text: Obamacare fight a necessary battleFebruary 11, 2011|Kingsley Guy, South Florida Sun-SentinelFederal District Judge Roger K. Vinson's decision that Obamacare is unconstitutional has vindicated former Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum, who contended as much when he filed the lawsuit that has been joined by 25 other states. Left-wing ideologues attempted to demonize McCollum when he took Obamacare to court, claiming he was embarking on a politically motivated publicity stunt designed to promote his campaign for Florida governor. This attempt at character assassination says more about the left than McCollum. The legislation clearly contained elements of questionable constitutionality, and the lawsuit's challenges were anything but frivolous.
  The left now is trying to downplay the Vinson decision as an aberration made by a conservative judge driven by ideology rather than respect for the law. The liberal temper tantrum may play well with the MSNBC crowd, but not among people who honor the Constitution's commitment to federalism and individual rights. Obamacare expands the power of the federal government far beyond what the founders of the nation ever intended. The use of Washington's police power to force citizens to engage in commercial activity represents a dangerous extension of federal power at the expense of individual rights. Obamacare's diktat to the states that they greatly expand their Medicaid programs also represents an unjustifiable power grab by the federal government. Eventually, Obamacare will make it to the U.S. Supreme Court, where nine justices will decide its fate. The court is divided among four conservative justices who believe the Constitution stands for something, four liberal justices who believe the Constitution means whatever they want it to mean, and Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, who vacillates between the two sides. In last year's Citizens United decision on campaign financing, Kennedy came down on the side of the Constitution and its commitment to free speech. So did the American Civil Liberties Union, which filed an amicus brief on behalf of Citizens United. Yet, ACLU support for Citizens United didn't stop President Barack Obama during his 2010 State of the Union message from dressing down the justices for their decision. Obama's bush-league effort to intimidate members of a co-equal branch of government was worthy of a dictator, but not a president. Obamacare has some good parts to it, but in totality, it's a disaster-in-the-making. The courts need to euthanize this monstrosity so Congress can start over in reforming health care in a manner that passes both financial and constitutional muster. Kingsley Guy duels the issues with Stephen L. Goldstein on alternate Fridays. E-mail him at harborlite3@bellsouth.net.
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