Nullification is Right and Proper

As of February 1, twelve states had bills before their legislatures to nullify the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ObamaCare). Those states--Idaho, Indiana, Maine, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Dakota, Texas and Wyoming--are absolutely right to nullify ObamaCare, because, as Larry Greenley writes in the New American, the law, which requires Americans to purchase health insurance, "presumes powers for the federal government not authorized by the Constitution of the United States."

A federal judge in Florida has ruled that the law is unconstitutional, but that really doesn't matter. The national government clearly has no power to require Americans to purchase anything. The US Dept. of Justice in a convoluted argument says that by some Americans not purchasing health insurance, the intent of the law will be thwarted, therefore preventing other Americans from enjoying the benefits of the law, and they cite the Constitution's commerce clause as the national government's authority to force people to buy health insurance. What shit! The commerce clause (Article I, Section 8) states that the Congress shall have the power

To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes

Could a reasonable interpretation of the commerce clause provide the Congress with the authority to make someone buy something? No fucking way. But whenever the national government wants to do something beyond its constitutional authority, it uses the commerce clause or the preamble's promote the general welfare clause. And, despite what many believe--that the Supreme Court will declare ObamaCare to be unconstitutional--there is a good chance that the court will uphold the law based on the commerce clause argument.

What applies more than the commerce clause and the promote the general welfare clause, is the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States and the preamble's secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity clause. The 10th Amendment states:

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.

That is the authority for the states to protect its citizens from illegal and unconstitutional acts of the national government, and that's why the states that propose to nullify ObamaCare are right to do so.

Moreover, read what our own Declaration of Independence says:

That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. 

It's time we believe and heed what our founders said about freedom and liberty. The Declaration of Independence is a plan and road map for what to do when our national government tries to limit our freedom and abolish our liberty by ignoring the Constitution.

But before that action is necessary, we should rely on our states to assert our rights and freedom by refusing to comply with reprehensible and unconstitutional acts of the national government.