Michelle Bockman Gets It (Partly) Wrong on Health Care Individual Mandate

If leftists feel strongly about someting, what do they do? If they can't get it done democratically? Come on You know the answer to this one!!! They use WORDS, and a distortion of the words as always understood, to find some EXCUSE in the Constitution to IMPOSE theleftist view by USING the Federal courts and the Constitution. Thus, "equal protection" becomes an excuse for arguing it is unconstitutioinal to define marriage as between one man and one woman. "Creule and unusual" punishment becomes an EXCUSE for attacking the death penalty as unconstitutional, even though the death penalty existed at the time the Constitution was passed. Abortioin? Well, there is no specific part of the Constitution where yu can even distort the words, so you need to MAKE UP a "right" (the "right of privacy", in this case--where I, myself, believe in a "right of privacy", but only in the ORDINARY meaning found in the 4th Amendment protection against unreasonable search and seizure). You get the idea. Leftists believe that if it SHOULD be in the Constitutioin, then the words of the Constitution can be TWISTED to find it there (just as the words of the Constitution can be TWISTED to jusfigy turning the Federal Government into a government of unlimited power, instead of the government of LIMITED power it was supposed to be).


Is there a similar CONSERVAATIVE doctrine? In recent years, there has NOT been. What leftists like to call "conservative activism" is merely a REJECTION of leftist activism (such as overturning UNCONSTITUTIONIAL decisions of a previous leftist court). However, in the first three decades of the 20th Century, and into the 1930s, there WAS a real doctrine of conservative judicial activism used to attack STATE LAWS on the same basic ground that letists now attack them: WE DON'T LIKE THE LAW, AND THEREFORE IT MUST BE UNCONSTITUTIONAL. There was actually MORe justification for this early strain of conservative activism, but leftist activism has ruled the Federal judiciary since FDR managed to appoint almost the entire Federal judiciary (being elected for FOUR terms). History is written by the victors, and therefore SUBSTANTIVE DUE PROCESS has become someting of a dirty term in legal history--a device conservatives used to impose their views on the country. Conservatives also used the Constitution's prohibition of impairment of contracts, for which there was a LOT of justification. Like other parts of the Constitution, including the 10th Amendment, that provision of the Constitution is now pretty much ignored.


What was "substantive due process"? It was really the same as "equal protectioin of the laws", or "right to privacy". It was simply a way of saying that the Supreme Court found that a state law did not comport with the ideas of the Supreme Court justices as to JUSTICE and FREEDOM. This meant that a STATE LAEW requiring milk to be sold at a HIGH price could be held unconstitutional because it represented a violation of "due process of law" (a phrase usually held to mean the PROCESS of law provided, and not the SBSTANTIVE law). Note that while these conservative decisions might often seem to favor business at the expense of the poor, some of the decisions (one something like my example on milk) HELPED the poor. Note that the justices of the Supreme Court were using "sbustantive due process" in Roe v. Wade. They justs could not say so, because that was the "discredited" name for what the CONSERVATIVE "activist" judges had done. Noet that the conservative ACTIVIST view on abortioin is that a state is not allowed to deprive a person of life without 'due process of law"--which would be violated by a law allowing abortion on demand. We basically have NO conservative "activist" judges now, but there is no reason we could not have. All we need is conservative judges willing to impose their views on the states, just lilke the conservative judges in the first part of the 20th Century, and just like the liberal judes of the later part of the 20th Century, and up to today.


What does this have to do with Michelle Bockman? A lot. As I have said before, our Constitution set up our states as governments of UNLIMITED POWER, except as SPECIFICALLY LIMITED by the Constitution. The Federal Governement, by contrast, was set up as a government of LIMITED POWERS, which had ONLY the SPECIFIC POWERS granted to it by the Constitutioin . Note how leftist judges and politicians have turned this on its head. Now it is the Federal Government which is the government of unlimited powers, except as the courts are willing to say tkhe particular action is SPECIFICALLY PROHIBITED. While it is the states who seem to have ONLY the powers that the Federal Government lets them have.


The point here is that Michelle Bockman answered the question Wolf Blitzer did not ask (see article a day or two ago in this blog about Wolf Blitzer showing himself disqualified from being a "journalist") , on the "individual mandate" in both ObamaCare and the Massachusetts STATE law on health care signed by Mitt Romney, as follows: "The individual mandate is unconstitutonal on either a state or Federal level, and that is all I have to say on that."


You should be able--if you are paying attention--to see what is wrong with that. The Federal Government is a government of LIMITED POWERS. That means that the Federal Government should not be able to FORCE you to have health insurance--that power not being granted in the Constitutioni. As Mitt Romney says, the issue is DIFFERENT for a state law, since the states have UNLIMITED POWERS, except as specifically limited in the Constitutioin. This, by the way, is WHY there has been no serious challenge to the Massachusetts health care law. Now it may be that the Massachusetts law violates the STATE constitution, but that a liberal state supreme court would never say so, but that is NOT what I undersood Michelle Bockman to be saying. Michelle Bockman was saing that BOTH the state individual mandate and the Feeral individuall mandate are unconsitutional--violating the FEDERAL CONSTITUION. Thus, Michelle Bockman is worng? Right?


Not so fast. The individual mandate RESTRICTS FREEDOM, and probably represents an overreaching of government--on a state or Federal level. It is just worse on a Federal level. Michelle Bockman and I pretty much agree on that. If you use the MODERN (leftist) viw of the Constitution as simply an authorization for federal judges to "do justice", is not Michelle Bockman right? After all, what is WRONG with "substantive due process", except that it si a CONSERVATIVE excuse to twist the wordig of the Constitution and not a leftist one? Have I not said that I do not turn the other cheek? If leftist are willing to USE the Constitution to appply standards of right and wrong THEIR WAY, why should conservatives not do the same thing?


No, despite the headline, I am not willing to say Michelle Bockman is "wrong". Indeed, from the point of view of the average citizen, she is probably more "right" than I am Back when I actually got some comments on this blog, a person complained that government overreaching is just as much a problem on the state level as on the Federal level, and just as much an intrusion on freedom. I don't quite agree--agreeing more with Mitt Romney on this one--but the case is there.


No, I am araid I believe in the way the Constitution was originally set up. That means that Massachusetts SHOULD be able to have an "individual mandate", just like states have mandatory auto insurance. I know that conservatives distinguish this on the ground that mandatory auto insurance is the price you pay for CHOOSING to own and drive a car on the public roadways. That is a distinction, but it is not the RIGHTG distinction. FEDERAL auto insurance should HORRIFY you jsut as much as ObamaCare. Just because states have the right to do something does not mean that the Federal Government has the right to do it. No, I would not favor an individual mandate in Massachusetts, although I don't oppose it nearly as violently as I oppose the Federal law. However, I believe Massachusetts has a RIGHT to impose an individual lmandate, and that the Massachusetts law is NOT unconstitutional. What leftists SHOULD be worried about, but are not, is that the Michelle Bockman attitude WINS. If that ever happens, the left will see what conservatgive judicial "activism' is RELLY like. No, I will have no sympathy for them, although I will for our country. I LIKE the way the Cnstitution set it up. I just wish we had stayed closer to that system our Founders established.


You should be able to see why I am withholding judgment on Michelle Bockman, who I LOVE. It is not that she is "extreme". In a lot of ways, she is a lot less extreme than I am. She is certainly less extreme than Ron Paul. I just think she has a tendency to talk in "sound bites", rather than with mature judgment showing an understanding of the issues. But I recognize that she may be right and I may be wrong. Do voters really UNDERSTAND the NUANCE that Romeny (in self-interest, not really meaning it, in my opinion) is trying to put across.? Will Bockman get in trouble trying touse too much NUANCE? As I have stated, and as she knows, the mainstream media (including part of Fox News)) is NOT her "friend", or even neutral Thus, it annoys me that Bockman just repeats over and over again that she is 'pro-life, but that 99% of the problem is in the cases OTHER than rape and incest". Yes, Bockman is correct on that, but she does not EXPLAIN why she is "pro-life". She just uses the phrase, and counts on people who are pro-life voting for her because they KNOW where she stands. AS a tactical matter, Bockman may be right, but you never CONVINCE anyone that way. Yep. For me, "convincing" peopple on aborton means STARTING with the proposition that it is logically indistinguishable from infanticde. Even if you think that is a "pr" disaster, I don't understand why Republicans won't talk abouta the EXTREME positiions of Pllanned Parenthood, Obama, and most Democrats that aborion shoulc be freely allowed UP TO BIRTH. In other words, I beieve that Republicans have been intimidated into being DEFENSIVE on the issue, when they should ATTACK (however lthey feel comfortable). Bockman makes me nervous, because I see how she has learned certain stock phrases/sentences, and she is smart enough to avoid stupid, Blitzer-like attacks, but I wonder. Prior to that CNN debate, Bockman ha shown a tendency to be a little too strident, and simply take indefensible positions. Not "extreme" positions. Just indefensible ones, sort of like the one that RomneyCare is "unconstitutional". As stted, Bockman may be POLITICALLY correct on that, and no more legally wrong than our entire Federal judiciary for more than 70 years, but it makes me nervous.


Thus. I would LIKE to support Michelle Bockman, and certainlyu would against Obama. I will wait, however, on the Republican nominatioin. There is, of course, Sarah Palin. But even if, as I expect, Sarah Palin does not run, there is a LONG time before the first votes are cast on the Republican nomination. I will WAIT to decide who to support. A lot of water is going to pass under the bridge, and I would like to see who consistently manages to come across as an EFFECTIVE conservative who can take on Obama. Nope. "Winning is not the "only" thing for me. I would NEVER support John Huntsman or Newt Gingrich. But I wwould like more evidence as to which Repubican shows an ability to aggressively PRESENT consrevative positions in a way that connects with voters. That person may well be Michelle Bockman. But she has not YET convinced me.


P.S. No proofreading or spell checkig (bad eyesight).