A Government Of Clause And Of Men

John Adams famously and succinctly framed the American ideal when he said that we sought “A government of laws, and not of men.”

If Barack Obama gets his way, that ideal will be only an historical footnote as we are now “A nation of clause, not of men.” The commerce clause.

If the administration’s defense of Obamacare is eventually upheld by the Supreme Court, we will no longer have a Constitution. We will only have a commerce clause.

In an infamous radio interview, Barack Obama complained that the Constitution is a charter of negative liberties, telling the government what it cannot do. He lamented that the Constitution did not say what the Government should do, such as wealth re-distribution.

But the administration’s and every left winger in Congress’ interpretation of the commerce clause is their end run around those negative liberties. Thus, upon any foolish conceit of a good idea, they can, with impunity, tell anyone anywhere what to do or not do.

The commerce clause is an enumerated power in the Constitution that liberals profess enumerates all power. The clause itself is simple. “[The Congress shall have Power] To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian tribes;”

That is it. This is the basis by which the Obama administration says it has the power to compel each and every person to enter into a contract with a third party for services they may or may not want. By the power to regulate commerce among the several States.

How? According to Obama and statists of various stripes, your action or inaction has the potential to influence commerce. Your failure to buy a California tomato because you grew a tomato in your back yard garden, is interstate commerce because you failed to buy that interstate tomato. Similarly, your failure to buy insurance may at some point effect commerce later if and when you get sick and if and when you might not have the cash to see a doctor.

Extrapolating this understanding of the commerce clause, in which inactivity is classified interstate commerce, there is nothing, nothing the government cannot tell you to do or not to do. For no action or inaction of man cannot in some way be interpreted as having an effect on commerce.

You do not need to be a strict constructionist to realize the lunacy this would unleash.

The Constitution would no longer be a charter of negative liberties, but a charter to negate your liberty. We would no longer have a Constitution, we would only have a clause.