Libertarian Times

On Up with Chris Hayes this morning, the debate regarding the court decision on ACA's mandate made it perfectly clear that in the political realm there are no legitimate opponents of the healthcare law. The GOP has proposed similar plans and the GOP nominee for president has implemented and governed over such a plan at the state level. Past supreme courts have made decisions blessing far more government power, and congresses, past and present, have made laws that give government wide-reaching powers.

Opponents to ACA, in order to be legitimate and believable, will have to confess they've had an epiphany and that their prior ideas regarding government's role is society have changed drasitically. It's really unsurprising that a Justice like Roberts would save a government power-grab like ACA. Those in the political realm have operated on a statist basisi for decades, a full century or more. In fact, the Founding was a battle between statists and anti-statists with the statists achieving the greatest victories with the clauses in the Constitution giving government the ability to justify whatever power it would eventually convince the public it has to possess.

The principles involved are lost to most in the political realm. It will be the practical failures of Obamacare which cause the public and the political realm to act in response. How we act going forward will determine how deeply we damage our economic structure. If the response to ACA failures and unintended consequences are simply more government solutions and rationalizations to grab more control, then the economy will be deeply damaged, perhaps beyond repair. If, however, there are changes of hearts and minds regarding statism and realization that we need a free market and limited government, then there's hope.