The Supreme Court has mostly upheld the healthcare law, also known as Obamacare.  The major portion that everyone was paying attention to was the individual mandate that would force individuals to buy health insurance or else pay a penalty (a tax).

The most surprising thing is that the chief justice, John Roberts, actually sided with the “left judges” in upholding most of the law.  This is just another stain against the Bush presidency.  There are two things that conservatives think they can brag about when it comes to Bush.  They brag about the so-called Bush tax cuts, which are set to expire again.  And they brag about getting conservatives on the bench.  Well, so much for that one now.

I actually don’t think this is necessarily the worst outcome.  As I have written before, if the court had struck down the individual mandate and upheld everything else, it may have actually led us down an even quicker path to fully socialized healthcare.

Roberts justified his decision by saying that the individual mandate is a tax (which Obama claimed wasn’t a tax when he was promoting it).  Roberts basically said that since the Congress has the power to tax, then the individual mandate is constitutional since it can be considered a tax.

In other words, the federal government can do whatever it wants now.  I guess if Obama wants to make sure that the NDAA is upheld, he should just add a small tax to it.  That way Americans can directly pay for their own kidnapping and it will be constitutional.  If the government wants to force you to exercise, or eat vegetables, or have kids, then it can just tax you for it and then it will be all legal in the eyes of Roberts and the Supreme Court.

The 10th Amendment has been close to dead for many decades.  I think it is officially dead now.

There is one major big picture thing here that I have not heard mentioned by the so-called mainstream media.  How is it that the fate of over 300 million people lies in the hands of just 9 people?  Actually, this whole decision really came down to just one person.  So because Roberts thought a certain way, or maybe was convinced by a relative, or maybe was drinking a few shots of tequila when he was writing his opinion, there are now over 300 million people subject to this ruling.

That just shows that the whole system is a complete mess.  The federal government (or maybe national government would be a more appropriate term) has virtually no limits except as to not completely set off irate Americans.  The government can do virtually anything now, unless the American people decide to not take it anymore.

Americans must start paying attention and stop relying on government.  In fact, they must realize that their lives would be much better off with a drastically smaller government.  It isn’t good enough just to complain about the way things are run.  They must withdraw their consent.  They must realize that government should not be involved in healthcare or education or agriculture or housing or any of the other thousands of things it messes up.

There will probably be some new enthusiasm for state nullification, now realizing that it is foolish to rely on the Supreme Court, a branch of the federal government, to reduce the power of the federal government.

Of course, Romney, practically the founder of Obamacare in Massachusetts, is not going to save us.  The Republican politicians in DC will not save us either.  Even if they could repeal Obamacare, they would come up with something just as bad, just as Bush passed his Medicare prescription drug program.

This whole thing is far from over.  I think a combination of a new spirit of liberty in the American people and also advancing technology, can help to overcome this mess.  As long as there are free minds speaking in favor of the libertarian position, then there is hope.