Now that health care reform legislation has been signed into law, a growing number of states are enacting “opt out” bills. These are measures passed by state legislatures permitting state residents to comply with the federal requirement to purchase health insurance…or not.
I find it incredibly ironic that most of the support for these measures is coming from Republicans or Independents who used to be Republicans but are now showing their contempt for party politics. In any case, the idea that state lawmakers would encourage people to willfully disregard a federal law is not only completely antithetical to the history of the Republican party; it is also to wholly misunderstand what it means to be an American.
Republicans are supposed to be descendants of Abraham Lincoln. Remember him? He presided over a Civil War fought over this very question, namely, whether states could lawfully disengage from the Union. Lincoln’s position – the American position – was that the union of states that is America is bound together by a covenant called the Constitution and governed by We the People. It is like a marriage. If one party exits the relationship, the union is dissolved. We cease to exist as We.
There is a difference between a contract and a covenant. We explicitly decided America would NOT be a confederacy of state legislatures held together by certain contractual formalities. We the People are the sovereign. And because we knew from experience that lawless sovereigns are otherwise known as tyrants, we established a legal covenant through which we would be inexorably joined. For better or for worse.
This doesn’t mean we have to take it in the collective chin whenever a federal law is passed that we find objectionable. What it means is that We the People have to abide by the remedies available to us, as articulated in our Constitution, or risk losing our country – and our sovereignty. We can file lawsuits, as can state attorneys general. We can elect new legislators, a new administration. We can even amend our Constitution. And when our government becomes unbearably oppressive (not just uncomfortable) We the People can take the ultimate recourse of abolishing it. But opting out is not an option.
I find it deeply disturbing then that so many so-called conservatives would champion this lawless approach to our national dilemma. After all, this is the tactic John C. Calhoun resorted to when he wanted to provide an out for slave owners. Any federal law that did not serve the interests of the slave states would be deemed null and void. It is known as the nullification doctrine and is just as wicked in 2010 as it was in 1830 under Calhoun and in 1963 when George Wallace refused to allow black students in Alabama to attend all-white schools.
I am not a fan of the health care bill. I have questions about the constitutionality of the individual mandate. And I don’t want to pay higher taxes any more than the next person. But I’m not about to suggest that the cure for my discomfort is the dissolution of the country. Know this: the opt out strategy that sounds so empowering today has only one possible outcome tomorrow. Whether through war between the Federal and Rebel armies or skirmishes between the National Guard and state troopers, the price of threatening the integrity of the Union is paid in blood.
Does this mean we the people just have to stand idly by while our liberties and purchasing power are eroded? In the inelegant but immortal words of Minority Leader John Boehner, hell no.
But we cannot just say no to a duly enacted federal statute. If we eviscerate the Constitution to evade compliance with the law, We the People are rendered null and void.
