In my latest blog post at The Objective Standard, Obama’s Attack on the Supreme Court is an Assault on the American System, I addressed President Obama's recent attack on the Supreme Court immediately following the conclusion of the Court's hearings on ObamaCare. Here is the opening paragraph:
In response to the unexpectedly skeptical Supreme Court hearings on ObamaCare, an insolent President Obama declared that “overturning the law would amount to an ‘unprecedented, extraordinary step’ of judicial activism,” reports David Nakamura.
You can read the rest here. This is no surprise to this blog. On 11/2/08, just before the presidential election, I wrote:
In a 2001 Chicago Public Radio interview, Barack Obama discussed what he saw as a fundamental flaw that the Founding Fathers “allowed” into the U.S. Constitution and that continues to this day…the failure to establish the means for bringing about “redistributive change”…or “economic” and “political” justice. “Economic” and “political” justice means the “right” of certain groups of people, characterized by nothing more than a declared need of material benefits that they have not earned, to use the coercive power of the state to seize those benefits from those who have produced them. It means a predatory state with the power to loot and enslave some, for the unearned benefit of others. What stands in the way of Obama’s predatory state? It is the “flaw’, or “blind spot” that he sees in America’s Founding. Although he doesn’t explicitly say it, what he is referring to is the fundamental principle that makes America America…the equal, unalienable individual rights to life, liberty, property (addressed in the fifth amendment) and the pursuit of happiness.
Obama fully understands that his signature legislative "accomplishment"--along with the entire redistributive welfare state--is unconstitutional. If this fact begins to sink in--and if the courts are willing to consider it--then ObamaCare's nullification on constitutional grounds could be the tip of the iceberg. This may be why Obama is willing to take the political risk of demonizing the Supreme Court, as he did in his 2010 state-of-the-union address:
Though past presidents have occasionally inveighed against judicial activism, legal analysts and historians said it was difficult to find a historical parallel to match Obama’s willingness to directly confront the court.
Barbara Perry, a senior fellow at the University of Virginia’s Miller Center for presidential history, said that after the Supreme Court voided 16 pieces of New Deal legislation in 1936, President Franklin D. Roosevelt waited until after he had been re-elected to attack the court.
“The reason presidents are reluctant to take on the court is because they are a co-equal branch of government, they have lifetime tenures and they can be very powerful in their own way,” Perry said. “I would contrast that with Obama’s willingness to take on the court.”
She noted that Obama complained during his 2010 State of the Union address of the court’s decision that year in the Citizens United case, ruling that the First Amendment prohibited the federal government from restricting political expenditures by corporations.
With the robed justices seated in the front row of the House chambers, Obama said that the court “reversed a century of law” to “ open the floodgates for special interests” to influence elections.
“That he called them out in the State of the Union address shows he’s not squeamish about making a face-to-face attack on them,” Perry said.
The Citizens United case was a serious victory for free speech. Since freedom of speech and press are the bane of statists, it's no wonder Obama wants to reign it in. In the Citizen's case, as with ObamaCare (if it's struck down), the Court nullified existing law.
There is a linkage between the 2010 and 2012 attacks. Democratic totalitarianism can not coexist with a constitution based upon individual rights; or with a court willing to uphold it. Obama seeks to consign both to irrelevancy, in order not only to preserve his agenda, but to pave the way for future statists.
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