama, 
Greg states, “both new presidents came into office 
with a troubled, if not collapsing, economy.” 
Reagan inherited from President Carter an 
economy creating nearly 190,000 private sector 
jobs a month. When President Obama took 
office, we were losing 750,000 jobs monthly. As 
I wrote here last August, “At this point in their 
presidencies, the unemployment rate grew more 
under Reagan. The size of the federal government 
grew more under Reagan. The budget deficit in 
relation to GDP grew more under Reagan. Our 
economy grew more under Obama.”

 Greg states, “President Reagan passed the 
largest tax reduction in this country’s history”. It 
was, up to that time, but now it might rank no 
higher than third. The size of Reagan’s initial 
tax reduction (which was reduced by half by 
his subsequent tax increases) was smaller than 
President Bush’s tax cut in 2001. But the biggest 
tax cut of all, $282 billion over two years, was 
signed into law by President Obama under the 
American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 
2009.

 Reagan did lower marginal tax rates on 
upper income earners, but also stuck it to those 
who could least afford it. For the first time, 
unemployment benefits and Social Security 
payments were taxed as income. The Alternative 
Minimum Tax, previously a means to ensure 
those with the highest incomes paid their fair 
share, through the Tax Reform Act of 1986 was 
imposed on middle-class families, as well.

 Federal spending rose by 60% ($746 billion 
to $1.14 trillion) during the Reagan years, while 
revenues increased by 53%. To make up the 
difference, we borrowed. Our national debt 
tripled under Reagan ($712 billion to over $2 
trillion), and the United States was transformed 
from the world’s largest creditor nation to its 
largest debtor.

 Greg lauds Reagan for having “deregulated 
a host of industries”. There was deregulation 
of the airline and trucking industries, as well 
as regulatory reform in railroads, banking, 
telephones and natural gas – but this happened 
under President Jimmy Carter. William 
Niskanen, a member of Reagan’s Council of 
Economic Advisors and later chairman of the 
Cato Institute, complained that Reagan “failed to 
sustain the momentum for deregulation initiated 
in the 1970s.”

 As much as I may criticize, though, I will 
readily defend Ronald Reagan against accusations 
levied by Greg that he’s somehow a “precursor” 
to the “tea party”. I can’t imagine the former 
president ever associating himself with those 
seeking the “repose” of paranoiac ignorance, or 
displaying pictures of our president juxtaposed 
with a swastika. Nor can I imagine any tea-
bagger associating with a former Democratic 
campaigner, union leader and member of the 
“Hollywood elite” who saw political opponents 
as fellow Americans, not enemies of the state.

 In matters such as the Affordable Care Act, 
rather than just parroting lobbyist-supplied 
talking points, I think Ronald Reagan would want 
to know what’s actually in it, and how provisions 
such as an “individual mandate” comport with 
historic precedent.

 He might have learned of an earlier federal 
law which compelled employers in the maritime 
industry to provide seamen with medical 
insurance. Later, since the original law covered 
only drugs and physician services, another 
law was passed with a “mandate” that covered 
employees purchase hospitalization insurance 
for themselves.

 These mandates were exercised under the 
Commerce Clause, and there’s no record of them 
ever being challenged on constitutional grounds.

 The original law was passed in 1790 by a 
Congress that included twenty original Framers 
of our Constitution, and signed by President 
George Washington. The subsequent “individual 
mandate” was signed into law by another Framer, 
President John Adams.

 This might not give repose to those seeking 
to demonize the Affordable Care Act, but it’s the 
truth. 

 Happy Fourth of July!


LETTER TO THE EDITOR

Re: Downtown Marketing

 I am delighted to see the interest of the Council in attracting and retaining businesses in 
Sierra Madre.

 I think the most powerful tool you can provide (in addition to what is being done) is 
testimonials from the owners of the Kensington Assisted Living Facility Project, Taylor’s Market, 
Fresh & Easy and possibly others to the effect that the City moved promptly to help them in every 
way including expediting their projects, approving their projects in an affirmative and welcoming 
spirit, making reasonable changes to previous rules if necessary to accommodate them, avoiding 
nitpicking applications of rules, being forthcoming with suggestions to avoid possible obstacles, and 
avoiding excessive hearings and other “back to the drawing board” practices that cause delay and 
drain investment money that should be invested in wages and inventory by diverting it into expenses 
of “process”. 

 If we cannot do this, neighboring cities will feast on our wasted opportunities. 

Eric Olson, Sierra Madre


WHAT MAKES AMERICA GREAT

By Bryan Golden

 In less than 200 years, America grew from a handful of colonies to become the greatest nation 
in history. In a few hundred years, we surpassed nations that were many times older. 
What makes America great? 

 The two main elements that make America great are our people and our freedoms. Our 
people have a can do, nothing is impossible, spirit. Starting with the American Revolution, 
we have always conquered adversity, often in the face of overwhelming odds.

We have more rights and freedoms than anywhere else in the world. Our freedoms are considered 
inalienable rights, not privileges granted by government. Our freedoms are the envy 
of the world. Every item in the bill of rights is a precious jewel, designed to ensure the immortality 
of our liberty. 

 Our founders came from societies where government controlled its citizens. They had a 
solid understanding of the consequences of unchecked power. Our constitution was crafted 
specifically to limit the scope of government to prevent its infringing on individual liberties.

Our constitution is a brilliant document, filled with foresight and understanding, that has 
withstood the test of time. The principles embedded in the constitution are the foundation 
of our greatness. 

 In America, each citizen can control his or her destiny without fear of interference by government 
or others. Our government was formed to serve the people rather than vice versa. 
Our government was designed to play a minimal role in people’s lives. 

 Our doors have always been open to people from anywhere in the world who want to come 
here legally to work hard, contribute, and assimilate into our society. America’s reputation as 
a melting pot is derived from the fact that people from every walk of life can work together 
to create an unstoppable force for good.

 In America anything is possible. America is great because it offers its people unlimited opportunity 
to succeed by bringing their dreams to reality. In America, success requires hard 
work, determination, and persistence, not permission. We are constitutionally protected to 
prevent government from confiscating the results of our labor. 

 America is an engine for unprecedented productivity. Our economic system has been responsible 
for civilization transforming innovations and discoveries. No other country has 
even come close and many other systems have failed miserably. 

 America has a big heart. Whether in this country or elsewhere, we help those who can not 
help themselves. Americans are first on the scene in the wake of natural or civic disasters. We 
are there with food, supplies, medical aid, and money. Our brave soldiers travel the globe 
defending those who can’t defend themselves. 

 In America there are no problems that we can’t solve. Any obstacles we may face do not 
taint our greatness. It is our greatness that enables us to overcome adversity and become even 
stronger in the process. Everyday, be thankful that you live in America and benefit from its 
greatness. Don’t take for granted that which people in other countries can only dream about. 
Be proud to be an American. 

Bryan is the author of "Dare to Live Without Limits." Visit www.DareToLiveWithoutLimits.com or your bookstore.