Show Us, Missouri

Tomorrow is primary day in Missouri. Though I live in New Jersey, there is one item on the statewide ballot there that has captured my attention. If you live in Missouri, I certainly hope you’ve studied Proposition C and plan to vote for it. Missourians, this is your opportunity to show the rest of the nation that government intrusion on the personal liberties of Americans will not be tolerated.

For the uninitiated: Proposition C is a ballot measure that would, by statute, exempt all Missourians from the oppressive federal mandate to purchase heath insurance or face stiff penalties. By its passage, Missouri would send a message to the folks in Washington that Americans do not want the government subverting personal liberty in order to cover for a mess the federal government created. Although other states have enacted similar measures, those have been passed by legislative action – not by direct vote. With this ballot initiative, the good people of Missouri have the chance to show that it isn’t only legislators who are opposed to the “progressive” ideal that the Nanny State knows what is best for you and your family. It is ordinary Americans who are opposed to an usurpation of the long-established tradition that “those rights not especially enumerated in the Constitution are considered as belonging to a free people…The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined.” James Madison wrote that phrase in the Federalist Papers, and he meant it to illustrate to a skeptical populace that the federal government would not and could not take away a fundamental freedom simply because it had not been mentioned in the Constitution.

Certainly, decisions about which types of products to purchase are a fundamental right. Should the federal government assume he power to direct the citizenry to purchase a particular product (in this case, medical insurance) then our nation has ceded the a fundamental right. More, the nation will have undermined the very Constitution and  the principle on which the nation was founded. If you do not have a fundamental right to decide when, whether and how to purchase any product, then are you truly free to pursue life liberty and happiness?

The Obama administration realizes the fallacy of their central argument during the run-up to passage of Health Care Reform; that essentially, the Commerce Clause grants this power to the federal government. This is why, in their preparations for the defense of the indefensible in court, they have resorted to declaring the mandate is essentially a tax – a power that is reserved by the Constitution for the Congress. If that is the case, then this is the largest tax hike in history and also paves the way for a federal take-over of the entire health care industry. In short, the Obama administration is trying to lay the groundwork that by declaring medical insurance is a de facto tax, then those who provide that product are, in essence, appendages to the federal government. To anyone who has any concern about personal freedom, this is an affront to the very ideals of national identity.

Already, the “progressive” forces are hard at work to discredit Proposition C’s passage. They are making numerous and rather spurious claims that its passage are only due to an intemperate electorate that will be heavily Republican on primary day. They are claiming that it will not hold any import, since a state law cannot supersede a federal mandate (this, by the way is currently winding its way through the court system and is certain to end in a decision by the Supreme Court).

What “progressives” are afraid of is a state law, passed not by legislative fiat but by popular vote, that directly tells an over-reaching federal government it has overstepped its bounds. The reason is, as always, the ideal of progressive theology is that individuals are not intelligent enough to make sound decisions and only an apparatchik of federal authority should have such authority. It was this very notion, in the past called “monarchism,” that both angered and frightened those that created our nation from the dust of their boots. It is the same principle applied by socialists and communists in defining the role government.

So Missouri: pass Propostition C. Do it in overwhelming numbers. And show the rest of us that our nation still exists for the purpose of guaranteeing the ideals of liberty and freedom.

You can read the full Proposition here.