South Carolina: First to Secede, First to Nullify Obamacare (Maybe)

South Carolina is a beautiful state.  It was the first state to secede in December of 1860; it is now on its way to being the first state to secede from Obamacare.

Well actually, when I say "secede" from Obamacare, I am really describing nullification.  Any state has the right to opt out of any federal law that violates the Constitution, regardless of what the Supreme Court says (screw you John Roberts).  South Carolina may be the first state to nullify the so-called "Affordable Care Act" by exempting all of its citizens and businesses from participating in Obamacare.

South Carolina's House voted in favor of banning Obamacare from its state by a vote of 65-34, and the state  Republican-controlled Senate will vote on the bill (HB3101) in January.

Capitalism Institute reports:

The core of the “South Carolina Freedom of Heath Care Protection Act” (HB3101) outlaws any state employees, officers, or agencies from implementing Obamacare.

The federal government can try to subject South Carolinians to the horrors of theACA – but they would have no personnel or funds in the state to actually carry it out. Obamacare would be nothing more than a ghost.

Capitalism Institute also cites a Supreme Court case of Printz v. United States:

What the Supreme Court said … is that states are not merely political subdivisions of the federal government to carry out what the federal government does; they are sovereign entities. Congress can pass laws, but it cannot compel the states to utilize either their treasury or personnel to implement those federal laws.

Note that kiddies:  the states are sovereign entities, not merely subdivisions of the federal government.  The latter answers to the former, not the other way around.  May this spirit of states' rights expand and spread.  It is exactly what the Founders intended.

Four States Consider Nullification of Obamacare

The Tenth Amendment Center states that four states are planning to vote on bills that would nullify Obamacare, making the law null and void and unenforceable in those states.  Another ten or so states are mulling over the creation of similar bills.  Nullification, an old American strategy, may yet be the best way to end the so-called Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.

The principle of nullification is not new, and is described in Thomas E. Wood's book 33 Questions About American History You're Not Supposed to Ask.  The Virginia Resolutions of 1798 concluded that if the federal government should encroach upon the powers reserved to the states, the states have a right to nullify the offending law and refuse to enforce it—after all, a law that violates the Constitution is no law at all. Taken together, these ideas became known as the “Principles of ’98."

It doesn't matter if a federal court, including the Supreme Court, decides differently.  Ultimately, it is the right of the individual states to determine the constitutionality of any federal laws and choose to obey them or not.

This principle has precedent in American history.  Of course, there is the well-known "Nullification Crisis" of 1833, when South Carolina passed an ordinance of nullification against the 1828 federal Tariff of Abominations that would have greatly increased the tax on imported goods from Britain, resulting in a significant lowering of British demand for Southern cotton.  President Andrew Jackson was prepared to send federal troops to South Carolina to enforce the tariff, but a compromise ended the crisis.

However, that nullification crisis of 1833 wasn't the first time individual states have nullified federal laws.  The first was by Massachusetts, reacting to federal government's Embargo of 1807.  This embargo was designed to punish Britain and France for depredations of American neutrality rights on the seas, and prohibited any American trade with foreign nations whatsoever.  The U.S. Navy was to enforce the embargo by stopping and searching merchant ships -- a clear violation of the 4th Amendment's prohibition of unreasonable searches and seizures.  Further, the embargo badly damaged the New England economy.

A federal district court ruled the embargo constitutional, but Massachusetts did not agree, and passed state laws to nullify the federal embargo.  The nullification held.  The important thing to note is that the federal court's decision was not the last word on the matter.   The Massachusetts House explained:

“Were it true, that the measures of government once passed into an act, the constitutionality of that act is stamped with the deal of infallibility, and is no longer a subject for the deliberation or remonstrance of the citizen, to what monstrous lengths might not an arbitrary and tyrannical administration carry its power…. Were such doctrine sound, what species of oppression might not be inflicted on the prostrate liberties of our country? If such a doctrine were true, our Constitution would be nothing but a name—nay, worse, a fatal instrument to sanctify oppression, and legalize the tyranny which inflicts it.”  (Thomas E. Woods, 33 Questions About American History You're Not Supposed to Ask.)

The Governor of Connecticut, John Trumbull, agreed with the Massachusetts legislature, stating:

“Whenever our national legislature is led to overleap the prescribed bounds of their constitutional powers, on the State Legislatures, in great emergencies, devolves the arduous task—it is their right—it becomes their duty, to interpose their protecting shield between the right and liberty of the people, and the assumed power of the General Government.”  (See Woods Jr., Thomas E. (2007-07-10). 33 Questions About American History You're Not Supposed to Ask (p. 30). Random House, Inc.. Kindle Edition.) 

Conclusions:  Nullification of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, is both legal and constitutional, and is undoubtedly the most expedient way to dispose of this unconstitutional and oppressive federal law.  However, each state will have to pass its own separate nullification laws.  Which state will be the first to do so?  Once one does, others will quickly follow.

Alabama Resistance: Governor Says "NO" to Implementing Obamacare

Alabama Governor Robert Bentley said yesterday that Alabama will not be setting up a state insurance exchange to implement the Affordable Care Act ("Obamacare").  The Governor stated that the tax increase that this act imposes on Alabama's citizens is unacceptable.  He also stated that his conversations with other governors indicate that many of them feel the same way.

This is what I have been advocating for some time:  the states must NULLIFY unconstitutional edicts by the federal government and simply REFUSE to go along.  Further, the nullifying states should communicate and coordinate resistance to federal tyranny imposed by Barack Obama.

I am proud to say that my Confederate ancestors were Alabamans.

Read more about it at Moonbattery here.

Defying Leviathan: Radical Resistance May Be Necessary

Monty Pelerin at American Thinker has a very depressing analysis of what Obama's re-election means to Americans (hat tip Donald Douglas at American Power).  Pelerin, like others, is predicting an economic collapse.  He writes:

His election ensures the continuing shift away from the Rule of Law, property rights, free men, and free markets. Obama's vision of how the world works ensures a dire economy until an economic collapse resets everything.

And this:

The United States and Europe have abandoned the fundamentals necessary for progress. Both are hopelessly committed to the failed ideas of Socialism. Both are headed for great catastrophe. The catastrophe extends beyond economic well-being and touches the foundations of society and civilization itself.

We are headed into an economic dark age, where standards of living will continue to decline and may collapse. Societies and civilizations will also regress.

Read the whole depressing article here.

Another article at Doug Ross Journal portrays a similar scenario, "We Have Lost" by Casey.  Casey writes:

The most productive people, the small business owners, the entrepreneurs and the honest wage earners of America are so demoralized right now I am not sure we will recover as a country. We have lost the most important election of our lifetime and did so after giving our best effort, spent the most money ever and working the hardest we have ever worked. The very people that America needs the most to generate a real recovery now have the least motivation to do so and worse, lack the confidence necessary to even justify the effort.

On polarization, he writes:

As a country we are hopelessly divided by a malignant polarization approaching that which divided us prior to the Civil War....The American can-do spirit, our optimism, our traditional dependence on our own ingenuity is now mere kindling on the advancing flame of an insidious yet steadily advancing socialism.

On the feeling of despair many now have:

Those of us who create real jobs, invest our capital, our fortunes and take the risks to build America, feel betrayed. The fundamentals of honest effort and hard work rendering the rewards associated with capitalism seem now like a cruel joke. We are now a targeted enemy not to be governed but coerced into submission by a lazy, corrupt, vindictive, arrogant government that is out for revenge, redistribution -- and to add a final insult -- one we believe is too morally bankrupt to lead.

Do read it all here.

Politics as usual is unlikely to turn the tide in time to avoid financial disaster and societal collapse.  Radical action may be necessary at some point, like the fledgling secession movements now underway.  Political protests of Obama's re-election are said to be proliferating -- that remains to be seen.  We must encourage their growth.  The legislatures of the red states must discuss and coordinate a unified refusal to cooperate with the radical regime now in Washington, including nullification of unconstitutional laws like Obamacare, open defiance of the Supreme Court's unconstitutional edicts, and suspension of the taxing authority of the federal government if that becomes necessary.  Note:  this is NOT a call for violence.  Our actions must proceed mainly through our state and local representatives.  Individual protests should proceed in peaceful ways, like this one.

We will not go gently into the dark night that looms before us.  We have not yet begun to fight.

Has America Passed the Point of No Return? Will Secession Again Be Necessary?

John Hinderaker at Powerline has a rather sobering post today:  Why Is This Election Close?

John believes that the country may have passed a point of no return.  He writes:

On paper, given Obama’s record, this election should be a cakewalk for the Republicans. Why isn’t it? I am afraid the answer may be that the country is closer to the point of no return than most of us believed. With over 100 million Americans receiving federal welfare benefits, millions more going on Social Security disability, and many millions on top of that living on entitlement programs–not to mention enormous numbers of public employees–we may have gotten to the point where the government economy is more important, in the short term, than the real economy. My father, the least cynical of men, used to quote a political philosopher to the effect that democracy will work until people figure out they can vote themselves money. I fear that time may have come.

Hinderaker quotes Andy McCarthy at National Review, who implicitly believes that the Gramsci vision has been realized, that the "long march through the institutions" has been accomplished, and that a large part of our country's culture and institutions, namely the media and academia, are in the firm control of the Left.  What's worse, is that the Republican establishment cannot fight them because it has accepted the Progressive framework, not arguing for its abolishment, but only that it be better executed.  McCarthy writes:

It has always been possible to run against elite opinion and win — if you make a compelling counter-case...Today’s Republicans do not. Indeed, they cannot, because they have accepted the progressive framework. Their argument is not that the welfare state, deficit spending, federalized education, sharia-democracy promotion, and the rest are bad policies. Their argument is not that Washington needs to be dramatically downsized. It is that progressive governance is fine but needs to be better executed.

My friend Lawrence Auster at View From the Right has long argued the same thing -- that the Republican establishment seeks a slightly different approach to liberalism, but not its defeat.  This is a very pessimistic view, but no doubt it contains a lot of truth.

If we do indeed lose the nation to another four years of progressive destruction, it may be time to consider some radical alternatives, e.g. a new political party, state nullification of unconstitutional laws, and even secession.

Read Hinderaker's article here.

Read McCarthy's article here.

Co-Posted at Saber Point