Roberts Rule of Odor

In Roe v. Wade, Justice Harry Blackman, writing for the majority, made the following arguments in favor of the Constitutionally protected nature of abortion:

"The Constitution does not explicitly mention any right of privacy. In a line of decisions, however, going back perhaps as far as Union Pacific R. Co. v. Botsford, 141 U. S. 250, 251 (1891), the Court has recognized that a right of personal privacy, or a guarantee of certain areas or zones of privacy, does exist under the Constitution. In varying contexts, the Court or individual Justices have, indeed, found at least the roots of that right in the First Amendment; in the Fourth and Fifth Amendments; in the penumbras of the Bill of Rights; in the Ninth Amendment, id., at 486 (Goldberg, J., concurring); or in the concept of liberty guaranteed by the first section of the Fourteenth Amendment. These decisions make it clear that only personal rights that can be deemed "fundamental" or "implicit in the concept of ordered liberty," are included in this guarantee of personal privacy."

---

It was this paragraph that established the "right to privacy" that is at the core of the "right" to an abortion in the United States. Blackman and the other activist judges conveniently ignored the rights of the unborn child to his or her ultimate privacy, allowing others to invade the unborn child's home without a search warrant and to take that child's life. Blackman believed the State has more interest in the mother and whatever notions come into her head than in the child. But this established a legal precedent, and it is now the law of the land that the citizenry have an inherent right to privacy that may not be easily taken from them by the Law. If there is a Constitutional protection of privacy, does it not apply more to the Federal government than the individual states? Are the states restricted from making laws that are invasive of privacy but the Federal government is exempt? What can be more private than a person's medical care? There are laws - plenty of them - guaranteeing the right to medical privacy. Doctors may not divulge someone's medical history without express permission. And yet, according to John Roberts, they can be compelled to purchase health insurance or pay the government for the privilege of being alive in America and not purchasing this insurance. An army of IRS agents stands at the ready to enforce this, violating the fundamental privacy of those who do not wish to report their health status to the central politburo. And don't think this will still guarantee a right to confidentiality between doctor and patient. It is a very small step between the right to force someone to buy insurance and to divulge information, a sort of "implied consent" reasoning that has been used to justify forced breathalyzer tests for drivers suspected of being intoxicated. It would be simple to argue that having health insurance - particularly the government run policies - grants implied consent. Let us return to the Blackman decision in Roe:

"We note that those federal and state courts that have recently considered abortion law challenges have reached the same conclusion. A majority, in addition to the District Court in the present case, have held state laws unconstitutional, at least in part, because of vagueness or because of overbreadth and abridgment of rights."

Now I ask you, if state abortion laws may be struck down because of vagueness or overbreadth and abridgement of rights, why in the name of all that is holy did not John Roberts strike down the amorphous blob that is the Affordable Healthcare Act? It is vague, with much of the law hinging on "the discretion of the Director (of Health and Human Services). It is overbroad, forcing absolutely everyone into insurance deemed acceptable by the government. It is unquestionably an abridgement of rights. The reality is that Justice Roberts has absolutely no justification for any of his arguments. He took it upon himself to find a way to alter the core principle in this law to declare it constitutional, changing it from an expression of the Commerce Clause (which was going too far even for the hard Left on the Court) to the power of taxation, yet he ignores the limitations imposed by the Constitution on direct taxation. He ignores a number of fundamental rights, too, such as the right to being secure in your papers and effects (fourth amendment), or the right to freedom of religion (Obamacare mandates fundamental violations of religious liberty such as forcing the Catholic Church to pay for contraception and abortion). And of course this violates amendments nine and ten:

Amendment IX The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people. Amendment X The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

Nowhere is forced health care a power enumerated by the Constitution. If there is a right to privacy, that right has been taken by John Roberts and the others who voted in the majority opinion. That the power to tax is being used as justification of this egregious usurpation of liberty is illustrative of the inherent weakness of the majority position in this ruling. Perhaps the most fundamental right, one so often overlooked by courts and politicians and even the People themselves, is the right to be left alone. America is supposed to be a place where a person can opt out of the system if he or she wishes. It is supposed to be a place where a person can hole up on his own property and not be compelled to interact with his fellows. The rights enjoyed by Americans stem from this fundamental assumption, that rights are not restrictions on people, nor do they offer any compulsion on anyone to be exercised, but are restrictions on government, on society. Harry Blackman got it wrong when he argued the right to privacy means the right to kill your unborn child, because that child has the same rights to be left alone. He or she is minding his or her own business, and someone comes along with a knife or vacuum hose and forcibly evicts the child. (You cannot evict a deadbeat tenant from an apartment without a legal writ, but you can an unborn child). The child's rights were violated, including the right to privacy held by said child. And, yes, the mother's rights are superseded here because it was her decision, her irresponsibility, that led to the unborn child taking up tenancy in her womb. In this instance she is indeed obligated, just as a guy who crashes his car into a neighbors house is obligated to make amends. But if the right to privacy is applicable in abortion, how much more is it applicable here? Do we not have the right to live in America and not be hounded by an overbearing government that tells us we must purchase approved health insurance? Where does it stop? Health insurance today, energy taxes tomorrow, carbon taxes for our exhalations the day after, until we are all wrapped like moths in our collective cocoons, intimately bound with each-other and the State, which will not allow us to simply be left alone in any capacity. Benito Mussolini coined a term for that, it was TOTALITARIANISM. He did not mean that as a pejorative, but rather he meant a society in which we were all bound intimately together by the State. That is where this will lead. And let us not forget Amendment 8:

Section 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

If I have to pay the government for not buying something, is this not a form of involuntary servitude? If I pay for the insurance, for that matter, against my will is it not likewise? It is rather like being forced to buy tires for a car I don't own. There used to be a word for this - racketeering. Criminals would sell you something - usually an insurance policy to protect you from them - and you purchased it or else. This is an enormous act of racketeering engineered by the full force of the United States government. History will judge the Roberts rule of odor harshly, seeing it for the smelly dead fish that it is. If John Roberts did in fact succumb to some pressure he will be judged a coward, if to some inducement by the Obama Administration he will be known as a man of low character. If the latter, and it can be proven, he should be impeached and removed from the Court. Law professor John Eastman thinks this is an atrocious decision and Roberts should resign. I'm inclined to agree with him.