ObamaCare etc in the name of Jesus et al

Would Christ care about the results of particular policies? I think so.

President Barack Obama continued to deliver on his campaign promise to fundamentally change America last week with more ObamaCare-empowered executive fiats directed at private insurance companies and an unprecedented co-opting of the National Prayer Breakfast to declare his policies as Biblical and even Messiah-approved.

“And so when I talk about our financial institutions playing by the same rules as folks on Main Street, when I talk about making sure insurance companies aren’t discriminating against those who are already sick, or making sure that unscrupulous lenders aren’t taking advantage of the most vulnerable among us, I do so because I genuinely believe it will make the economy stronger for everybody. But I also do it because I know that far too many neighbors in our country have been hurt and treated unfairly over the last few years, and I believe in God’s command to ‘love thy neighbor as thyself.’”

Translation: Jesus and God the Father (see also Plato and Mohammed) would favor bailing out too big to fail-national and international banks while restricting the loan-making ability of smaller, local ones; discriminating against, i.e. killing, healthy babies in the womb at the expense of members of The Rock upon which Christ built his church; and loving unfairly treated neighbors by killing Keystone pipeline and millions of other jobs.

Love neighbors with policies that work

This former liberal Democrat, turned conservative Republican in the Summer of 2001, and baptized, Bible-believing Christian since the age of 13, is and always has been sympathetic to government policies informed by the values of Scripture, especially including those that speak to sick and vulnerable neighbors.

In fact, one of the major reasons I left Obama’s party 11 years ago for the GOP was the 20+ year reality-mugging that revealed how much better the poor and middle class fared under the conservative economic Reagan (continued under a Newted-Clinton and Dubya Bush) policies than they did under the liberal Democrat variety of the 70s.

Parenthetically, has it been good for the poor and other neighbors for their country to run up a national debt so large that it threatens the currency and their prosperity? Of course not, and while yes, both parties have spent too much, I cannot recall a budget cycle in my lifetime in which Democrat presidents or congressmen didn’t want to spend more than their Republican Party counterparts. Not one.

Of course, most Scripture, including the Bible verses quoted by President Obama are much too vague to serve as authority for any particular government policy, even if they were aimed at government, which they are not. Moreover, while the Bible surely does speak to individuals and the condition of their hearts as relates to loving God and the eternal destination of their souls, the admonitions to help the poor focus on actually helping the poor. The result of filled bellies mattered to Christ when he fed the 5000 without tax revenues from Rome.

Given that, what are we to conclude about the condition of Democrats’ hearts, not to mention cognitive abilities, when they continually advance policies that result in more poorer people?

Are the prospective workers on the Keystone pipeline or the Boeing plant in SC whose jobs Obama directly killed feel as loved by him as he loves himself by being unemployed and on food stamps?

Obama seems to love himself while employed. How about the 2.5 million, non-Baby Boomer retirees that would now be employed had the President and his super-majority Democratic Party passed policies that actually stimulated the economy when they totally controlled the making of U.S. laws in 2009-10? Are they happier because misery loves unemployed company while basking in the glow of envy against the 1%?

Getting a job = Dropping out of the workforce

If  a few million more Americans “drop out of the workforce” between now and Election Day, President Obama can run for re-election with a sub-8% unemployment rate to tout. Funny how a person getting a job or giving up on finding one, after months and years of trying, has the same effect on the “news” emanating for his Bureau of Labor statistics.

Why, if everyone (see equality and fairness) just stopped filling out job applications for a few months, Obama’s re-election would be assured by a record Zero (0%) U-3 rate!

What happened to the Free private sector Exercise of fashioning health insurance policies that consumers can afford? or, How much would automobile insurance cost if they had to cover car washes?

Last week’s decision by the Obama Administration to use the blank check “discretion” Democrats gave  it to regulate our lives via his health care “affordability act” aka ObamaCare, forces private insurance companies to cover contraception, sterilization and abortion-inducing morning after pills (RU-486).

Most of the conservative news coverage has focused on how the Sebelius Edict continues an assault by the administration on the Roman Catholic Church and its possible violation of the First Amendment’s Free Exercise (of religion) Clause.

Of course, the requirement that any organization (All Christians and many non-Christians) fund abortion is repugnant and while DeVine Law is not certain that the employer-provided health insurance mandated coverages technically violate the usually narrow application of the Free exercise clause (right to worship), isn’t there an even more fundamental, if that is possible, freedom involved here?

Unlike many conservatives, this gamecock variety takes a fairly expansive view of the Commerce Clause. One of the major reasons that the framers of the U.S. Constitution convened to address the Articles of Confederation was to stop the states from acting as foreign nations and to forge a national economy. To that end they empowered Congress to “regulate interstate clause”. Much of the early application of that clause ended state monopolies over certain industries (one wishes that Congress would do the same with respect to interstate health insurance sales, but I digress) and played referee to ensure fairness and prevent fraud.

Sadly, Congress and the courts began to interpret “regulate” to include product planning in the last century, which practice has morphed, under this President to include the take over of automobile companies (and without even asserting a war power that couldn’t even save President Harry Truman’s Supreme Court-rebuffed attempt to seize steel companies during the Korean War, er um “police action”) while abrogating bondholder rights under duly-passed Bankruptcy laws and giving General Motors to the United Auto Workers as a tax payer-funded welfare program.

But also unlike the Truman steel-seizure case, President Obama’s “regulation” has the imprimatur of a 2010 Democratic Party-majority of the House of Representatives and super-majority of said party in the Senate, along with scores, if not hundreds of Supreme Court precedents to bolster the liberal “living constitution” definition of the word, up to and including prohibiting farmers from growing wheat to eat at home.

Those that think its a slam-dunk that the individual mandate will be struck down as a bridge too far and that its elimination would doom ObamaCare writ large must needs disabuse themselves that any court is going to cause neighbors to be loved as we would love ourselves.

No, the fact of the matter is that reversing the debt, regulation and other “caring”, yet failed, policies will have to be done by convincing majorities of voters that, incredibly, our poor economy has been adversely affected by Obama’s economic policies.

In the name of Jesus, let us accept that Barack Obama loves his neighbors as himself and give him the opportunity to apply that love as a private citizen, as the Scriptures direct. Then, maybe Christians and non-Christians alike will have a variety of health care insurance choices that suit their needs and a job with which to earn the money to pay the premiums.

Mike DeVine

Atlanta Law & Politics columnist –  Examiner.com

Editor - Hillbilly Politics

Co-Founder and Editor - Political Daily

“One man with courage makes a majority.” – Andrew Jackson

More DeVine Gamecock rooster crowings at Modern Conservative, Unified Patriots,  and Conservative Outlooks. All Charlotte Observer and Atlanta Journal-Constitution op-eds archived at Townhall.com.

Authored By GameCock gamecock's blog