Ask not what your country can do for you. Period.

Keith Knight, in (Th)ink, brings up what seems like an obvious contradiction. Or paradox. Or simple case of hypocrisy. Joel Pett elaborates on the theme, taking it out of the courtroom and into the streets, or, at least, onto the steps of the courthouse.

Most commentators seemed to have locked on to the broccoli thing, with NPR even doing a piece on how the remarks about mandated broccoli may boost sales of the vegetable. At least NPR did it as a brite among their more serious examinations of the actual legal arguments. For other outlets, it was the main dish.

There is this to be said about the broccoli argument: The GOP had previously advanced a plan in which people would be required to buy health insurance, but exactly what type and level was not specified. So the point of the broccoli mandate objection, it could be argued, is not to the idea of requiring everyone to buy food, but to saying precisely what kind of food they can purchase.

Leaving the mandate in place but requiring that it be more flexible as to the available options.

But I haven't heard anyone advance that argument and few people have paid a lot of attention to Obama's pointing out that the Republicans originally favored universal health care. Even "Romneycare" is seemingly being swept away as a youthful indiscretion.

Which leaves the entire topic of broccoli in the category of "stupid things we talk about while the nation burns," alongside teleprompters and Mitt Romney's dog.

What Keef and Pett touch upon is the more critical, overarching issue of control, and how the self-proclaimed champions of freedom change the slogan at will from "Four legs good, two legs bad" to "Four legs good, two legs better" and back again, while their compliant sheep bleat along with whatever is posted on the wall at the moment.

We love our nation except when it makes actual demands upon us. And we despise disloyalty.

I was struck by this the other day because New Hampshire, having elected a lot of Tea Party candidates in the 2010 elections, now finds its legislature swamped with nuisance bills, bits of ideological nonsense most of which will not stick but some of which might.

One of them proposes a law that requires children to stand during the Pledge of Allegiance.

It's been pointed out that the Supreme Court has safeguarded the right of people not to participate in the Pledge, but apparently sitting quietly will be outlawed. At which point only outlaws will sit quietly. Good children who hate freedom and America and God will have to stand quietly.

Granted, American flag fetishism is an odd thing to begin with. We recoil in horror at Muslims who find depictions of the Prophet offensive, and lump them all in with the extreme fundamentalists who become violent when the Prophet is not only depicted but openly mocked.

And yet that same "kill them all and let God sort them out" crowd has no problem with amending the Constitution to criminalize insults to the flag.

That's an old story: "How canst thou say to thy brother, 'Brother, let me pull out the mote that is in thine eye,' when thou thyself beholdest not the beam that is in thine own eye?" 

Still, you would think there would be a divide between those who most feverishly worship the national flag and those who most insistently proclaim the sovereignty of the states.

But how many of these little kids who are being required to stand each day and pledge allegiance to the flag, and to the republic for which it stands, will go without health coverage because the same people who demand a daily oath of fealty also insist that the federal government oversteps its bounds when it moves to give them something back?

And how many of those sheep, seamlessly shifting from one slogan to the other and back again, realize how much they depend on the programs that Napolean and the other pigs insist none of us want?

All of which reminds me of how Mr. Dooley explained the war in the Philippines a century ago:

 "Whin we plant what Hogan calls th' starry banner iv Freedom in th' Ph'lippeens," said Mr. Dooley, "an' give th' sacred blessin' iv liberty to the poor, down-trodden people iv thim unfortunate isles,—dam thim!—we'll larn thim a lesson."

"Sure," said Mr. Hennessy, sadly, "we have a thing or two to larn oursilves."

"But it isn't f'r thim to larn us," said Mr. Dooley. "'Tis not f'r thim wretched an' degraded crathers, without a mind or a shirt iv their own, f'r to give lessons in politeness an' liberty to a nation that mannyfacthers more dhressed beef than anny other imperyal nation in th' wurruld. We say to thim: 'Naygurs,' we say, 'poor, dissolute, uncovered wretches,' says we, 'whin th' crool hand iv Spain forged man'cles f'r ye'er limbs, as Hogan says, who was it crossed th' say an' sthruck off th' comealongs? We did,—by dad, we did. An' now, ye mis'rable, childish-minded apes, we propose f'r to larn ye th' uses iv liberty. In ivry city in this unfair land we will erect school-houses an' packin' houses an' houses iv correction; an' we'll larn ye our language, because 'tis aisier to larn ye ours than to larn oursilves yours. An' we'll give ye clothes, if ye pay f'r thim; an', if ye don't, ye can go without. An', whin ye're hungry, ye can go to th' morgue—we mane th' resth'rant—an' ate a good square meal iv ar-rmy beef. An' we'll sind th' gr-reat Gin'ral Eagan over f'r to larn ye etiquette, an' Andhrew Carnegie to larn ye pathriteism with blow-holes into it, an' Gin'ral Alger to larn ye to hould onto a job; an', whin ye've become edycated an' have all th' blessin's iv civilization that we don't want, that 'll count ye one. We can't give ye anny votes, because we haven't more thin enough to go round now; but we'll threat ye th' way a father shud threat his childher if we have to break ivry bone in ye'er bodies. So come to our ar-rms,' says we. 

 

Comments

[Dann]

Mike,

The elephant in the living room here is that the Constitution does not grant Congress the authority to create a national health care system. The national has a role in our nation. That role is smaller than the role it currently plays.

It is not judicial activism to expect the government to obey the Constitution we put in place to govern the role of government.

Other countries have national governments that legitimately possess that sort of authority. Our does not.

The way to change that is to amend the Constitution.

Not to ignore it.

Regards,
Dann

[Mike Peterson]

Well, Dann, if the court says so, you'll be right, and if the court disagrees, you'll be wrong. It's like the off-sides rule in soccer -- you can have your opinion and you can even base that opinion on some written rules, but "off sides" occurs when the referee blows his whistle.

I mean, when is the last time Congress really declared war? Where does Social Security come from? In some cases, conservatives want a "living document" and in some cases, that's what the liberals want.

Meanwhile, the founders were pretty smart to set up some umpires to keep the other two branches of government from running wild out there. If, y'know, that was their intention, for which we only have Chief Justice Marshall's word.

[Dann]

I wouldn't use "right" and "wrong" so much as "court approved".

There are a whole passel of things to which the Supremes have granted their imprimatur that can't be found in the Constitution or the amendments thereunto. The War on Drugs comes quickly to mind.

I'll readily agree that folks in almost every corner of the political pool play games with phrases like "living document" and "activist judges". The ultimate cruelty is the contortions our society continues to perform to obtain basic civil rights such as equal treatment for folks that aren't straight white males.

And for the record, Social Security comes from the same bull squeeze that PPACA came from. Someone "wants" and can't be bothered to follow the law to "get". IMNSHO.

Regards,
Dann

[Mary in Ohio]

Our school had the principal on the PA every morning reciting the Pledge, for which we were all(kids and teachers and staff) expected to stand. Except the Jehovah's Witnesses didn't have to.

In Ohio, we MUST have car insurance. I gather this is the case in many other states too. I have not seen massive protests against this. But I also know there are plenty of people driving around who do not have the mandated insurance. I don't know what the punsihment for them is. But I do know that an awful lot of people drive with suspended licenses, too.

[Wes Rand]

The argument the government is making is not that the government is creating a health care system but regulating the system that we are all currently using. Even if we don't have any health insurance. Some -- especially on the right -- think people without insurance should not be part of the health care system. But the current system covers everyone -- just not very well.

So should the government require purchasing insurance if you participate in the health care system?